Yet again, we hear the same tired, old line that a software ADC is somehow “a lower-end solution. It's got all the functionality but it doesn't have the performance”. In a recent interview, F5 CEO John McAdam went on to assert that software offers “single-digit gigabits-per-second vs. hundreds of gigabits-per-second” for an integrated hardware solution. This simultaneously flatters F5’s own Virtual Edition (which tops out at 1 Gbps) and overstates the real-world capacity of integrated hardware appliances that depend on hardware fast paths to achieve such performance heights; layer4/7 fast-paths that preclude the use of the sophisticated ADC functionality that is often needed to support the application.
The application and infrastructure experts who take responsibility for the successful deployment and delivery of a business’s applications think differently in term of performance: page views, site visitors, number of customers, transactions per second, and service levels and page load time. These need to be measured within the context of the specific capabilities of an ADC that are required to deliver the applications effectively. Performance depends on the efficiency of the ADC software and scales with the CPU capacity of the server or appliance.
Measuring the value of an ADC solution in terms of gigabits alone is understandable when hardware is your differentiator, but it misses the value of an ADC. The value that distinguishes an ADC from a network load balancer is realized when it finds it way to the individual who understands the needs of the applications. An ADC is a tool to help deal with unexpected application problems, application security vulnerabilities, flash floods that need smart prioritization, to facilitate routine maintenance, yet so often we hear the same complaint from application owners at organizations where hardware ADCs are incumbent – frustration that the tool that might fix their problem is managed by another team who have very different goals, constraints and SLAs.
Organizational changes alone cannot resolve these difficulties. There will certainly always be a place for the hulking hardware ADC-asaurus, exiled to the edge of the datacentre to perform basic load balancing and routing with little thought, but the more challenging application delivery problems need the flexibility and scale that only an on-tap software solution can offer.
The emerging datacentre infrastructure, whether physical, virtual or cloud, shows two qualities – programmable to the needs of the business services that are delivered, and responsive to the needs of the applications that make up the services. Insisting that an ADC will always be tied to a piece of tin fails to recognise neither this trend in infrastructure, nor the needs of the new application users of advanced ADC functionality.
We’re proud to find ourselves helping customers to achieve things with their applications that they could not do with our technology. Software (ADC, web/app server, whatever), in the hands of the application experts, enables quick prototyping, rapid application release cycles, flexible and immediate test environments, and our customers know their investment in our Stingray technology can grow and move with them as their business grows with their success.