The role of "application delivery expert" is really coming into its own of late, along with the understanding that the traditional siloed approach to management of applications in IT no longer makes sense.

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Jim Metzler [vice president of Ashton, Metzler & Associates] recently worked with NetQoS to survey more than 175 NOC and non-NOC IT professionals about how the evolving role of the NOC affects both network and IT professionals.

Metzler moderated several sessions at Interop that had a single unifying theme: Application delivery is now an issue of critical importance for IT (and consequently network) staff, and successful application delivery depends upon the ability of that staff to transcend technology and organisational silos or "stovepipes."

He found that most NOC staff spend the majority of their time on application delivery and the WAN. "The network operations center is a lot more than networks," Metzler said in a phone interview. "In fact, I think it's a misnomer to use the phrase NOC or 'network' manager or 'network' engineer because the majority of their time is spent on other things."

This odd couple marriage between networking and applications has long been the focus of F5 and is the underlying foundation of solutions such as its Application Ready Networks.

I could write on and on about application delivery and why Mr. Metzler is so very right, but instead you might prefer listening to Forrester analyst Rob Whiteley and F5's Erik Giesa in this 37 minute webcast define Application Delivery Networking and how it solves critical deployment issues, including breaking out of those silos.

Imbibing: Mountain Dew