The idea of cloud computing is certainly compelling. With on-demand IT assets, enterprises can adjust more quickly to shifts in demand for applications, computing infrastructure and storage. Variable costs, as opposed to big capital outlays, sit well with IT finance folks, too. But there are obvious hurdles to adoption, including performance.

10 cloud computing companies to watch

Riverbed Technology this week disclosed its plans to help companies accelerate access to applications and storage resources that are located in a cloud computing environment and delivered to private data centers, distributed branch offices and mobile end users.

Due next year from the vendor is a software version of its flagship Steelhead WAN optimization controller. Dubbed “virtual Steelhead for the cloud,” this software appliance can run on servers located at a public cloud computing facility – which is critical since installing a traditional hardware appliance isn’t an option in most public cloud environments.

In addition, Riverbed is readying new technology for the acceleration of cloud storage.

While many organizations are in the early stages of cloud computing adoption, Riverbed’s intent is to keep advancing its optimization wares so that as enterprises get deeper into the cloud, they’ll have WAN acceleration options to consider.

For instance Lantmannen, a giant agricultural cooperative in the Nordic region, uses Riverbed’s Steelhead appliances to speed performance over its private cloud infrastructure. The company is consolidating thousands of servers from hundreds of branch offices into two virtualized data centers, and it wants to be able to ensure acceptable application performance for its distributed user base.

Today Lantmannen is providing 5,000 applications as cloud services, available to more than 300 sites in 20 countries, according to Dennis Jansson, Lantmannen's chief security officer.

With the Riverbed gear deployed across 300 sites, Lantmannen expects to save $6.5 million in IT costs annually, while improving overall IT infrastructure performance. “Over a five-year period we’re well on track to make a $60 million savings,” said Jansson, who spoke Tuesday at a cloud launch event Riverbed hosted in New York City.

Lantmannen also aims to explore public cloud computing services, Jansson said. “We want to make sure that this is an agile cloud that we can move from being private and in house to being a public cloud and utilizing the services from grid companies such as Amazon, Orange, BT, IBM and so on.”

That’s just the sort of path Riverbed wants to take, too.

“As customers move from their private cloud environments into either public environments or hybrid public/private environments, we want our technology to move with them,” says Eric Wolford, senior vice president of marketing and business development at Riverbed. “Virtual Steelhead for the cloud enables us to move our acceleration technology into that cloud environment.”

is associate news editor at Network World.

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