Riverbed Survey Finds 89% of Federal Leaders are Worried About Data Security Across Remote Offices

PRESS RELEASE

San Francisco—November 04, 2015— Riverbed Technology, the leader in application performance infrastructure, today announced the results of a survey of federal leaders who overwhelmingly cited security as the most problematic and expensive aspect of managing remote and branch office (ROBO) IT. Nearly 9 in 10 respondents (89%) reported being concerned about their ability to secure sensitive information within branch office locations, with 3 in 10 reporting a security breach at a branch office within the past 12 months.

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“These survey results confirmed the fear we hear from our federal agency customers every day – that branch offices are simply not equipped to protect sensitive government data in today’s cyber security environment,” said Davis Johnson, Vice President of Public Sector, Riverbed Technology. “That’s why Riverbed is focused on providing solutions that centralize data and applications in the data center and securely deliver them to remote offices, while improving performance and lowering costs.”

In the survey of federal IT leaders conducted by i360Gov, 67% of respondents said security was their top branch office IT concern, and 31% said their agency had experienced an IT security breach at a remote office in the past 12 months. Agency leaders indicated a preference for a more centralized IT strategy, with 69% saying data is more secure within the data center, and 43% saying their agency lacked the necessary personnel for successful IT management at branch offices.

In addition to IT security, ROBO IT performance is a top concern as well, with 44% of respondents reporting an outage or issue over the past year. More than half of respondents cited the network as the primary cause of performance issues, which directly impacts branch office productivity, efficiency and Continuity of Operations Planning (COOP) effectiveness. These challenges also have a negative impact on agency budgets; with 91% of federal technology leaders reporting branch office IT costs would increase or stay steady over the next year.

“Traditionally, federal branch offices and remote sites have maintained IT infrastructures on-site to ensure high levels of performance, but this model is no longer necessary in today’s era of converged infrastructure solutions,” said Johnson. “Not only is old-school branch IT management incredibly expensive, it forces IT staff to spend their time troubleshooting hardware issues rather than focusing on the strategic mission. Riverbed’s new-school approach of zero branch IT provides the right balance of security, performance and cost.”

The survey results come at a time when securing content is under more scrutiny than ever for the federal government due to recent high-profile breaches. The number of information security breaches across the federal government has exploded at an exponential rate in the past decade, as the U.S. Government Accountability Office found the number of incidents grew an astounding 1,120% since 2006 – increasing from 5,503 total incidents in 2006 to 67,168 in 2014.

To view the findings of the survey, please visit, http://www.riverbed.com/solutions/solutions-by-industry/government.html 

Riverbed offers a solution for agencies with Riverbed® SteelFusion™.  SteelFusion enables agencies to deploy a single hyper-converged solution to centralize all branch office data and applications in the data center as well as leverage the cloud for continuity, resulting in dramatic increases in data security, business continuity and agility, operational efficiency and application performance.

SteelFusion is the first and only hyper-converged infrastructure solution for the branch of the future. SteelFusion enables zero IT at the branch by virtualizing and consolidating 100 percent of data and servers from remote sites into data centers, centralizing data security and IT management without losing the benefits of running branch services locally. SteelFusion meets the IT challenges of the government’s sprawling environments by enabling agencies to remove all servers, storage, and backup from remote sites; enabling instant provisioning and recovery; providing complete security and visibility; and ensuring that applications simply work.

Riverbed Application Performance Platform™

Riverbed works with leading federal agencies to deliver end-to-end visibility, optimization, and control for superior application performance.  Riverbed customers include 100% of all cabinet level agencies and all three branches of the military.  

The Riverbed Application Performance Platform includes Riverbed SteelCentral™, Riverbed SteelHead™, and Riverbed SteelFusion™, plus open APIs and developer tools, called SteelScript™, to facilitate platform programmability, interoperability, and intelligence. Organizations running on the Riverbed Application Performance Platform ensure applications perform as expected, data is always available when needed, and performance issues are diagnosed and cured before end users even notice. 

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About Riverbed

Riverbed, at more than $1 billion in annual revenue, is the leader in Application Performance Infrastructure, delivering the most complete platform for the hybrid enterprise to ensure applications perform as expected, data is always available when needed, and performance issues can be proactively detected and resolved before impacting business performance. Riverbed enables hybrid enterprises to transform application performance into a competitive advantage by maximizing employee productivity and leveraging IT to create new forms of operational agility. Riverbed's 27,000+ customers include 97% of the Fortune 100 and 98% of the Forbes Global 100. Learn more at www.riverbed.com.

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