WAN application delivery

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WAN Application delivery involves any task required to ensure a secure, cost effective and acceptable level of application performance over the wide area network.

Most of the time when the industry uses the phrase application delivery, this refers to just network and application optimization. Network and application optimization is important, however to achieve the goal stated above requires a broader perspective on the factors that impact the ability of the IT organization to assure acceptable application performance. Application delivery is more complex than just network and application acceleration. Application delivery needs to have top-down approach, with a focus on application performance.

Components
Planning, Network and Application Optimization, Management, and Control are 4 main components in any application delivery exercise. Some overlap exists in the model as a number of common IT processes are part of multiple components. This includes processes such as discovery (what applications are running on the network and how are they being used), baselining, visibility and reporting.

To be successful with application delivery, IT organizations must:

Have a deep understanding of the volatile environment that is the organization’s applications, servers, users and networks.
Implement the appropriate techniques to optimize the performance of the network, the servers, and the application.
Measure everything and automate as much as possible.
Develop control over the desktop as well as control over what traffic can enter the network and how that traffic is routed through the network.