Application Delivery Network Basics

Global businesses increasingly use remote desktops, cloud-based services, and distributed WANs. However, as distances increase, performance lags. Users across an ocean may not experience the same speedy response as their colleagues located elsewhere. One way to improve the user experience is to use an application delivery network.

What is an Application Delivery Network?

An application delivery network is a special, private network built to improve and accelerate the availability, visibility, and security of applications across the network. Application delivery networks consist of globally distributed "points of presence" (POPs) which ensure that a delivery point is close to globally distributed users no matter where in the world they may be.

Application delivery networks use a variety of techniques to optimize the network for performance. For example, TCP optimization, caching and compression, bandwidth scaling, and data deduplication are common application delivery network optimization tasks used to accelerate application delivery.

Not only is the entire application network optimized to ensure accelerated, reliable application delivery, it is monitored in real-time to identify and resolve congestion, connectivity, and capacity issues. Preventative security measures are also implemented across the global network to combat security threats.

Application delivery networks are similar to content delivery networks. Content delivery networks consist of data centers located around the world. Local copies of content are stored on these global servers, ensuring that nearby users have a faster means of receiving the content that they want to consume. Content delivery networks work well for serving static content such as webpages, music downloads, and photos. However, they're not as well suited for delivering content that changes frequently such as interactive content associated with Web applications. As Web applications have proliferated, application delivery networks have evolved to handle the demand for improved application performance.

The Benefits of Using an Application Delivery Network

Improved application performance is perhaps the biggest benefit of using an application delivery network. That in turn delivers other important benefits:

• Improved employee morale - If your employees must wait a seemingly endless amount of time to log into their remote desktops or use a Web app, there's bound to be a lot of grumbling. By using an optimized application delivery network, you can improve application performance and employee morale at the same time.

• Improved employee productivity - Employees need access to applications in order to perform their jobs. When access is slow, productivity is also slow. Take lag times out of the equation by using an application delivery network. Your employees will be happier and more productive.

• A better end-user experience - It's not just employees who benefit from faster applications. If you provide Web applications to end users, you want to create the best experience possible and an application delivery network is one way that you can ensure performance, availability, and reliability.

• An improved mobile experience - Users increasingly use smartphones and tablets to access Web applications. By using an application delivery network, you can improve the mobile experience as well.

Application delivery networks bypass the public Internet, routing applications over their own optimized networks. Since these networks exist, and are designed, specifically for improving application delivery, you can avoid common problems associated with using the public Internet as a delivery medium such as network bottlenecks, latency, and congestion.