A new era in application delivery

Application Delivery Networking (ADN) tools provide integrated, cost-effective ways to improve application response time

The CIO sends out an e-mail to his IT managers saying that because of the economic downturn, networking costs must be reduced.

At the same time, cost saving projects such as consolidating branch office servers into the data center must be continued. End users are clamoring for improved response time to help increase productivity, no matter how much data the new Web applications or data center consolation creates.

The CIO also decides that there will be increased collaboration using telepresence and video conferencing in order to reduce the travel budget.

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The CIO sends out an e-mail to his IT managers saying that because of the economic downturn, networking costs must be reduced.

At the same time, cost saving projects such as consolidating branch office servers into the data center must be continued. End users are clamoring for improved response time to help increase productivity, no matter how much data the new Web applications or data center consolation creates.

The CIO also decides that there will be increased collaboration using telepresence and video conferencing in order to reduce the travel budget.

Adding to the network managers growing headache is that there is no let up when it comes to criminals and hackers attacking the network. The bad guys are now launching sophisticated and financially motivated attacks at the application layers with malware that is even harder to detect.

But the CIO does not want to see a flood of new security devices each with their own installation and maintenance cost.

On top of all that, the corporate compliance office is calling for the network to play its part in ensuring that the enterprise is in compliance with corporate policies and regulatory mandates. If something is violating the new rules and regulations, then the network manger must either prevent it or at least report that it has happened. To top it off, operations has said that if you bring in one more new appliance, they will bar you from the data center and wiring closets.

What does it all add up to? The network is being asked to provide more services at the application layers.

There are several ways to address these issues. For example, WAN optimization and application acceleration tools provide a way to reduce response time, control bandwidth costs and support cost reduction projects, such as server consolidation.

Filtering and QoS allow network managers to control non-business traffic and plug the security holes they create.

A range of application security solutions from secure Internet gateways, Web/application firewalls, antivirus aimed at application layer threats, to data loss prevention are the way to stop hackers and criminals. Control and reporting at the application level along with many of the security solutions allow IT to meet compliance.

The problem is that implementing all these necessary but separate solutions will cause the number of appliances to grow, increasing cost and complexity.

What is needed is an integrated solution that can classify, prioritize and control traffic at the application layer while also providing most, if not all, of the needed application layers services. The banner this solution flies under is Application Delivery Networking.

Application Delivery Networking

Application delivery is an overlay on the existing packet forwarding infrastructure. Switches and routers, along with network devices such as network layer firewalls, perform an excellent job of moving data around the network and providing security based on the TCP/IP layer and below (layers 1–4). Application delivery complements this packet-forwarding infrastructure by providing services at the application layers (5-7) within the network.