Delivering the Enterprise: Application Delivery Optimization

Application delivery optimization (ADO) is the design of networks and systems to guarantee appropriate, effective application delivery in the distributed and mobile world. It encompasses traditional WAN optimizers, application delivery controllers, and a variety of other technologies. Effective delivery addresses application availability and performance. Appropriate delivery addresses aspects of security. This year, for the first time, a majority of enterprises explicitly wanted to see ADO taking an active role in the security architecture. We see WAN optimization, a core ADO discipline, slowing its spread to new enterprises but continuing its spread to more locations within enterprises using it, possibly excluding data-center-to-date-center connections. One reason may be the difficulty of showing a return on the investment, but saving money is not one of the primary drivers of ADO, nor a common point of evaluation after deployment. That cost calculation changes dramatically when costs shift from capital to operating budgets. Adoption of cloud and managed services is extending into ADO; a quarter of enterprises are using or evaluating cloud and managed optimization offerings.