* Research firm examines market for application front ends
Application front-end technology has taken off in the past year as more vendors ship appliances that speed application traffic.
According to APM Advisors, AFEs may only represent a $500 million market today, but the technology has moved beyond the early adopters to blossom into a growth market. Aggressive product development from companies such as Redline Networks, NetScaler and F5 has spurred consumer adoption of the technology. The research firm says AFEs play an important role in managing application performance and comprise various technologies – from caching, to compression, to load balancing, to SSL acceleration and more.
According to Lynn Nye, president and founder of APM Advisors, Redline and NetScaler delivered early on their AFE visions, while F5 joined the competition later. Yet according to the firm’s research and discussions with customer organizations, F5 is dominating the current AFE market with about 58% market share. NetScaler today has about one-quarter, and Redline just about 10%.
More interesting is that while AFEs often include multiple technologies, APM Advisors says a majority of buyers determined which product to purchase based on one feature, such as compression or SSL acceleration.
“While it’s hard to nail down, I’d guess that about half the installed AFEs are using one or two core services and the rest are much more complex applications,” Nye says.
The increased interest in AFE technology and products has also drawn more competitors, such as newcomers Zeus Technology and Crescendo Networks, to the market to tackle the remaining 10% of market share. But established vendors such as Foundry Networks and Cisco could give F5, NetScaler and Redline a run for their money. For now, Nye says, F5 will enjoy the lead until a stronger player enters the race.
“If someone with enough horsepower doesn’t take an aggressive position during 2005, I see F5 developing more mind share and, if not challenged, poised to maintain at least 50% of the share of the market” over the long term, Nye says.
