Kubernan Consulting - IT Innovation Report 2007
"The Handbook of Application Delivery"
End users are feeling the pain of today's application performance degradation, and IT organizations know it. This probing 60 page study looks at the contributing issues and how IT can identify and quickly resolve performance problems through a strategic blending of network visibility and optimization, planning, management and control. Full Report.
Report Findings
Application Delivery and Performance is Becoming Increasingly Complicated
- Shifting traffic patterns make it more difficult to both manage and optimize traffic flows.
- Webification of applications greatly increases the amount of traffic supported by IT infrastructure.
- Consolidating servers out of branch offices and into fewer data centers can result in significant performance issues.
High Application Performance Takes More Than Network and Application Acceleration
- Pre-deployment assessment and planning assures that the proper tools and technology are employed.
- Organizations need a clear understanding of performance issues, network requirements and application problems.
- Business priorities should determine performance baselines and QoS compliance.
Visibility is the Key to Successful Delivery
- Application profiling is crucial to ensuring the acceptable performance of applications while controlling or eliminating irrelevant applications.
- To accommodate changing IP network paths, IT organizations need visibility into the operational architecture and dynamic behavior of the network.
- Visibility serves to identify the root cause of degradation and specifically address the problem.
Ongoing Performance and Management is a Crucial Factor
- Solutions should scale to provide additional functionality over what is initially required.
- Performance should be continuously benchmarked against established standards.
- Business imperatives should remain IT's focus and not merely the megabytes of traffic traversing the network.
About the Report
Surveying hundreds of IT organizations Kubernan, an analyst and consulting joint venture of Steven Taylor and Jim Metzler, synthesized its own knowledge with that of about a dozen of the industry's leading vendors to compile a broad consensus on application delivery.
Participating Vendors include:
- Avaya
- Cisco
- Expand Networks
- Ipanema Technologies
- NetQOS
- Network General
- NetScout
- Packet Design
- Persystent Technologies
- Riverbed
Quote
"IT organizations need to develop a systematic approach to application acceleration and delivery that integrates the key components of network and application visibility and optimization, planning, management and control. Packeteer's Intelligent Lifecycle is one such approach that fully embraces this requirement."
Dr. Jim Metzler, in a press statement January 30, 2007