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Network Dictionary – Application Delivery Controller

7th March 2010 By 10 Comments

Application Delivery Controller (ADC) – The new marketing name for a “load balancer”. Someone put a shiny chrome exhaust and new buttons on it and so it needed a new marketing name. Calling my coffee cup a “Liquid Receptacle Device with Enhanced Handling Features” doesn’t change the fact that it holds ocffee.

Note: the Web Application Firewall and Application Acceleration / Optimisation features that are in most ADC are not really load balancing at all. Which is fine, because my router is more a like a switch, or my switch is more like a router and I don’t go around calling it “Enhanced Packet and Frame Silicon Accelerated Data Controller”. No, I just call it a switch or a router.

Feel free to call it a load balancer when the F5 sales rep is on the ground though. It’s guaranteed to upset them.

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About Greg Ferro

Greg Ferro is a Network Engineer/Architect, mostly focussed on Data Centre, Security Infrastructure, and recently Virtualization. He has over 20 years in IT, in wide range of employers working as a freelance consultant including Finance, Service Providers and Online Companies. He is CCIE#6920 and has a few ideas about the world, but not enough to really count.

He is a host on the Packet Pushers Podcast, blogger at EtherealMind.com and on Twitter @etherealmind and Google Plus

  • http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/macvittie Lori MacVittie

    Hi Greg,

    I’m going to have to beg to differ with you on your definition. An application delivery controller is not just a “new marketing name” for an old technology. There are significant differences between load-balancers and application delivery controllers that go much deeper than security and acceleration add-ons.

    Layer 7 switching is one very big difference, as well as Content based routing.

    An ADC is a platform, a load-balancer is not. And as a platform, an ADC offers a great deal more flexibility and functionality than a load-balancer.

    Thanks,
    Lori

    • http://etherealmind.com Greg Ferro

      No need to beg :-) , and, please, feel free to disagree, but don’t expect me to fall down in marketing rapture at F5′s markitecture for load balancers.

      For example, modern routers not only forward IP packets, they also do QoS, Filtering, Network Monitoring and Reporting, virtualisation and so on. Has the market renamed them Advanced Packet Controllers ? Packet Service Engines ? (actually, not for lack of trying either now that I think about it.)

      ADC is just a name to try and differentiate your product from competitors. Sure you do all those things, and more, but lets not overdo the hype.

      Keep it real.

      • http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/macvittie Lori MacVittie

        Good point on the routers. The terminology isn’t to differentiate from competitors, however, as every “load balancer” in the market is generally using the term ADC now. It is, in part, to differentiate between load-balancing, which is a rudimentary method of handling application scalability and reliability, and application delivery, which takes a more intelligent, interactive approach to the problem.

        I do see where you’re coming from, though, and understand the frustration with terminology and what you see as marketing over substance. But generally speaking when we start talking to folks about things other than basic load-balancing they’re surprised by what else they can do – because they think the products are just “load-balancers”. That’s a good reason to differentiate between the two products because there are “just load-balancers” out there that don’t have the capabilities that an ADC does.

        Apologies if my passion for the market in general comes across as hype. ;-) I’ve been involved in load-balancing and ADCs for much longer than I’ve been at F5 and the evolution and capabilities of all the products in the market have grown so much that sometimes I get a little (okay a lot) excited about it.

        Lori

        • http://etherealmind.com Greg Ferro

          I think my point cuts both ways, as consumers we should understand what we are buying so that fancy names don’t blind us to reality. Thats is mostly the point of my tongue in cheek approach.

          Love passion, that’s what lets me do this too. :-)

          Folks, go over to http://www.theapplicationdeliverynetwork.com/ and keep up to date with Lori personal site (skip the F5 one). I may not always agree but , respect!, she has got tons of it when it comes to this stuff.

      • http://ertw.com/blog/ Sean

        Or “Integrated Services Routers” or “Aggregation Services Router”? I haven’t heard anyone without a suit and a Cisco badge use the term “unified communications” in a serious context.

        “Routers” weren’t called routers when they originally came out, we didn’t have “layer 3 switches” originally, and a “switch” is just a multiport bridge. But these are the terms we use now without thinking.

        F5 is doing exactly what Seth Godin would tell them to do — differentiate themselves. If they’re successful, the market will call ADCs ADCs and load balancers load balancers. If not, no one uses the term ADC.

        Call it load balancing, application services, whatever you want. The stuff that F5 calls “application delivery” is amazing. We’ve got our F5 split testing traffic between different versions of the application and fixing problems in legacy code. From my chair, even if the term never sticks F5 has earned the right to try.

        Sean

        • http://lbdigest.com Tony Bourke

          Seth Godin tells us to differentiate in real ways, not marketing terms :)

  • Charles

    Application Delivery Controllers are what all good load balancers grew up to be. ;-)

    Seriously though, a hardware load balancer is the aggregate point of virtualization across all applications. ADCs also represent advanced concepts like application dependency and dynamic provisioning.

  • http://knowledgehub.zeus.com FrintonBoy

    Hi,

    I try not to agree with Lori too much ;-) , but I find myself having to do so here!

    I often talk about ADCs being the 3rd generation of the family of products that started with Load Balancing.

    Gen 1. Load balancing – messing about with IP addresses, in a network bridge
    Gen 2. Application Acceleration – become a proxy and add caching etc
    Gen 3. ADC – take all that came before, then wrap it with intelligence (scripting language etc)

    Not every vendor, or product set has made it through all the generations. That is why it is useful to differentiate. Otherwise you end up comparing apples with a dissimilar fruit of your choice…

    Nick

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  • Julien Goodwin

    So when’s the Packet Pushers “Liquid Receptacle Device with Enhanced Handling Features” coming?