Building out their portfolio of AI-powered network observability tools, Riverbed has released solutions that include an Intelligent Network Observability Essentials bundle and a new Riverbed xx90 appliance series geared to enhance existing observability solutions.

Companies are increasing adoption of AI-based networking tools to keep pace with the torrent of data that many networks now handle. Expecting human admins to manually monitor this deluge of data results in an approach that’s reactive and incomplete. AI-based networks employ models of existing data flow and algorithms trained to recognize non-standard data points, which can automate remediation and, in theory, reduce costs. And with hackers now launching AI-based cyberattacks, companies must now deploy AI-based networks to play defense—it’s no longer optional.

“Organizations must move beyond legacy tools and embrace AI-driven observability to gain real-time insights,” said Shamus McGillicuddy, research vice president at EMA, who praised Riverbed as offering a “truly modern” network observability strategy.

Indeed, Riverbed’s existing portfolio of networking products is already built around AI, and these new releases are geared to expand functionality across complex on-prem and multi-cloud environments. Among the tools that the company touts as speeding remediation and improving proactive capabilities are:

• Topology Viewer, which increases the speed of triage by offering a dynamic visualization that monitors network topology in relation to application and user performance data.

• Workspaces that provide contextual visibility across every team using role-based dashboards that combine packet, flow and endpoint information.

• Riverbed IQ is an AI tool that highlights problem issues and, according to Riverbed, speeds resolution. Since it’s SaaS-based it requires no additional infrastructure.

• Grafana Plug-In, which leverages Grafana—an open source platform for open source observability—to provide visualization of Riverbed observability data in a company’s current dashboard.

Getting the most out of an AI-based network also requires hardware, and Riverbed’s new xx90 appliance family is designed to provide scalability and speed across far-flung enterprise networks. Built to work with Riverbed’s AppResponse, NetProfiler, and Flow Gateway applications, the xx90 is architected to provide high-throughput for both packet and flow capture.

AppResponse 11.21 allows triage of encrypted IPSec ESP tunnel traffic and cipher hygiene over a distributed heterogenous IT environment. In combination with xx90 hardware, it provides scalable modular storage exceeding 2.4 PB, sustained packet capture over 50 Gbps and concurrent packet capture and analysis.

The xx90 also helps the upgraded 10.29 iteration of NetProfiler as well as Flow Gateway, allowing high levels of data visibility and corresponding data analysis. Riverbed claims the upgraded NetProfiler offers 3x faster reporting and analysis and 2x faster throughput. It also includes support for Verse SD-WAN and dynamic flow load balancing.

To promote sales of its new releases, Riverbed is launching what it calls a Flex Subscription plan. Selecting the Flex plan allows companies to use Riverbed licenses across their full enterprise infrastructure, whether it’s cloud, hardware or virtual deployments, with no additional charges.

By all accounts, the network observability market is growing at a rapid clip, with growth predictions around the 10% CAGR rate over the next five years. Riverbed claims that its observability bookings have grown 92% year-over-year in the first half of 2025.