Riverbed, the application performance company, today opened its new global research and development (R&D) centre in Bengaluru with an investment of about $100 million.
The newly-opened R&D centre will focus on technologies such as software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) which refers to deploying an enterprise wide area network by using software-defined networking (SDN) to determine the most effective way to route traffic to remote locations.
At a time when the industry is talking about 'software-defined everything', SD-WAN has the potential to offer significant cost savings while improving the overall connectivity.
The new centre will be Riverbed's largest R&D facility outside of its headquarters in the US. The centre will focus on "solving some of the toughest challenges businesses face in the digital era," the company said.
As part of the company's broader strategy to evolve its products to address the changing networking demands, Riverbed has increased its investment in R&D as a percentage of its overall revenue. Currently, Riverbed spends about 15 per cent of its revenue in engineering and R&D.
Jerry M. Kennelly, chairman and CEO of Riverbed said that India is central to their global business because of the availability of world class talent, advanced infrastructure and proximity to other fast-growing emerging markets. "The decision to open the new facility in Bengaluru reinforces India as a global R&D hub for Riverbed - one that will play a vital role in the future of the company."
Riverbed opened its first R&D facility in India in 2014 with an aim to integrate the new team into its mainstream product innovation pipeline. Since then, the team has played a critical role in advancing development of the company's flagship product - Riverbed SteelHead - specifically in the areas of mobile, SaaS and cloud. The expansion of the R&D centre in Bengaluru is expected to further enhance the India team's contribution to the company's global operations.
BW Reporters
Ayushman is an award-winning business and tech journalist based in Bangalore, with diverse experience in journalism across newspaper, magazine and news wire. He is the recipient of the 15th annual Polestar Award in Jury's category for excellence in journalism in 2013. He is also an NSE-certified capital market professional (NCCMP) and driven by his interest, he has also attended hands-on workshops on cloud computing to stay on top of technology journalism
