Creating the Next-Generation Cloud with Software-Defined App Services

Cloud computing, end-user mobility technologies, and new delivery models have all directly impacted the modern data center infrastructure. In fact, enterprise IT departments are under constant pressure to meet user and application demands, aware that cloud deployments offer an easier and faster alternative but often pinned down by legacy deployment models. The problem stems from the inability of those legacy models to adapt to meet expectations for rapid provisioning, continuous delivery, and consistent performance across multiple environments.

Current data center platforms now span many logical nodes where resources, data, and users are shared between infrastructures. When it comes to delivering applications, the challenges of performance, security, and reliability have not changed. What have changed are the environments and conditions under which those challenges must be addressed. In particular, the extension of the data center into cloud environments poses significant obstacles to IT operations trying to maintain consistent policies between data center infrastructure services and those in the cloud. Without architectural parity between the environments, applications may execute without consistent policies for security, performance, and availability. The results include increased risk, unpredictable performance, and loss of control over user satisfaction.

In this whitepaper from F5 Networks, you’ll see how the evolution of cloud computing has resulted in the next generation of application delivery. The current excitement around SDN and network functions virtualization (NFV) add programmability and extensibility to this list, since application delivery solutions can rapidly extend network and application services and thus enable rapid service definition and quick response to changing market demands.

The paper outlines the key delivery solutions around SDAS including:

As the data center and cloud model continue to evolve – it will be crucial for administrators to control performance, security, and availability of their respective services. Today, service providers and enterprises need to efficiently provision application services based on the demands and needs of individual subscribers and services. An application that may not need to scale today may still benefit from performance-related services, and subscribers may pay a premium for an optimized mobile experience but not enhanced security. Operations must be able to meet these needs and more with equal alacrity and minimal cost. Remember, creating direct optimizations around your application delivery model will help with an overall reduction in delivery costs and help optimize the user experience.