Technology Consolidation Bridges Application Delivery Gap

I love bridges. I’m fascinated by the architecture that provides the foundation for a strong and stable layer below the roadway to safely and quickly deliver traffic.  For centuries, these marvels have connected otherwise impassable and isolated areas to more populated road systems and communities.  

There’s a lot of discussion today about the future of the application acceleration market. Whenever attention is focused on a topic like this, it usually means the subject is going through a transition. Participating in this conversation are solutions like application delivery controllers (ADCs) that manage access to data center assets for incoming and outgoing traffic; and WAN optimization controllers (WOCs) that manage traffic going between remote users and the data centers. Then there are security solutions, such as next-generation firewalls that defend against attacks from layer 2 - 7; and SSL VPNs that protect networks through secure tunnels - end-to-end.

Applications are the network

You may or may not agree with this statement, “Applications are the network.” Even if you don’t agree, I think it’s fair to say, applications are the most important part of networks. After all, without applications to deliver, what is the purpose of a network? In the future, binding application code to network infrastructure will be the key to successfully delivering applications over distance. Yes, this could be a bridge of a different kind, and a very exciting one at that.

Because applications are so critical, it’s no surprise that delivering them as a service is a growing market, and will continue to build as enterprise data centers move to the cloud. When delivering applications as a service, applications can go through rapid release cycles. This, along with the increasing number of applications and the growing amount of users, puts added pressure on IT personnel who precariously balance day-to-day data center operations that are required to run smoothly. IT organizations are continuously challenged to ensure data center and network infrastructure scales and adapts to meet their ever-changing business and technology environments.

In response to this, network equipment vendors have been evolving their products to support IT planning and operations. The challenge is to offer solutions that deliver enough network bandwidth and application acceleration to appease IT administrators and remote users. But, without a clear understanding of the user experience, and detailed analysis user engagement with the networks and data center systems, it’s almost impossible to provide continual high performance and integrity. IT personnel need in-depth visibility into all their applications going across the Internet, WANs and clouds; and, based on what they see, make cost-effective improvements on their data center and network assets.

Binding networks to applications could unify application delivery elements

Bridging the application delivery gap will require new solutions that more closely bind the relationship between applications and networks. It appears that some network equipment vendors are slowly moving toward a more unified approach to application delivery, where ADCs, WAN optimizers and the array of security products are used to optimize bandwidth, accelerate applications, improve network reliability, and secure everything end-to-end. While these solutions are separate, there is a consolidation, or unification, going on here. Product and technology acquisitions, strategic partnerships, internal feature expansion and the development of new technologies, like software-defined data center (SDDC), are clear indicators that a unification of data center resources, application workloads and networking infrastructure is underway.

Within a unified IT infrastructure, application acceleration vendors, and the products they provide, are the foundational matrix needed for optimizing bandwidth, speeding applications, and ensuring they are reliably delivered from the data center to remote users. Achieving a software defined data center promises to improve agility and efficiencies, while lowering capital and operating costs. However, this will require networking vendors to offer virtual application delivery controllers, virtual WAN optimization controllers, and virtual security solutions to be completely integrated through APIs that programmers use to define and modify application delivery services.

Sangfor is one such vendor who has quietly won the business of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) around the world, by giving them greater control over their network infrastructure. Their family of networking products, such as WAN optimization, SSL VPN, and Next Generation Firewalls, deliver the performance, features and reliability that SMEs require, with the same benefits, at an affordable price. When it comes to building bridges between disparate networking technologies, Sangfor is leveraging its diverse networking products and service support, by developing a set of solutions that will take advantage of future software-defined data center attributes.

A promising future for those with vision

As applications delivered over distant networks grow in numbers and usage, IT personnel need greater flexibility, visibility, automation, and system intelligence to more strategically align all their data center resources with the growing demands and requirements. The vision of SDDC is founded upon the hope that this type of architecture will fulfill the promise of the completely virtualized data center, capable of delivering applications, networking, storage, and security as on-demand services. Those who will deploy these solutions are looking for the day when they can fully automate the management of their data centers; easily deploy intelligent networks that can bind with any application to deliver the ultimate application delivery solution.

Sangfor’s vision is to deliver a complete suite of networking solutions that provide a holistic approach to application delivery, which is essential for every business today – no matter how small or large. Sangfor is already developing the crucial steps needed to bring their application acceleration and security products together, to deliver a truly integrated, on-demand service infrastructure.

Time will tell how this all plays out, but more intelligently managing network traffic will be fundamental to successful data center operations.  Application acceleration vendors need a vision for their product roadmaps that will move them forward toward success, or they will be marginalized. How they view integrated application acceleration capabilities, and for that matter, future architectures like SDDC, will undoubtedly shape the future of networking.

About the author: Marc Goodman is an independent marketing consultant for Sangfor Technologies. He has over 30 years of experience marketing networking products and services. Marc has served in various marketing capacities for F5 Networks, Riverbed, Silver Peak (News - Alert), Array Networks, Coyote Point, Ecessa, KEMP Technologies, Radware, and Stampede Technologies.