Modernizing Application Delivery Infrastructure for Hybrid and Multicloud
Author: Brad Casemore, Research VP, Datacenter and Multicloud Networks at IDC
Application delivery infrastructure, such as application delivery controllers (ADCs), represents the tier of networking that resides closest to applications, doing its work at layers 4 through 7 of the OSI model. Amid digital transformation, as applications become synonymous with digital business, the networking that occurs at the application layer (Layer 7) becomes more important than ever, growing in perceived and real value for enterprise customers.
The increasing importance of application-layer networking is further bolstered by the proliferation of cloud-native applications, composed of containers and microservices and orchestrated by Kubernetes. In cloud-native application environments, north-south and east-west traffic is dynamic and ephemeral, demanding agility, flexibility, elastic scale, and robust workload security.
Notwithstanding its heightened importance as a result application primacy, application delivery infrastructure must be modernized to meet evolving needs. The requirements associated with application-delivery infrastructure for cloud-native environments have been briefly noted, but the rise of cloud more generally – as a destination for workloads and as an operating model – was the first major driver of change.
Cloud has been followed by multicloud, as organizations worldwide seek the freedom to deploy and run applications where they will generate the best possible digital experience and the greatest business value. In addition to running longstanding business applications in on-premises environments, where they are typically supported by more traditional ADCs, organizations now deploy a growing array of modern applications in multiple public clouds.
IDC surveys attest to the appeal of multicloud and to the need for multicloud networking. When asked how emerging edge computing, distributed data, and mobile/hybrid work strategies were changing network infrastructure requirements, nearly half of enterprise respondents to IDC’s June 2022 Future of Digital Infrastructure 2022 Global Sentiment Survey indicated that they would invest in multicloud networking.
What does this evolving context mean for application delivery infrastructure? Hybrid and multicloud applications are inherently complex, and application-delivery infrastructure must not only contribute to the availability, resilience, and security of increasingly distributed applications, but do so in manner that confers operational simplicity. In real terms, operational simplicity takes the form of centralized orchestration and management of a flexible pool of application-delivery infrastructure that can run across heterogeneous application environments (bare metal, virtualized, and containerized) and across on-premises environments and multiple public clouds, with virtual editions readily available to run on all major IaaS clouds. Organizations must adapt their operational approach to cloud and consider transitioning fully to a cloud operating model as their application environment and technology evolves.
To enhance operational efficiency and accelerate business agility, automation is a key requirement, but automation must be intelligent and should extend beyond provisioning and deployment. For intelligent automation to deliver full value, it should extend throughout the application lifecycle, providing ubiquitous observability and visibility to expedite troubleshooting, root-cause analysis, and remediation of issues that arise involving IT operations, DevOps, or security teams. This approach to comprehensive intelligent automation reduces complexity through simplified effective operations and also allows organizations to achieve effective outcomes within the personnel constraints occasioned by macroeconomic headwinds. In this manner, AIOps capabilities can be used to replace legacy management systems and to overcome human error and manual limitations.
Given the distributed application landscape of hybrid and multicloud environments, security is an understandable priority. IDC finds that enterprises cite application security, especially in a hybrid environment, as a perennial concern. For consistent and simply managed cloud security, enterprise customers usually require web application firewall (WAF), authentication, DDoS protection, and cipher enforcement as well as a capability to address TLS/SSL offload.
Another requirement in hybrid and multicloud scenarios is comprehensive load balancing, including local traffic management provided by ADCs within the datacenter as well as the global traffic management offered by global server load balancing (GSLB). Regardless of whether an enterprise has a hybrid application environment – composed of any combination of on-premises datacenters, co-location facilities, and a single public cloud – or an extensive multicloud environment, the benefits that accrue from having both local and global traffic management are considerable.
Hybrid and multicloud environments represent change, and they demand change from the application-delivery infrastructure that supports and protects digital business, including the digital experiences of customers and employees. The right cloud operating model approach to application-delivery infrastructure makes it possible for enterprises to give both developers and DevOps, as well as ITOps and security teams, everything they need to ensure the availability and integrity of applications spanning an increasingly distributed and complex digital landscape.
Seeing is believing.
Schedule a live demo today.