New changes that impact application delivery over a WAN

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

According to the recently published 2010 edition of the Application Delivery Handbook, IT organizations need to consider new changes that impact their ability to ensure acceptable application delivery over a wide area network.

IT organizations should not lose focus of existing challenges such as optimizing how transmission control protocol performs over a WAN - an issue that is still pertinent. However, they need to be aware of a new generation of challenges that has surfaced. Some of the traditional application delivery challenges have morphed. For instance, ensuring acceptable VoIP quality over a WAN remains a precarious problem. This challenge has morphed into the broader challenge of ensuring the quality of other real-time applications such as video and telepresence.

The new generation of challenges also introduces a new type of cyber hackers. Now, IT organizations not only have to struggle with individual hackers, but they must also fight organized crime and rogue nations. Although the tools to fight them off exist, they are not optimally efficient yet.

Furthermore, IT organizations are faced with the difficult technical challenge regarding virtualization and cloud computing. Amongst others, the need to support the movement of virtual machines between servers in disparate data centers is essential.

The Application Delivery Handbook concludes that application delivery still is a critical concept, but emphasizes the need to focus less on application delivery and more on service delivery.