Riverbed RiOS 3.0 Named Best WAN Optimization Solution

Business Wire, Sept 25, 2006

Byte and Switch Selects Riverbed as Winner for New WDS Release

SAN FRANCISCO -- Riverbed Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq:RVBD) today announced that Light Reading's Byte and Switch (http://www.byteandswitch.com), the premier online storage networking publication, named Riverbed's recently announced Riverbed Optimization System (RiOS[TM]) 3.0 as the best WAN Optimization solution in its first annual Big Bytes Awards competition.

"The Big Bytes honor innovation, creativity, and value in storage technology," said Terry Sweeney, Editor in Chief of Byte and Switch.

About RiOS 3.0

RiOS is the software platform that powers Riverbed's award-winning line of Steelhead[R] wide-area data services (WDS) appliances. Using the power of Steelhead appliances running RiOS, organizations of all sizes all over the world have been able to dramatically simplify, accelerate and consolidate their IT infrastructure. RiOS 3.0 is Riverbed's latest software release, and extends Riverbed's leadership in WDS by increasing performance and scalability, as well as broadening the types of traffic that Steelhead appliances can optimize.

While some other approaches solve one or two aspects of application acceleration such as packet compression, quality of service (QoS) or wide-area file services (WAFS), Riverbed[R] has consistently distinguished itself by attacking the three root causes of poor wide-area application performance simultaneously:

* Insufficient WAN bandwidth

* Inefficient transport protocols

* Inefficient application protocols

With RiOS, key enterprise applications are accelerated to LAN-like performance across the WAN. Riverbed customers - ranging from regional organizations with two offices to global enterprises with thousands of branch offices and hundreds of thousands of employees - can all benefit from the greater functionality and higher performance delivered by RiOS 3.0. New optimizations in RiOS 3.0 include Network File System (NFS) application streamlining, which accelerates NFS for Linux/Unix users without the need for caching or explicit proxies. The performance of Unix-based applications such as ClearCase, Unigraphics, Computer-Aided Three-Dimensional Interactive Application (CATIA), and remote Home Directory access can increase by up to 55 times. RiOS 3.0 also includes new optimizations for the Common Internet File System (CIFS) protocol that improve the performance of collaborative applications such as Visio and SolidWorks by up to 20 times.

RiOS 3.0 also supports QoS enforcement for all traffic types, including TCP, VoIP, video, and any other forms of UDP. Support for QoS allows organizations to more closely manage their real-time applications, including voice and video traffic. Riverbed's QoS enforcement allows administrators to set policies based on both latency and bandwidth; in this way, they can prioritize latency-sensitive traffic such as voice and video without the expense of over-allocating bandwidth.

About Riverbed

Riverbed Technology is the performance leader in wide-area data services (WDS) solutions for companies worldwide. By enabling application performance over the wide area network (WAN) that is orders of magnitude faster than what users experience today, Riverbed is changing the way people work, and enabling a distributed workforce that can collaborate as if they were local. Additional information about Riverbed (Nasdaq:RVBD) is available at www.riverbed.com.

Forward Looking Statements: This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, as well as assumptions that, if they do not fully materialize or prove incorrect, could cause our results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements include statements relating to Riverbed's ability to meet the needs of distributed organizations and statements relating to Riverbed's ability to occupy the leadership position in WDS. The risks and uncertainties that could cause our results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements include trends and challenges in our business and the markets in which we operate; our ability to anticipate market needs or develop new or enhanced products to meet those needs; the adoption rate of our products; our ability to scale our distribution channel; our ability to compete in our industry; innovation by our competitors; general political, economic and market conditions and events, including war or acts of terrorism; and other risks and uncertainties described more fully in our documents filed with or furnished to the Securities and Exchange Commission. All forward-looking statements in this press release are based on information available to us as of the date hereof, and we assume no obligation to update these forward-looking statements.

Riverbed Technology, Riverbed, Steelhead, RiOS, Interceptor and the Riverbed logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Riverbed Technology, Inc. All other trademarks used or mentioned herein belong to their respective owners.