Guest Column - Collapse of the 'Web tier'

Migrating from client-server to Web-based, or “clientless computing” (i.e., requiring only a browser client-side) simplifies overall management cost and enables a new level of flexibility. Web-enablement is fairly new, however, and Web-based applications behave differently than client/server applications–creating a new set of pain points in and around the data center.

Given the myriad of new technologies and limited budgets, IT teams have been strained to cobble together their “new” data centers–rolling out gear specifically to support Web-enablement of key applications, in an almost ad-hoc way with a growing range of point solutions. “Best practices” have been temporarily supplanted with “best-I-can-do-with-what-I’ve-got” practices.

Compression, bandwidth utilization, secure socket layer (SSL) offload, connection management, caching, single-sign-on authentication and application optimization all are required to effectively deploy Web applications and initiatives inside an enterprise. After attempting to migrate from client/server to typical Web-based application suites, IT staffs are finding they need more: more Web servers, caches, authentication devices, server load balancers, SSL terminators, application-layer firewalls and compression devices. This collection of point products is nearly impossible to maintain, reducing application availability–a requirement for any business-critical application.

The prior thinking for what is called the “Web tier”–the boxes and Web servers at the front of the Web-based data center that sits between the firewall and application servers–was to build out the infrastructure with the traffic-management products at the center hub, with each above point product a separate spoke. This solution, however, added complexity to the Web tier and slowed performance.

The default alternative–buy bigger, faster servers, and pay consultants to help tune and optimize the Web application–is barely acceptable. The good news is that newer products now aggregate all of the above functionality, and then some, into a single box.

Today’s “application front-end” (AFE) products sit in front of the Web and application server tier, condensing the above collection of functionality into a single, more elegantly designed platform that does not process content in eight or more train stops. AFEs can substantially offload both processing and I/O from the tier of Web and application servers.

I/O processors that offload centralized computing–from mainframes to distributed computing clusters–have been around in some form since the 1960s. This approach is in line with emerging utility computing and data center virtualization initiatives. Separation of the Web tier–primarily the delivery and presentation later of applications–from the business logic and data store layers results in improved flexibility and allows each area to evolve independently without ongoing forklift upgrades.

Elimination of traffic-management products at the center results in a one- or two-box approach that delivers, typically, two to 10 times the performance and benefits of the old approach. This also results in fewer servers, and fewer boxes to manage means fewer boxes that can fail.

The payoff of a collapsed Web tier are multidimensional:

Performance. Substantially reduced server loads result in faster response and fewer servers (or better yet, extends the lifecycle of existing servers to support future growth). User response time is also improved. In addition, compression offload cuts bandwidth consumption in half.
Management. The number of systems and Web servers can be reduced 10-fold. Integrated management, fewer systems, elimination of fail-over interdependencies and reduced cabling all drive management costs down.
Security. Fewer boxes with stable security technology means fewer opportunity points for security breaches.
Availability. Fewer boxes, with added capabilities to retry requests to failed servers, reduces the potential for failures.

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Craig Stouffer is the VP of marketing for Redline Networks, Campbell, Calif. Send comments for publication to guest@comnews.com.