WILS
Write It Like Seth
Seth Godin gets his point across with brevity and wit. WILS is an exercise in concise writing about application delivery that gets straight to the point.
Understanding web #acceleration techniques and when to apply them We’ve already discussed the difference between acceleration and optimization, so now it’s time to quickly dig into the difference between the two major types of acceleration: WPO (Web Performance Optimization) and FEO (Front End Optimization). The difference is important because each technique is effective at addressing different performance bottlenecks, and obviously applying the wrong solution to the problem will not provide the desired results, i.e. fast, fast, fast web applications. WPO focuses on content delivery, which means it applies different optimization techniques to counter poorly...
We focus a lot on encouraging developers to get more “ops” oriented, but seem to have forgotten networking pros also need to get more “apps” oriented. Most networking professionals know their relevant protocols, the ones they work with day in and day out, that many of them are able to read a live packet capture without requiring a protocol translation to “plain English”. These folks can narrow down a packet as having come from a specific component from its ARP address because they’ve spent a lot of time analyzing and troubleshooting network issues. And...
Why these two are very different but complementary technologies Have you ever wondered why one network product is called a “controller” while another seemingly similar in function solution is called a “gateway”? There’s actually a very good reason for the naming and despite appearing to act similarly they do fill different roles in an architecture and are often called upon to work together. GATEWAYS If you loosely defined a gateway as a “converter” or “translator” you’d be very close to nailing down a simple definition. Gateways act as mediators between...
One of the universal truths about user adoption is that if performance degrades, they will kick and scream and ultimately destroy your project. Most VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure) solutions today still make use of traditional thin-client protocols like RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) as a means to enable communication between the client and their virtual desktop. Starting with VMware View 4.5, VMware introduced the high-performance PCoIP (PC over IP) communications protocol. While PCoIP is usually associated with rich media delivery, it is also useful in improving performance over distances. Such as the distances often associated with...
Understanding the relationship between SNAT and connection limitations in full proxy intermediaries.
If you’ve previously delved into the world of SNAT (which is becoming increasingly important in large-scale implementations, such as those in the service provider world) you remember that SNAT essentially provides an IP address from which a full-proxy intermediary can communicate with server-side resources and maintain control over the return routing path.
There is an interesting relationship between intermediaries that leverage two separate TCP stacks (such as full-proxies) and SNAT in terms of concurrent (open) connections that can be supported by any given “virtual” server...
There’s compression, and then there’s compression. One of the most common means of improving application performance is to reduce the size of the data being exchanged as redress for inherent network protocol behavior that can cause excessive delays in delivery of application data. Compression is often enabled to achieve this goal, and because most data being delivered to applications is text-based (XML, HTML, JSON) this technique generally works quite well. Depending on the architecture of the application delivery network, however, there may be other “types” of compression that can be used in addition to the “compression” typically associated...
The problem with HTTP (okay, one of the problems with HTTP, happy now?) is that it resides at the top of the “stack” regardless of whether we identify the “stack” as based upon the TCP/IP stack or the OSI model stack. In either case, HTTP sits at the top like a a king upon his throne. There’s nothing “higher” than the application in today’s networking models. But like every good king, HTTP has a crown: the actual application data exchanged in the body of an HTTP transaction. In the good old days, when intermediaries (proxies) were only able...
The difference between these two performance metrics is significant so be sure you know which one you’re measuring, and which one you wanted to be measuring. It may be the case that you’ve decided that SSL is, in fact, a good idea for securing data in transit. Excellent. Now you’re trying to figure out how to implement support and you’re testing solutions or perhaps trying to peruse reports someone else generated from testing. Excellent. I’m a huge testing fan and it really is one of the best ways to size a solution specifically for your...
Most people don’t start thinking they need a “load balancer” until they need a second server. But even if you’ve only got one server a “load balancer” can help with availability, with performance, and make the transition later on to a multiple server site a whole lot easier. Before we reveal the secret sauce, let me first say that if you have only one server and the application crashes or the network stack flakes out, you’re out of luck. There are a lot of things load balancers/application delivery controllers can do with only one server, but automagically fixing...
We’ve been talking about “aligning IT with the business” since SOA first took legs but you rarely see CONCRETE EXMAPLES OF WHAT THAT REALLY MEANS. It sounds much more grand and lofty than it really is. To put it in layman’s terms, or at least take it out of marketing terms, aligning IT with the business is really nothing more than justifying or tying a particular IT investment or project to a specific business goal. What that means ultimately is that you, as an IT professional, must understand what those business goals are in the first place. Once...
Full WILS Archive
