“2008 Handbook of Application Delivery” Says IT Should React to Application, Infrastructure Issues Before Users Negatively Impacted

The “2008 Handbook of Application Delivery — a Guide to Decision Making” authored by industry authority Dr. Jim Metzler of Kubernan sees organizations reacting too often to application and infrastructure issues only after they have negatively impacted users.

The handbook was developed to help IT organizations develop the ability to minimize the occurrence of application performance issues and to both identify and quickly resolve issues when they occur.

The recently published 97-page report (including an executive summary) builds upon the original document released last year, adding new sections, including one on managed service providers. The report notes that one of the advantages of using a managed service provider is that they often have the skills and processes that are necessary to bridge the gap that typically exists within an IT organization between the application development groups and the rest of the IT function.

The report concludes that for the foreseeable future, the importance of application delivery is much more likely to increase. Analogously, for the foreseeable future the impact of the factors that make application delivery difficult is much more likely to increase. To deal with these two forces, Dr. Metzler advises that IT organizations develop a systematic approach to applications delivery. Given the complexity associated with application delivery, this approach cannot focus on just one component of the task such as network and application optimization, but rather should integrate the key components of planning, network and application optimization, management and control.

According to Dr. Metzler, successful application delivery requires that IT organizations identify the acceptable performance of the applications running on the network that are relevant to the business. In addition, organizations must control and or eliminate irrelevant applications.

Ipanema Technologies, a leader in application traffic management systems for wide area networks, is unique in offering this type of solution. Ipanema’s Business Network Optimization solution is the only one that combines all advanced network optimization functions that guarantee network application performance while providing full visibility of application flows over the network, application performance maximization and bandwidth rightsizing according to application performance objectives.

“My research indicates that Ipanema is unique in dynamically guaranteeing application performance, including the key activities that make up application delivery: profiling an application prior to deploying it, setting an objective for application performance, reducing the amount of traffic that transits the WAN, prioritizing traffic that is business critical and delay sensitive and implementing traffic management that can dynamically allocate network resources,” said Metzler.

According to Thierry Grenot, chief technical officer of Ipanema, “This report provides valuable information for network managers and we concur wholeheartedly with Dr. Metzler’s findings. We strongly recommend that IT organizations evaluate their needs before complaints rise from users. We also suggest that enterprises consider more carefully managed service options from their service providers because of the advantages described in the report.”

The Ipanema solution supports progressive deployments of devices and features. For example, companies can obtain visibility and guarantee flow performance over their whole network by only putting devices in datacenters. A first level of acceleration can even be obtained using its patented asymmetrical TCP acceleration, which does not require any device at the branch. Ipanema Technologies provides a Business Network Optimization solution that automatically manages and maximizes WAN application performance through the combined use of visibility, optimization, acceleration and network application governance features.

“The Handbook of Application Delivery” can be downloaded at http://www.ipanematech.com

About Ipanema Technologies (www.ipanematech.com)

Ipanema is a provider of advanced application traffic management solutions that align the network with business goals. Network integrators market Ipanema’s Business Network Optimization solutions to enterprises, while telecom service providers and network managed service providers offer those as a service.

The Business Network Optimization solution is simple, automated and scalable and allows enterprises to easily control, guarantee and accelerate their critical application performance regardless of network conditions. It relies on Ipanema’s Autonomic Networking System to provide: full Visibility of application flows over the network, global and dynamic Optimization of network resources, transparent application Acceleration, Network Application Governance functions and Scalable Service Delivery capabilities. Ipanema’s Business Network Optimization solutions are deployed in more than 75 countries. Its customers include large organizations such as Leroy Merlin, Sodiaal, Altadis, Sephora, Brittany Ferries, Bongrain, Michael Page, NH Hoteles, SGS, Nespresso, Clariant, TNT, L’Oreal, Cap Gemini, Henkel, the French Army, Europcar, Rhodia, Lexmark etc.

About Kuperman

Kubernan(TM), led by industry veterans Steven Taylor of Webtorials and Jim Metzler of Ashton, Metzler & Associates, is devoted to performing in-depth analysis and research in focused areas such as Metro Ethernet and MPLS, as well as in areas that cross the traditional functional boundaries of IT, such as Unified Communications and Application Delivery.

Kubernan’s focus is on providing actionable insight through custom research with a forward looking viewpoint. Through reports that examine industry dynamics from both a demand and a supply perspective, the firm educates the marketplace both on emerging trends and the role that IT products, services and processes play in responding to those trends.