* Service delivery is bigger than the data center itself
As data center consolidation continues rapidly across all industries, the distance data has to travel to reach its end user is increasing. Nemertes’ research has shown that, on average, more than 80% of enterprise employees access the data center remotely. That means IT managers must take an end-to-end view of security, performance and availability as they deliver applications across a WAN.
Maintaining the security of a corporate data is no longer simply a matter of building a hard perimeter around the data center; most of the end users will be outside the perimeter. Data-center security depends on all three components of the application delivery – the servers, the desktops/laptops/PDAs and the WAN transport in between. Enterprises are increasingly adding security controls directly onto the desktop, in the form of personal firewalls, VPNs, intrusion-prevention systems and malware protection.
Like security, performance is meaningful only from an end-to-end perspective. The end-user experience needs to be measured and then optimized by identifying potential bottlenecks across the WAN. Performance is also determined by the state of the end user’s desktop – spyware and other undesirable software can slow down or even crash a desktop or laptop. Another potential source of problems for application performance is the WAN, where excessive latency can make interactive applications painfully slow.
Finally, availability of the data is also dependant on many factors outside the data center. Many applications support “disconnected operation,” which allows users to continue working even if they are offline. But for the majority of enterprise applications, all data resides in the data center and has to be available continuously. Problems in the WAN, LAN or remote-access link (for home workers) can lead to data loss and productivity loss.
IT operations managers are taking a more holistic approach to managing application delivery. Managing end to end requires sophisticated monitoring and root-cause analysis. Increasingly, the end-to-end management of application delivery encompasses all characteristics of quality.
To cope in this new environment, enterprises will need to:
* Break up the security, network and application operations “silos” and treat application-delivery management holistically.
* Integrate management and operational support systems to measure performance, security and availability end to end.
* Rethink the hard perimeter and recognize that “remote” may be the rule, not the exception.
* Invest in virtualization and automation to make the data center more flexible so it can respond to a changing environment on demand.
Systems management, network management and security management can no longer be seen as separate silos. IT managers need to concentrate on end-to-end management of application delivery.
