Application delivery networking has its roots in
simple load balancing, but has evolved considerably over the last decade. First
was the integrated traffic management appliance for improving the performance,
availability and security of Websites and Web applications. Next was the
application delivery controller, providing application-specific configurations
to ensure maximum performance, availability and ROI for business-critical
enterprise applications such as Microsoft, SAP, IBM and others.
Today, application delivery networking encompasses
more than just a single product. In addition to application delivery controllers,
products such as WAN optimization controllers (WOC), secure access gateways and
Web application firewalls are seen as necessary components in providing the
access, mobility, security, availability, performance and scalability needed to
derive maximum ROI for application infrastructure. As a result, vendors are
moving quickly to address all facets of application delivery, as enterprises
look to deploy more holistic solutions for supporting applications.
Not only are application delivery vendors offering
expanded functionality, they are also offering greater flexibility in deployment.
Until recently, application delivery networking was associated with dedicated appliances
– due in part to the demands of acceleration and security functions. However,
performance improvements in virtualization are significantly changing the face
of application delivery.
Today you see ADC vendors offering virtual editions
of their products designed to run on commodity hardware and most common
hypervisors. Moving ADC functionality to the cloud, load balancing may be
offered as a service, organizations may develop and test applications in the
cloud, and businesses may benefit from hybrid public and private cloud
architectures that share a common platform and enable on demand capacity and
bursting. You also see vendors such as Array now offering WAN optimization in
cloud and virtualized environments, dramatically improving agility and
significantly reducing the cost of ensuring application performance across the
Internet.
It is not difficult to see where this is heading –
vendors in a race to offer application delivery, WAN optimization and secure
access, all available in cloud and virtualized environments, available as a
holistic solution with sufficient performance, reliability and management
integration to drive down costs and improve efficiency and productivity.
As
this evolution unfolds, businesses are well advised to seek out vendors that
demonstrate core competencies across all three key areas of application
delivery networking – application delivery, secure access and WAN optimization
– and vendors that are ahead of the curve and already have virtual versions of
these key application delivery requirements.
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