Riverbed this week unveiled updates to its AIOps and observability platform that the company says will transform how IT organizations manage complex distributed infrastructure and data more efficiently and tame the proliferation of monitoring tools.
Expanded AI capabilities are aimed at making it easier to manage AIOps and enabling IT organizations to transition from reactive to predictive IT operations. Riverbed IQ Assist, for instance, uses generative AI to perform root-cause analysis and suggest remediations with context-driven insights. It also integrates with IT service management platforms such as ServiceNow to speed resolution.
“We recently started using Riverbed’s generative AI solution IQ Assist at the service desk level for troubleshooting, and it’s a great tool to have, said Zeno Tadjine, ICT support officer at the Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust, in a statement. “IQ Assist serves up insights and recommendations that enable us to resolve issues faster, optimize more workflows and automate AI remediations.” The UK hospital is leveraging AIOps to improve IT service desk efficiency and clinician productivity, “which results in additional time and resources we can allocate towards delivering even better patient care. Riverbed’s IQ Assist will definitely help us enhance user satisfaction,” Tadjine stated.
Other updates with this release include Riverbed Predictive AI, which the company says collects real-time and historical telemetry data to detect performance problems before they become incidents. For instance, it can detect resource strain and flag latency spikes to act as an early warning system and prevent disruptions in digital experiences. The Riverbed Data Store powers Riverbed Agentic AI and lets teams drag and drop intelligent, task-specific AI agents into workflows they control, combining human oversight with machine efficiencies.
“We’re solving real customer challenges. While everyone talks about AI, we’re delivering a platform that actually provides value,” says Phil Lenton, head of product for AIOps and SaaS at Riverbed. “Our approach leaves over 99% of data where it’s collected, uses specialized agents, and gives customers precise insights without the massive data migration costs. This is just another AI solution—it’s a fundamental rethinking of how enterprises can manage their increasingly complex infrastructure.”
Riverbed also introduced three new observability collection modules: Unified Communications (UC) Module, NPM+ Packet Capture Module, and Aternity for Intel Thunderbolt and Wi-Fi. The company also recently released Riverbed Smart OTel, which uses the Riverbed Data Store platform-wide collection to surface the precise data required. The company says its approach to data collection leaves more then 99% of data where it was originally collected, does not require moving massive amounts of data to a central repository, and builds a matrix map of how to access the data without physically relocating it.
Shamus McGillicuddy, research director for the network management practice at Enterprise Management Associates (EMA), explains Riverbed’s Data Store approach as an enabling technology to Riverbed’s overall observability platform that references multiple siloed databases and uses AI to intelligently gather only the data that is relevant to a given operation. “For instance, if someone wants to troubleshoot a problem, Data Store will find all data relevant to that problem across multiple tools. This is a nimble approach to mining data across silos without having to build a missive data lake,” McGillicuddy says.
Riverbed’s Lenton says this approach to data is a technological innovation that leaves a “garbage truck” or data where it is and instead creates a precise, intelligent method of data access and analysis.
“The reality is that while it would be ideal for all data to be located in one location, today’s highly distributed IT environments and large volumes of data being generated make that challenging,” says Bob Laliberte, principal analyst, networking and observability at theCUBE Research. “So, by leveraging a distributed data store organizations can support larger environments and retain data for longer periods of time. Riverbed has executed really well, ensuring the data store is tightly integrated with the platform. It’s all about getting the right data at the right time.”
The platform approach will help customers tame the proliferation of IT monitoring and management tools across their environments, Riverbed asserts. EMA data supports the premise that IT leaders want to reduce the number of tools they use and maintain, but at the same time, research also suggests IT continues to want to take advantage of best-of-breed options.
“I surveyed 351 IT decision-makers earlier this year for a research report on Network Observability: 83% said they had multiple network observability tools, and 80% of multi-tool respondents said that tool consolidation is a high priority. However, consolidation is hard. Many NetOps pros tell me they want best-of-breed tools for SNMP monitoring, flow monitoring, packet monitoring, synthetic network monitoring, etc.,” EMA’s McGillicuddy says. “Riverbed is offering the best of both worlds. Its platform approach is actually a suite of individual products that are integrated through enabling technology like Data Store and Riverbed IQ. Riverbed essentially brings the platform to you, regardless of what best-of-breed tools you are hanging onto.”
Most of the new features and updates are available to Riverbed customers now. Agentic AI will be generally available in Q2 of this year, and NPM+ Packet Capture will be available in Q3 2025.
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Source:: Network World