* Application acceleration devices becoming key network component
Application acceleration products, if vendors tackle the challenge, could become the cornerstone to delivering application services and could consolidate to expand beyond their disparate acceleration tasks. In other words, the products in this still-immature market could evolve to become a critical network component.
So says a recent report by APM Advisors that details how products that speed application traffic could hold a more prominent position in future data centers. The research firm examined a pool of vendors that it deems among the prime providers of application front ends (AFE). AFEs, APM Advisors says, “provide adaptive management of the user-to-application transaction by offloading many of the redundant protocol services from the application infrastructure and assuring that user connections are efficiently managed.”
Vendors identified in this group include Array Networks, Crescendo Networks, F5 Networks, NetScaler, Redline Networks and Zeus Technology. The firm also says companies such as Cisco, Foundry Networks and Radware could be considered AFE providers because of their association with server load balancing – and considering the infrastructure component, the equipment vendors might not “sit this one out,” says APM Advisors. Among the functions an AFE provides are server load balancing, SSL acceleration, traffic management, compression and caching, among others.
F5 has made its stand in the market this summer with the release of Version 9 of its Layer 4-7 switch/traffic accelerator. The appliance addresses many of the features of an AFE – all but one actually. F5’s new products don’t yet offer caching, which the vendor promises is on its product roadmap. APM Advisors says, “as a foundation, the introduction of F5’s Version 9 (Buffalo Jump) the space has been validated.”
“In larger organizations, there will be an increasing trend to consolidate functions and reduce the number of vendor relationships for ‘front-end’ services,” the paper states.
