Delivering applications to end-users is the reason why most IT services and infrastructure exists. When people use business IT systems, they will most likely be using an application for some job-related task. In the modern IT landscape, these applications frequently get delivered over the Internet, either as pure web applications or as applications wrapped in a web-based client.
Making sure applications are always available and usable is vital. Application downtime and slowness have real costs in lost sales, poor customer satisfaction, and diminished staff productivity.
Keeping Applications Online and Performant
All servers (whether physical, virtual, or container-based) have occasional issues and periodically need to be taken offline for scheduled maintenance. Deploying multiple servers that can run applications provides redundancy to cope with planned and unplanned outages.
But the reality of application delivery is that you often have multiple applications spread across multiple clouds made up of multiple back-end servers providing services to multiple devices across multiple geographies. The complexity and fluidity of modern SaaS is beyond any scope of manual manageability.
Load balancers, or application delivery controllers (ADC), are designed to automate application delivery in modern infrastructure deployments. They sit between the application servers and the clients, managing access requests and sessions. Load balancers use intelligent algorithms to share the incoming client requests across the available servers – by monitoring the health of each server in the application pool, they ensure that incoming access requests are sent to the server currently best placed to respond.
When a server is overloaded, has an issue, or is taken offline by system admins for maintenance, the load balancer discovers this and stops sending access requests to that server. When the server is available again, the load balancing software learns this and adds it back into the available server pool. Spikes in demand for applications can also be handled automatically by provisioning new virtual machines when loads are high, and then shutting them off when demand drops.
Kemp is a company with a reputable line of LoadMaster load balancers that provide advanced application delivery tailored to the needs of modern businesses. In keeping with the trends of decentralization and telework, they deploy global load balancing algorithms to ensure uninterrupted application delivery no matter where on the planet users may be.
Kemp load balancing works across multiple locations in the cloud and private data centers. LoadMaster Global Server Load Balancing (GSLB) enables service delivery for applications from sites that are closest to users while at the same time providing global geographic resilience. If a cloud service provider or local data center is offline, GSLB will route requests to another global site that hosts the application. This ensures availability and disaster recovery provision even following significant regional issues.
Keeping a Watch on The Network
Server availability is an essential part of the application experience equation, but so is the state of the network that applications are using.
Because applications rely on the network delivery, keeping a watch on the network for any bottlenecks or anomalies that impact access and performance is vital. Many infrastructure monitoring tools are excellent for alerting IT teams when something breaks. But they are less helpful in pinpointing problems that result in end-users complaining that “the system is slow!” In such cases, the situation calls for more in-depth analytics that go beyond simple red/green status.
Kemp Flowmon network performance monitoring & diagnostics (NPMD) suite addresses this problem. It delivers deep, contextual analysis and utilization statistics about the state of the network. Via extensive visualization tools, any issues causing degradation in application performance can be quickly identified, analyzed, and fixed. All without the typical “it’s not our problem” back and forth that can occur between IT teams.
This network monitoring also spots the behaviors associated with cybercriminal activity and alerts when attackers operate on the network. Using the MITRE ATT&CK framework, Kemp’s monitoring tools alert and report on issues in easily understood ways.
Find Out More
Kemp Technologies focuses on delivering the best application experience in the industry. Our solutions ensure that applications are always available, perform optimally, and are secure. Contact us at (+632) 8706 5592, email sales@acw-group.com.ph or visit https://kemptechnologies.com to find out more.
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