It's time to think differently. Mike Fratto, lead Analyst at InformationWeek Analytics, has a new report on improving delivery of applications by leveraging performance tools and appliances.

He does a great job digging into the challenges of managing application performance across a wide range of organizations. The report is based upon a survey of 267 tech folks across the US.Almost everyone has to support multiple sites or remote users, whether it's a remote offsite or some lazy executive that doesn't want to commute. The next generation of virtualization has also given rise to a new host of options that let you pull more applications back to the data center.

I know the easy answer; just get more bandwidth. Don't get me started. Its bad enough I can't stand my cable company, that 'just buy more' attitude has spread to every ISP and Telco provider that can string a piece of dark fiber. Geez.

Stop that madness. Before you 'just buy more' think about looking at how you can improve your applications today. Yes, we're talking about load balancers, WAN optimizers, SSL appliances, and network monitoring systems; the stuff true IT geeks love. Cool Tools that can improve performance without spending more on bandwidth.

Are you using them? The big shocker of the report was the fact the 30% of organizations aren't using any application performance tools. Verizon must love them.

One note - improving application delivery requires work; tt's definitely not a plug and play type of setup. The practice covers a wide range of tools and systems, everything from inbound load balancers to outbound packet shapers. Mike does a nice job in his report of pulling them all into one goal - make stuff run faster.

And that's really the end game. There are some great lessons to be learnt from the report. The overall theme; think about the entire design. The report talks about a "best of breed" approach that includes load balancing, a tight firewall and content filtering, SSL offload capabilities, and even application monitoring.

Speaking of performance monitoring - 61% of respondents reported using anecdotal reports from end user as a tool to help determine application performance problems. Wow. My translation - we'll do nothing until there's screaming then try and figure it out

Don't wait for the screams. 88% of those that have taken the plunge and invested in some type of application delivery system reported their satisfied with the results. The old saying 'you reap what you sow' comes to mind.

The report is available for free for a limited time thanks to a few sponsors that were willing to pony up and support great research. Thanks to them and to Mike for a great deep dive on a topic that's a pain point with a lot of clients.

You can get a copy of the full report at: Enabling Fast Remote Application DeliveryStop that madness. Before you 'just buy more' think about looking at how you can improve your applications today. Yes, we're talking about load balancers, WAN optimizers, SSL appliances, and network monitoring systems; the stuff true IT geeks love. Cool Tools that can improve performance without spending more on bandwidth.

Mike Fratto, lead Analyst at InformationWeek Analytics, has a new report on improving delivery of applications by leveraging performance tools and appliances.