In this third installation of a three-part series on Application Delivery Networking solutions, contributed by our colleague Robin Layland from the just-released “2010 Application Delivery Challenge“, we’ll look at a number of factors that need to be taken into consideration in your choice of supplier(s) for your implementation.
As Robin notes, “WOCs and ADC have a lot of similarities but it would be a mistake to think they are all the same….
“Key issues to be considered when looking at application delivery solutions include:cloud strategy?virtualization? Ask ADC vendors how they handle virtualization or WOC vendors how they support virtual desktop (VDI) solutions.VDI common.
• Understanding how they can save you money and their ROI.
• How scalable is their solution? What is their upgrade path?
• Do they have a
• How do they support
• What applications can they handle? Make sure they can work their magic on the critical applications in your network.
• Make a list of the applications running over your network and then ask them what they can do for each one. Don’t assume everybody does the same thing, this is one area vendors differentiate themselves with different solutions for video and
• What type of security and other services have they bundled in their solution?
• Ask WOC vendors how they handle the problem of optimizing data center to data center traffic such as database replication.
• Ask ADC vendors to explain how easy it is the customize their solution to meet your unique needs and how they can help with disaster recovery and coordination between data centers.”
This is where the real work starts. We can look at specs and capabilities all day, but ultimately you must decide on a single vendor (or set of vendors) that best meets your criteria. To that end, the respondents to Robin’s challenge for this year include Array Networks, Blue Coat Systems, Brocade, Riverbed Technology and Silver Peak Systems. Robin asked each of them to highlight what makes their solution different and to why they are the best choice of vendor.
Note that there is not a “winner” per se. Rather, the information provided by each vendor gives you a great starting point for working on your “short list” for suppliers since each of you have a unique situation with a range of requirements.
Many thanks to Robin for sharing these insights and compiling the responses.
