News

posted on 12 March 2008 10:20

WAN acceleration vendor Riverbed has decided to not support its products' use with the latest version of AutoCAD because its acceleration techniques don't work. Competitor Silver Peak thinks this is wrong.

Riverbed's RIOS is application-aware and looks inside application files to optimise their transmission by, for example, removing redundant parts of the file.

It has not been tested with the latest version of AutoCAD which has a new file format. AutoCAD users are crying fould on AutoCAD blogs and threatening to withhold Riverbed purchases.

Rick Tinsley, Silver Peak's president and CEO, said: "Riverbed made its name selling into design firms – where AutoCAD is HUGE. Now, they are abandoning these customers because their solution doesn’t work with the latest version of Autocad. Their position is: “Autodesk should have tested with us before redoing their file format”. This position is ridiculous. Is every application vendor supposed to consult with Riverbed?” 

Tinsley asserted: "This highlights what Silver Peak has been saying for a long time: a network approach to WAN optimisation is better than an application approach. The use of Silver Peak won’t break applications." 

He added: "What application will break next when you use Riverbed?"

Clearly Silver Peak carries out its file-to-be-transmitted deduplication differently and, in this instance, better.

[Phil Robson, news editor.]