Overview
The marketing wizard Seth Godin once remarked, “It’s easier to love a brand when the brand loves you back”! This timeless statement emphasizes today’s most important business aspect- ‘Client Engagement’.
Now, for interacting with digital customers, applications have emerged as the most influential media for communication. To keep up the pace with ever-changing demands, the applications must evolve accordingly and deliver the best possible client experience.
Easy said but hard done!
These days applications are deployed across heterogeneous environments viz. on-premise, multi-cloud, containers, hybrid infrastructure, etc. But for the development and delivery, organizations are still relying on the conventional manual approach. This inefficient methodology is highly prone to errors and in turn, significantly increases the time for initial release.
But this is only one aspect. There are other problems in deployment across heterogeneous environments which this article put light on and offer effective solutions.
Challenges for NetOps, DevOps, and SecOps Team
In this era of CI/CD, enterprises need a connected, quick, and flexible application infrastructure. Only then they can witness the concerted and concentrated efforts from all the teams working together. But due to the varied architectures, variety of tools, and various frameworks, organizations are found to struggle with the IT complexities.
The NetOps, SecOps, and DevOps teams are ladened with the responsibility of developing and continuously delivering the products and services without any glitches. Security and on-time delivery of the products are of utmost importance as well.
All these complexities get exacerbated with deployments across heterogeneous environments. This is because any solution developed for or used by the NetOps, DevOps, and SecOps must be supported across multiple environments.
Automate and Orchestrate F5 BIG-IP Platform with AppViewX
In this context, the important aspects to be considered by the businesses are:
1. Faster Deliveries
Speed is the biggest challenge in the application delivery service across heterogeneous environments. As the application traffic is distributed across various servers and there is a cluster of application delivery controllers to be looked at, the complexities delay the delivery.
2. Scalability
If the application traffic is increasing then there is a need to enhance the capabilities in form of servers and databases. In such scenarios, the networking infrastructure and other operations related to application development and security must also be scaled up in commensuration with the needs.
3. Complex Infrastructure
Multiple environments, numerous devices, and various applications facing the traffic round the clock are other hurdles.
4. Piling up of Service Request Tickets
Delivering the best possible user experience demands the application to be up to date all the time. The applications need continuous updates to enhance efficiency. For this, there are hundreds of change requests piling up and the sole dependence on NetOps for their execution, leading to long queues.
5. Lack of app-centric visibility
The application databases are spread across various data-centers at different geographic locations and the same is the situation of servers and ADCs. One needs to individually orchestrate different ADCs with their specific consoles and have to manage different tools for specific needs. There is a lack of app-centric hierarchal visibility into the networking infrastructure.
6. Security Issues
The lack of standardization in the overall operations put the application security into question. Improper policy integration and loopholes in the communication mechanisms adversely affect the integrity of infrastructure.
7. Teams working in silos
Communication and operational Gaps between the teams lower the efficiency of business processes.
8. Ensuring Peak Performance
The underperforming applications are a nightmare not only for the DevOps and NetOps teams but also for the businesses as a whole. The end-users might be piled up with error notifications and the DevOps team has to rectify the issue fast while ensuring the minimum downtime.
The Ultimate Solution
Imagine a scenario in which the developer has an application ready and only needs the scalability, continuity, and security using an ADC before rolling out through the network. Obviously, there would not be much time to wait for provisioning, and there are also great chances that network professionals would not be at ease with the security and networking configuration.
The conventional way is creating the ticket, reaching out to the administrator, understanding the use case, and developing the settings for testing.
This expensive and time-consuming approach hinders continuous delivery.
The best solution is automated self-service provisioning with pre-configured workflows thus technical complexities will be abstracted and the network security intricacies will also reduce.
How AppViewX ADC+ Streamlines Application Delivery with Automation
The automation solution from AppViewX comes as the aforementioned ultimate solution. With the automated workflows, the AppViewX platform abstracts the technical nitty-gritty of networking infrastructure and alleviates the complexities associated with deploying applications across heterogeneous environments.
With the standardized methodology to simplify and accelerate the application delivery, the NetOps, SecOps, and DevOps teams can self-service the template-based automation workflows, and deliver true business agility while ensuring regulatory and security compliances.
Along with the workflow automation, the AppViewX platform facilitates centralized management and orchestration of all ADC devices. The GUI-based dashboard also facilitates an app-centric topological view of the complete networking infrastructure.
Other leading edges include Application and service lifecycle management, traffic management, health, and performance monitoring, incident resolution, etc.- All this through a single pane of glass.
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About the Author
Devanshu Dawn
Product Marketing Manager
A product enthusiast, who strategizes and communicates product's value to prospects and customers through narratives based on solid research, simplifying their purchase decisions.
