See What’s New in Riverbed SaaS Accelerator Release 1.5.1

Starting SaaS Accelerator release 1.5.1, Riverbed has introduced support for Microsoft’s CASB solution, the Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps, as well as Azure Information Protection (AIP).

Quick introduction to CASBs and Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps

Before getting started with the details of Microsoft Defender support in Riverbed SaaS Accelerator, here is a brief overview of CASBs and their place in current enterprise.

The quickest way to understand the technology is that CASBs are an HTTP proxy so that traffic to and from the laptop/machine is intercepted (via an agent on the device), inspected, and gleaned by policies set by the user’s organization via a cloud-based manager. This architecture provides numerous benefits that were either difficult to achieve or not possible in a traditional “enterprise firewall” setup.

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps works the same way, except it also involves a DNS redirection, such as the one shown below. This behavior is what sets them apart from some of the other CASBs and why special updates were made to ensure Riverbed SaaS Accelerator supports Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps.

Microsoft Defender DNS redirection example

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps now supported as part of 1.5.1

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps has witnessed significant growth among the Riverbed customer base who depend on SaaS acceleration. This release of SaaS Accelerator has been especially targeted to support Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps for our customers who use it as their CASB and need Cloud acceleration for its various benefits. Riverbed’s SaaS Accelerator has been tested and validated to integrate with Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps starting release 1.5.1. Below is a simplified diagram of how SaaS Accelerator release 1.5.1 integrates via proxy chaining with Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps.

High-level SaaS Accelerator diagram with Microsoft Defender

Below is the configuration page on the Riverbed SaaS Accelerator Manager web UI for setting up to work with Microsoft Defender.

Riverbed’s SaaS Accelerator Microsoft Defender configuration page

Along with Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps, Riverbed SaaS Accelerator continues to also support Zscaler and Netskope CASB interoperability via Proxy Chaining.

Azure Information Protection support

Azure Information Protection (AIP) is part of Microsoft Purview Information Protection (formerly Microsoft Information Protection or MIP). Microsoft Purview Information Protection helps you discover, classify, protect, and govern sensitive information wherever it lives or travels. 

Various categories of protection within AIP as well as encryption of documents and files have been validated—once the cold pass of the encrypted file goes through Riverbed SaaS Accelerator the subsequent transfers of the file will benefit from acceleration. Also, all protection mechanisms will continue to be honored while the document is accelerated by Riverbed SaaS Accelerator without requiring any additional configuration.

Riverbed SaaS Accelerator will continue to provide WAN acceleration for the various use cases for AIP and harmoniously works with the AIP agent installed on users’ machines. 

What Next?

To learn even more about this release and how to get started with Riverbed SaaS Accelerator, please visit Riverbed SaaS Accelerator Product Page and the Riverbed SaaS Accelerator Release Notes from the Riverbed SaaS Accelerator Support Page. Also, check out this blog post and the included video on implementing the SaaS Accelerator solution for your organization from scratch.