This chapter provides an overview of the product, including an overview of the hardware platform and hardware and software dependencies.

The product is a converged infrastructure solution, encompassing all branch services such as server, storage, networking, and WAN optimization. It is a dual-ended system that comprises two logical components: Core and Edge.

Core is located in the data center and mounts all LUNs that need to be made available to applications and servers at a the branch from the centralized storage array. Core appliances communicate across the WAN with the Edge appliances at the branch.

Edge is located at the branch. The Edge appliance provides a virtualized environment that hosts the branch application servers. The Edge appliance also provides RiOS WAN optimization (depending on your order), and BlockStream-enabled storage.

The product delivers local user performance to applications and data, while enabling the centralization of these applications and data, instant recovery, and lower total operating costs. You can access applications that run locally in your branch while the data is maintained and protected in your data center. Decoupling computation from its underlying storage allows your applications to run in a stateless mode, which reduces your branch footprint and centralizes management of your branch services.