Riverbed Hits Ball out of the Park
with Aternity Acquisition
Abstract
On July 28, 2016, Riverbed Technology, headquartered in San Francisco,
announced that it had entered into a definitive agreement to acquire
Aternity. Aternity, based in Westborough, Mass., is one of the few User
Experience Management (UEM)1 vendors focusing on providing full
visibility to the user endpoint. By integrating the Aternity technology
with its existing SteelCentral Performance Management platform,
Riverbed can offer one of the most complete Application Performance
Management (APM) solutions in the industry.
The acquisition of the privately owned company is expected to close in
August 2016, and financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
By integrating the Aternity
technology with its existing
SteelCentral Performance
Management platform,
Riverbed can offer one of the
most complete Application
Performance Management
(APM) solutions in the industry.
This ENTERPRISE MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATES® (EMA™) Impact Brief provides additional
details on the acquisition, the two companies involved, and the differentiators the combination of the
two product lines adds to the Riverbed value proposition.
Background and Context
Riverbed Technology has been building APM functionality over its network-facing roots since 2012,
when the company acquired OPNET Technologies, Inc., a leading provider of application and network
performance management solutions. In the years since the OPNET acquisition, Riverbed has focused
heavily on seamlessly integrating data gathering, workflow, correlation, and reporting functions across
the product line. Riverbed’s SteelCentral platform is now one of the most complete and well-integrated
Network Performance Management (NPM)/APM solutions in the marketplace (see Figure 1).
SteelCentral provides unified visibility across network devices and traffic, SteelHead Wide-Area Network
(WAN) appliances, and the numerous hardware and software elements comprising the application
ecosystem. The addition of Aternity to the product line, when integrated with the SteelCentral Platform,
will extend application visibility from the network, through the data center, and all the way to the actual
user endpoint.
Due to the inherent ability of the Aternity platform to see “beyond” endpoint device health/performance
metrics to the performance of applications as they render on the screens of user devices, the combined
solution will also be particularly well positioned to monitor performance and availability of applications
hosted on Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and/or virtual infrastructure.
1
Also known as “end-user experience management” (EUEM or EUE) solutions
IMPACT BRIEF | 1
©2016 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved. | www.enterprisemanagement.com
Figure 1. SteelCentral platform prior to Aternity acquisition
Aternity
Aternity, formerly known as Gelion Networks, was founded in 2004. One of the few vendors focusing on
gathering in-depth, detailed information directly from the user endpoint, Aternity occupies a distinctive
position in the marketplace. Via agents installed on physical or virtual user desktops (or by instrumenting
mobile apps with the mobile SDK or wrapper), Aternity monitors every service and action that occurs
on the physical, virtual, or mobile device. It also collects in-depth device-centric metrics such as disk and
CPU usage, performance of executing services, and network traffic in and out of the device (see Figure 2).
Aternity’s visibility also extends beyond device health and performance metrics into actual performance,
as seen by the end user, of all applications running on the device. By correlating device health and
performance with application performance and user behavior (as well as the ability to monitor userdefined interactions with applications in the context of a business workflow), Aternity addresses a broad
set of use cases. Examples include proactive monitoring and troubleshooting, change management, and
service level management, all of which have become important priorities for enterprise lines of business
and application owners.
Figure 2. Aternity platform and its capabilities
IMPACT BRIEF | 2
©2016 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved. | www.enterprisemanagement.com
Essential Takeaways and Key Differentiators
The combination of the two solutions creates a product with the following key differentiators that set the
platform apart from competing APM solutions:
• Telemetry encompassing end-user devices and actions, as well as data center and cloud execution
– End-to-end visibility becomes increasingly essential as digital services become increasingly critical
to revenue generation. Comprehensive user-focused monitoring and analytics with broad insights
into applications, networks, and infrastructure are indispensable for troubleshooting and root-cause
analysis of complex services.
• Support for virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) and server virtualization – Endpoint monitoring
delivers deep visibility into performance of desktop virtualization technologies and to protocols such
as Citrix Independent Computing Architecture (ICA), both of which Aternity supports.
• Improved support for mobile technologies and the industries that depend on them – Aternity
has focused heavily on supporting mobile devices as well as desktops. This is particularly important
in industries such as healthcare, where the workforce is far more mobile than the typical knowledge
worker and where performance problems can be life threatening to critically ill patients.
• SaaS and PaaS support – Aternity’s user-focused performance perspective adds in-depth insight
into the performance of SaaS and other public cloud services, as seen by the end user.
• Supplements Riverbed’s SteelHead application response telemetry – Aternity makes additional
UEM data available to Riverbed’s SteelHead application optimization solution.
• Lightweight UEM alternative – The Aternity platform offers telemetry integration for Riverbed
SteelCentral customers, as well as a stand-alone UEM option for companies that are not currently
Riverbed customers.
• Full-spectrum APM/UEM – The combination of SteelCentral and Aternity, once integrations are
complete, will essentially “close the loop” on APM, delivering a consolidated 360-degree view of
both front- and back-end elements of application execution.
Figure 3. Aternity platform adds telemetry from end-user devices to SteelCentral’s metrics-capture capabilities.
IMPACT BRIEF | 3
©2016 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved. | www.enterprisemanagement.com
EMA Perspective
Application performance and availability are essential to employee productivity and to the delivery
of high-quality digital services. However, the question of what actually comprises an “application” or
“transaction” is one for which many IT organizations still have no good answer. APM solutions capable of
application/transaction discovery and topology modeling can go a long way toward supporting problem
detection, troubleshooting, and root-cause analysis. However, very few companies, as yet, have in-depth
visibility into both the execution ecosystem and the endpoint.
While UEM solutions can complete the end-to-end picture, such solutions are seldom natively integrated
with traditional APM. There is also a significant amount of confusion surrounding such solutions, based
on the broad range of products and technologies fitting within this category, which include the following:
• RUM solutions that focus on the user experience from the perspective of the network
• Synthetic testing solutions that execute “robot” transactions at specified intervals
• Browser injection, which provides limited visibility to the endpoint and is often also grouped within
the UEM category
• UEM instrumented at the endpoint
UEM solutions offering comprehensive endpoint visibility, such as that offered by Aternity, are still
rare in the industry; most that do exist are part of either suite solutions such as IBM Tivoli or endpoint
security solutions such as those offered by Symantec.
Aternity’s endpoint focus is not only application and user-centric, it is also among the most comprehensive
in the industry. However, while Aternity has continued to enhance and maximize its value proposition
over time by adding support for mobile technologies, virtualization,
and workplace productivity, its end-to-end visibility has always been
limited by a lack of correlated insight into back- end systems. Riverbed’s
Riverbed has snapped up
SteelCentral provides this missing link, making the combination of the
one of the few existing
two product lines mutually complementary and positioning Riverbed as
products providing direct
a powerful competitor in the existing APM marketplace.
The success of the combined product line will depend on two key factors.
One is the effectiveness of ongoing work on integrating correlation,
analytics, and reporting functions between the two solutions. Another is
filling a gap that currently exists in the Riverbed portfolio: a competitive
answer to the industry’s numerous synthetic technology platforms.
Nonetheless, with this acquisition, Riverbed has snapped up one of the
few existing products providing direct instrumentation of desktop and
mobile devices. This was a prescient and important acquisition; together,
the two product lines provide a powerful answer to APM and UEM,
both as an integrated platform and as stand-alone solutions.
About EMA
instrumentation of desktop
and mobile devices. This was
a prescient and important
acquisition; together, the
two product lines provide
a powerful answer to
APM and UEM, both as an
integrated platform and as
stand-alone solutions.
Founded in 1996, Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) is a leading industry analyst firm that provides deep insight across the full spectrum
of IT and data management technologies. EMA analysts leverage a unique combination of practical experience, insight into industry best practices,
and in-depth knowledge of current and planned vendor solutions to help EMA’s clients achieve their goals. Learn more about EMA research,
analysis, and consulting services for enterprise line of business users, IT professionals and IT vendors at www.enterprisemanagement.com or
blogs.enterprisemanagement.com. You can also follow EMA on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. 3425.080316
IMPACT BRIEF | 4
©2016 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved. | www.enterprisemanagement.com