* Research firm reports on application front ends
Application front ends (AFE) serve a critical function in managing application performance, in that the Secure Sockets Layer switches and load balancers can take an active role in optimizing app speed and delivery to end users, says a recent report.
The paper, from relatively new research firm APM (as in, application performance management) Advisors, discusses in depth the part that AFE appliances play in the overall effort to maximize application performance on enterprise nets. The technology must work with multiple products, such as monitoring and reporting platforms, test and utility tools, and software that tracks end-user experiences with applications.
According to Lynn Nye, president and founder of APM Advisors, the market led mostly by F5 Networks, Foundry and Cisco is changing to accommodate enterprise IT buyers budgets and purchasing habits. For example, SSL acceleration tools began working more in direct conjunction with server load balancing (SLB) products in F5 offerings.
“As SSL became a useful means of securing transactions, F5’s SLB wasn’t able to provide any value added load balancing without being able to terminate the SSL and take a look inside the packets,” Nye detailed in the paper. “So [the company] came up with a method of adding an SSL card into the system to un-encrypt the packets for load balancing processing.”
As more and more companies realize they can couple technologies in one product, IT buyers will benefit from spending less and getting more out of the dollars they put into products. The trend to combine application acceleration functions into one offering also served as a catalyst for new companies to emerge. Vendors such as Array Networks, NetScaler and Redline Networks grew out of the trend to provide separate functions into one box.
Aside from cost saving, Nye writes, “the newer architectures provide a significant amount of throughput capacity regardless of how many functions are operating simultaneously.” The capabilities of newer, combined products might challenge established players with products built on switching rather than connection processing to take a look at their approach.
But while the newer technology provides plusses for network managers, the emerging AFE’s need to “terminate or proxy the connections at a high enough level to provide the upper level services efficiently.” The products need to provide not only encryption, but also TCP connection management and security.
Nye predicts these factors will cause a shift in the market as vendors like F5, Foundry and Cisco go up against newer players Array, NetScaler and Redline. For more on Nye’s take on this market, check out his Web site at http://www.apmadvisors.com
