Riverbed Technology is an American
information technology
Information technology (IT) is the use of computers to create, process, store, retrieve, and exchange all kinds of data . and information. IT forms part of information and communications technology (ICT). An information technology system (I ...
company. Its products consist of software and hardware focused on Unified Observability, Network Visibility, End User Experience Management,
network performance monitoring,
application performance management
In the fields of information technology and systems management, application performance management (APM) is the monitoring and management of the performance and availability of software applications. APM strives to detect and diagnose complex appl ...
, and
wide area network
A wide area network (WAN) is a telecommunications network that extends over a large geographic area. Wide area networks are often established with leased telecommunication circuits.
Businesses, as well as schools and government entities, us ...
s (WANs), including
SD-WAN
A software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) is a wide area network that uses software-defined network technology, such as communicating over the Internet using overlay tunnels which are encrypted when destined for internal organization location ...
and
WAN optimization
WAN optimization is a collection of techniques for improving data transfer across wide area networks (WANs). In 2008, the WAN optimization market was estimated to be $1 billion, and was to grow to $4.4 billion by 2014 according to Gartner, a tech ...
.
Riverbed has its headquarters in
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
. Founded in 2002, the company was recapitalized in Dec 2021 and its majority shareholder is Apollo Global Management.
History
Jerry Kennelly, former CEO, and Steve McCanne, former CTO, founded a technology company in May, 2002, originally named NBT (Next Big Thing) Technology.
The company became Riverbed Technology in 2003. Kennelly and McCanne led internal development of the first SteelHead appliances, the 500, 1000, 2000, and 5000 models, and the first SteelHead shipped in April 2004 to
Environment Canada
Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC; french: Environnement et Changement climatique Canada),Environment and Climate Change Canada is the applied title under the Federal Identity Program; the legal title is Department of the Environment ( ...
.
Riverbed stock began trading on NASDAQ September 21, 2006.
Riverbed opened up an off-site location at
Research Park, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Research Park at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is a research park located in the southwest part of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus in Champaign, Illinois. Research Park is a technology hub for startup companies an ...
before 2009.
In February 2014, the US hedge fund
Elliott Management Corporation
Elliott Investment Management is an American investment management firm. It is also one of the largest activist funds in the world.
It is the management affiliate of American hedge funds Elliott Associates L.P. and Elliott International Limit ...
made a $3.36 billion offer to acquire Riverbed (after a bid of $3.08 was rejected).
In October 2014
NetApp
NetApp, Inc. is an American hybrid cloud data services and data management company headquartered in San Jose, California. It has ranked in the Fortune 500 from 2012–2021. Founded in 1992 with an IPO in 1995, NetApp offers cloud data services ...
acquired Riverbed's SteelStore line of
data backup
In information technology, a backup, or data backup is a copy of computer data taken and stored elsewhere so that it may be used to restore the original after a data loss event. The verb form, referring to the process of doing so, is "back up", ...
and protection products,
which NetApp later renamed as "AltaVault".
[
]
On December 15, 2014, Riverbed announced it would be acquired by
private equity investment
In the field of finance, the term private equity (PE) refers to investment funds, usually limited partnerships (LP), which buy and restructure financially weak companies that produce goods and provide services. A private-equity fund is both a typ ...
firm
Thoma Bravo
Thoma Bravo, LP, is an American private equity and growth capital firm with offices in San Francisco, Chicago and Miami. It is known for being particularly active in acquiring software companies and has over $114 billion in assets under manage ...
, LLC and Teachers’ Private Capital, the private investor department of
Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan
The Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan Board (french: Régime de retraite des enseignantes et des enseignants de l'Ontario) is an independent organization responsible for administering defined-benefit pensions for school teachers of the Canadian p ...
. The value was estimated at approximately $3.6 billion,
and closed in April 2015.
On April 3, 2018, Riverbed announced the retirement of co-founder and CEO Jerry M. Kennelly and appointment of Paul Mountford as CEO.
On June 12, 2019 Riverbed announced it would resell Versa Networks SD-WAN products.
On August 8, 2019 Xirrus was sold to
Cambium Networks
Cambium Networks is a wireless infrastructure provider that offers fixed wireless and Wi-Fi to broadband service providers and enterprises to provide Internet access. An American telecommunications infrastructure company, it provides wireless tec ...
.
On October 22, 2019 Rich McBee became president and CEO.
On June 9, 2021 Dan Smoot became president and CEO.
On December 7, 2021, Riverbed completed recapitalization, with
Apollo Global Management
Apollo Global Management, Inc. is an American global private-equity firm. It provides investment management and invests in credit, private equity, and real assets. As of March 31, 2022, the company had $512 billion of assets under management, ...
as majority shareholder.
Acquisitions
On February 20, 2009, Riverbed completed the acquisition of Mazu Networks. The Mazu products, which were initially renamed Cascade (and in 2014 became part of Riverbed SteelCentral), analyze network traffic to provide information about the interactions of and dependencies between users, applications and systems.
On October 21, 2010, Riverbed acquired CACE Technologies, and folded its Shark network analysis product and Pilot interface product into the Riverbed Cascade product suite. CACE was also the corporate sponsor of the
open source
Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...
network protocol
A communication protocol is a system of rules that allows two or more entities of a communications system to transmit information via any kind of variation of a physical quantity. The protocol defines the rules, syntax, semantics and synchroniza ...
analyzer product
Wireshark
Wireshark is a free and open-source packet analyzer. It is used for network troubleshooting, analysis, software and communications protocol development, and education. Originally named Ethereal, the project was renamed Wireshark in May 2006 d ...
. Riverbed assumed corporate sponsorship.
In November 2010, Riverbed acquired Global Protocols, LLC, a provider of
satellite
A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioisotope ...
optimization to the defense marketplace. Its SkipWare product, a