Why Do You Need An Application Delivery Controller?

IT enterprises are constantly under pressure to offer efficient performing services at an inexpensive rate. Therefore, a continuous series of small incremental IT enhancement is not going to be adequate enough for making IT services to be agile and cost-efficient. What is therefore needed is a radically new approach on how IT services needs to be offered aiming towards incremental improvements. 

An approach that has been most IT organizations have adopted is that of server virtualization. The main benefit of this is that it enables IT enterprises to consolidate the servers. The outcome generally is a minimization of expenses and agility. For instance, the moment a server has been virtualized, it is possible to provision virtual machines (VM) dynamically and to shift these VM’s amidst the physical servers. This is possible both within disparate data centers or a given data center without any service interruption. However, though VM’s can be shifted between physical servers within a few seconds/minutes it can take a couple of days to reconfigure the assisting architecture. IT enterprises are not able to leverage the complete value of server virtualization unless the infrastructure elements that assist a VM can be reconfigured or shifted to assist the VM once shifted. 

An essential component of the infrastructure that assists a VM is the application delivery controller (ADC). Numerous IT enterprises have successfully implemented ADC’s in an attempt to enhance application performance. An ADC enhances application performance by remaining in front of a server and offering service requests to the members of the server farm.

This is done based on the criteria for instance the load that a single server is processing presently. Another way by which an ADC enhances application performance is by conducting computationally intensive tasks, like TCP or SSL processing by freeing up by server resources. Furthermore, an ADC has the capacity to accelerate the application performance offered through the wide area network (WAN) by deploying optimization methods such as reverse caching and compression.

Today eminent service providers specializing in load balancers have introduced high-end ADC’s that offer the following benefits:

* Minimize the single points of failure

* Enhance performance by disseminating traffic amidst numerous servers

* Enhances user experience and minimizes server overhead with SSL acceleration

* Guarantees data-access and application consistency

* Helps in optimizing resources by effectively allocating traffic depending on application types

Therefore, deploying an advanced ADC solution from a leading market player for ensuring systematic traffic management and optimizing application and web performance is an efficient way to avert server downtime issues.

Other Links

eClinicalWorks Load Balancing

Application Performance 

Choosing the Right SSL VPN Solution

SSL is gaining popularity as a remote access tool with the remote connectivity being crucial for the productivity of the enterprise. Many client side issues associated with remote access can be eliminated with SSL VPNs as a technology.  With an easy migration, SSL VPNs also offer a more cost-effective, easier to deploy remote access solution than IPSec. Its blend of flexibility and function makes it extremely competitive. There is a wide rage of solutions available in today’s growing SSL VPN market, and it is therefore necessary to consider many factors before making a choice to purchase the best SSL VPN product.  

Security and user experience are the two aspects that SSL VPNs have to be evaluated against. A successful deployment of a secured solution can be achieved only by taking into consideration security and user experience. As a SSL VPN needs to serve the organization’s long term needs, it has to integrate with the network architecture seamlessly and also provide powerful management tools.    

Security   
As SSL itself does not make a VPN, encryption is not enough to provide the security required for today’s applications. An ideal SSL VPN solution needs to have a combination of different levels of protection like SSL VPN Firewall, Hardened OS, Network Gapping, Client Side Security, AAA, Reducing Network Exposure (Various Access Modes), Application Level Filtering, Virtualization and Network Separation. It is also important that an SSL VPN appliance provide client side security facilities as it allows anywhere and anytime access. This introduces the risk of unsecured devices getting into secured network locations. It is necessary for a user to securely download any required content during a session knowing that this content will be wiped automatically when the session is terminated.   

User experience   
There are a number of factors that determine the end user experience like performance, user interface customization, and high availability. An important component in a good user experience is the overall user interface, which is also greatly significant for user productivity. Any access solution with a poor user interface, be it a design or lack of custom business logic integration, adversely affect the productivity of its users. As the different options can create confusion for end users, it becomes crucial that the use of these different modes to be intuitive and have minimal user interaction as possible. A consistent experience with minimum downtime can ensure the best user experience.    

With an understanding of today’s and future needs, as well as careful evaluation of the capabilities of the different devices under consideration, a proper selection of a SSL VPN device can be made. It is therefore important learn more about the existing SSL VPN solution and be updated about the future developments. This is the best way to make an informed decision regarding your company’s secure remote access requirements.   

Other Links

Load Balancing

SSL Acceleration

Understanding the Concept of Network Virtualization

It is said that the next leap in data center virtualization is network virtualization. Networking is a key area that really needs to be virtualized, as there are numerous virtual machines that can move around the enterprise. With servers running at 90 percent capacity the network infrastructure needs to scale to give the same level of bandwidth and performance. Network virtualization is a promising approach to cover individual and dynamic resource provision that is intended to improve productivity, efficiency, and job satisfaction of the administrator. Although it aims to optimize network speed, reliability, flexibility, scalability, and security, network virtualization is said to be especially effective in networks that experience sudden, large, and unforeseen surges in usage. It provides a powerful way to run multiple networks, each customized to a specific purpose, at the same time over a shared substrate.
 
Network virtualization is classified as either external, combining many networks, or parts of networks, into a virtual unit, or internal, providing network-like functionality to the software containers on a single system. Regardless of whether it is internal or external, the benefits have many other advantages. With network virtualization, there is a conceptual layer that divides that physical network device from the business services on the network. Consequently there is an infrastructure that is a whole lot more flexible and efficient.

Bandwidth management is the underlying principle behind network virtualization. To enable bandwidth applications at affordable costs, most network managers use numerous WAN connections. By managing the bandwidth and optimizes network speed there is an overall reduction in the cost. With network virtualization business continuity can be achieved as virtualization isolates the network impact of multiple applications and minimizes downtime. This way, not only does automated provisioning diminish expensive configuration errors, applications also do not get in each other’s the way.

Generally a tedious and time-consuming business for a human administrator, network virtualization also undertakes network management. The true complexity of the network is concealed as in network virtualization the system performs these functions automatically. Network virtualization also facilitate companies to increase enterprise deftness, enhance network competence, reduce capital and operational costs and continue and maintain extraordinary levels of security, scalability, manageability and availability. Most of the functions can be centrally managed from a single physical site and this simplifies the tasks. Network virtualization is particularly effective and useful in those networks that frequently experience sudden, large and unpredicted surge in usage.

Other Links

Remote desktop

SSL acceleration