Running enterprise software over a Wan or the internet can be
expensive and less than satisfactory. Could an innovative new
approach be the answer?
Unlimited bandwidth was the promise made by many networking
suppliers, carriers and service providers a few years ago, so where
is this "superhighway"?
Today, bandwidth is far from unlimited once you get beyond the
limits of the internal network. Moreover, the huge applications
such as databases, enterprise resource planning, customer
relationship management and accounting which are designed to be run
across high-bandwidth links are now also being pushed out across
the internet and other low-bandwidth connections.
Consequently, enterprise software is being used within and outside
company offices, even if performance is somewhat lacking.
Over the past few months, I have seen a number of hardware products
where the aim, wholly or partially, is to accelerate the
performance of enterprise applications, especially when running
across the internet or a low-bandwidth Wan connection. For example,
Redline Networks' Layer 7 traffic accelerator has been designed
with this job in mind.
A survey commissioned by Redline Networks found that web-enabled
application delivery is creating serious challenges for the 92% of
enterprises that are using this method.
Organisations are spending hundreds of thousands of pounds to fix
performance, security and other problems associated with transition
to web-enabled versions of enterprise applications. However,
despite the cost, more than 50% of users said they were still
either in the planning stages of addressing the problems or simply
"living with the pain".
More than 60% of companies said application performance suffered
and security risks grew following the move from client-server
application models to web-enabled approaches.
Beyond the cost of deploying the applications, users said that to
deal with the problems they had spent an average of more than
£110,000 - and in some cases over £270,000 - chiefly on network and
firewall upgrades, additional server capacity and web-tier point
products.
So not only are you expected to shell out millions of pounds for
several software applications and development platforms - each of
which you have to integrate - but you then have to spend even more
and add extra complexity to your network to achieve a reasonable
(usable) level of performance.
The problem is not new. When Citrix and other suppliers popularised
the thin-client approach - and Lan speeds were typically lower than
they are today - many users attempted to improve their application
performance by switching to a thin client architecture to improve
network performance.
Citrix handled the GUI for the client part of he enterprise system,
which was located physically next to the database server to reduce
latency. Add web access to this, and it became much more difficult
to guarantee any kind of decent performance when using enterprise
software.
Sounds perverse doesn't it? Yet millions of companies have
committed themselves to exactly this scenario. The enterprise
software market is worth about £13bn a year according to analysts,
so someone is spending big money despite the performance issues.
This has led to a new wave of networking hardware suppliers working
at Layer 7, such as NetScaler.
"Enterprise software generally brings some hefty overheads and
complex issues in terms of network infrastructure," said Mark Edge,
NetScaler's director of operations EMEA.
"One of the big challenges in rolling out enterprise software
hinges around Wan performance. There is been a big migration to
Wan, yet most enterprise applications are simply not geared to
it."
So, although it seems there are some answers to the enterprise
software speed issues, they involve yet more investment and added
complexity in the network.
One route that many larger companies, notably in the banking
sector, have been forced down, is to do everything in-house,
developing as much as possible in a bespoke fashion to achieve the
required performance and reliability levels.
Yet this approach also has its problems, as one source from a
banking group in the City observed, having had "bitter experience
of late-running, over-budget, under-performing in-house builds".
Another gripe was the lack of flexibility when it came to requests
for minor functionality changes, new data fields and similar
updates.
An alternative would be to take a different approach to enterprise
software. One example I have seen in pre-release form (due to be
launched this autumn) is the Thingamy. According to the
manufacturer, this is a "fresh from the ground-up" approach to
redefining enterprise software with an internet-oriented way of
working in mind, being totally browser-based and data efficient.
Initial in-house tests have shown it to be thousands of times
faster than an equivalent Oracle database.
Sigurd Rinde of Thingamy believes the only real solution is radical
change, so the company is developing what he described as a
complete business modelling and development application, designed
to replace any and all of the existing enterprise applications with
a single product and a single methodology for all business
application development.
It is clearly an ambitious concept, but one that many would argue
is long overdue. Rinde's approach is to start off by looking at
what enterprise users are doing to try to run their business on
computer networks.
"Is there any good reason why we run our businesses as we do? Might
there be an alternative? Why do billions of management consultant
hours get paid, millions of management handbooks get sold and
unbelievable sums get spent on research and education of managers,
yet it does not get us moving forward by leaps and bounds? It is
surely time to question this logic," Rinde said.
He cited companies such as Amazon, Dell and EasyJet as successful
companies that have embraced back-end computer systems and the
internet to move their businesses forward. They have done this by
building their own systems from scratch, by not relying on outmoded
business models and processes or holding on to classic
organisational hierarchies and culture concepts, but by redefining
these "virtual" structures with a real, ground-up, business model,
Rinde said.
One beta user of Thingamy has already observed a positive reaction
to his customers' experience of the system developed using the
software, noting that not only did they find it easy to use, but
that it saved time by having the information presented in the way
it was. Another user noted that a start-to-finish process that
normally took hours was completed in just eight minutes.
Whether the Thingamy approach will work, only time will tell, but
at least one supplier is being enterprising enough to challenge the
long-accepted way of the enterprise application and its new role as
a web-based tool.
Steve Broadhead, Broadband-Testing
Steve Broadhead runs Broadband-Testing Labs, a spin-off from
independent test organisation the NSS Group. Author of DSL and
Metro Ethernet reports, Broadhead is now involved in a number of
projects in the broadband, mobile, network management and wireless
Lan areas, from product testing to service design and
implementation. www.broadband-testing.co.uk
