APPLICATION PERFORMANCE - Equinix

1Application Performance: End-User Quality of Experience Checklist

E N D - U S E R Q UA L I T Y O F E X P E R I E N C E

C H E C K L I ST

APPLICATION PERFORMANCE


As businesses continue to globalize and support a distributed, around-the-clock workforce, it’s become more important than ever to deploy an infrastructure that offers a seamless, straightforward experience for all end users. This includes access to enterprise applications and data anytime, anywhere, using any device, from a variety of networks. As such, modern, secure and network-dense commercial data centers are essential for enterprises as they evolve their IT infrastructure and face the complex demands of the future.

Are your enterprise applications up to date?

THE CENTER OF TOMORROW


Notes

GET STARTEDUse this comprehensive end-user Quality of Experience (QoE) checklist to assess your current state of application performance and determine whether you’re delivering the best QoE to your customer.

Yes No NotesQuestion

Do you know where your end users are located? If so, where are they?

Ex: continents, countries, states, cities, regions

Global workforce:

- Worldwide headquarters in Chicago

- Regional headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany, and Hong Kong

- Operations in North America, South America, Europe and Asia

- Mobile Sales Force

- End users can be in any of these places at any time

Global data centers provide:

- A global platform

- Proximity hosting, benefiting those with many applications

- A global workforce with various end-user devices

Yes,Global

1. Identify and locate your end-user communities


Question Yes No Notes

Do you know what resources your end users are accessing or need access to? If so, what are they?

Ex: applications like e-commerce apps, real-time apps (voice, video, etc.), VDI, etc.

Data: real-time medical imaging, SharePoint, etc.

Do you know how your end users are accessing those resources? If so, how are they accessing them?

Ex: mobile devices, desktops, etc.

All enterprise apps reside behind the enterprise security perimeter:

- CRM

- Voice/video consulting/collaboration

- VPN (prone to access issues)

- Expense platform

- Trouble ticketing

- SAP (supply chain)

- Financial software

- Oracle

- Document sharing (SharePoint)

- VDI (limited)

- Microsoft Active Directory

- Fixed workstations

- Laptops

- Mobile devices (tablets, smartphones)

- Multiple network technologies (Ethernet, Wi-Fi, cellular data)

- Any device can be used across multiple locations, multiple access points

Yes

Yes

1. Identify and locate your end-user communities


Classifying Enterprise Application by Latency and Business Criticality

LATENCY SENSITIVITY

BU

SIN

ESS

CR

ITIC

ALI

TY

Collaboration

Best Effort> 100ms

> 2000km

Priority< 100ms

< 2000km< 50ms

< 500km< 5ms

< 50km

Real-Time Proximity

Video

Voice

Imaging Apps

Virtual Desktop

Mainframe

Web/HTTP

Transactional Apps

HR-Finance CRM-

ERP-BI

Procurement

Trading Desk

Analytics

EmailCollaboration

Document Management

Archive/DR Apps

Yes NoQuestion Notes

Are you able to characterize your apps based on their sensitivity to latency and their business criticality? If yes, where do your apps fall within the scale?

See example in chart below.

- Issues with delayed voice/video conferencing

- Complaints on immediacy of file share capabilities

- Difficulty receiving real-time service desk


- Solution Validation Centers (SVCs) to assist with benchmarking

Yes

(We cannot provide specific metrics.)

2. Characterize your applications – Part 1


Proximity ApplicationsProximity applications tend to perform optimally within a 50 km radius (or smaller) and with less than five milliseconds of latency end-to-end. Perhaps the best example of a proximity application is high-frequency securities trading. Most financial services firms select a data center location based on proximity to execution venues and their market data sources. In fact, the Equinix data center campus in the New York metropolitan area is home to one of the largest financial ecosystems in the world. Within these facilities, Equinix hosts more than 170 market participants, 18 execution venues and 60 specialized financial services vendors. By locating in close proximity to other industry participants within Equinix’s data centers, these companies are just a direct fiber cross-connect away from one another, significantly reducing the latency associated with their transactions. This is why proximity applications are typically deployed in a distributed architecture clustered within data centers located in the metropolitan areas they serve.

Real-time ApplicationsReal-time applications generally require deployment within a 500 km radius of key end-user communities and perform best in environments supporting less than 50 milliseconds of latency. Virtual desktop and video applications fall into the real-time application category. Real-time applications are typically deployed in a distributed architecture serving a wider geography than proximity applications, often inclusive of multiple metropolitan areas. For example, real-time applications may be deployed in Washington, D.C., Chicago and San Francisco to serve end-user communities in the eastern, central and western regions of the United States. Another example of a real-time application involves the efficient distribution of large high-resolution medical images. As large images are transferred over ever-greater distances, the latency and packet loss and subsequent TCP retransmissions increase to the point where the end-user experience becomes unacceptable. For these application types, latency reduction is critical.


Are you able to categorize your apps based on predetermined service radius guidelines, such as proximity, real time, priority and best effort? If yes, which categories does each fall under?

See category definitions below.

Our application platforms are centralized, with users accessing them via VPN with varying results.

Complaints about app performance include:

- Real-time apps (voice/video)

- File sharing (CIFS, NFS)

- VDI

- SharePoint


- SVCs

Sort of. I know which apps I get complaints about.

2. Characterize your applications – Part 2


Priority ApplicationsPriority applications generally require deployment within a 2,000 km radius of key end-user communities and perform best in environments supporting less than 100 milliseconds of latency. Voice and collaboration applications fall into the priority category. Priority applications are typically deployed in a distributed architecture serving a wider geography than real-time applications – often inclusive of entire continents. For example, priority applications may be deployed in Chicago; São Paulo; Frankfurt, Germany; and Hong Kong to service end-user communities in North America, South America, Europe and Asia.

Best-effort ApplicationsBest-effort applications are less susceptible to latency and often perform at acceptable levels at distances greater than 2,000 km and more than 100 milliseconds of latency. Though the performance of these applications can be significantly improved by distributing them closer to end-user communities, they often meet performance expectations when deployed and managed centrally. For enterprises focused on centralizing and consolidating IT infrastructure, best-effort applications are the most obvious targets for deployment in a central location.


Do you know the current state of your WAN?

Is your WAN fully optimized to meet the current and future needs of your end users?

Ex: Access to bandwidth at the best possible costs with the necessary levels of redundancy globally

Connectivity within regions is generally good. International can be challenging. I use AT&T for MPLS globally.

Probably not, but AT&T makes it easy for me . I use its MPLS network for my corporate WAN. I also need a disaster recovery and failover strategy. I have to make sure I can count on my provider for disaster recovery resources.


- A performance hub (better reliability, lower cost)

Yes

No

3. Optimize your network


Levels of the End-User Experience

4

32

1

1

2

3

4

Headquarters Experience – Users located in close proximity to where applications are hosted experience good application performance.

Branch Office Experience – Still positive end-user experience, but certain applications may be affected.

Remote Office Experience – Negative end-user experience because of distance from application delivery.

Mobile Experience – Users find it very dificult to do their jobs.

Yes No NotesQuestion

Have you determined appropriate deployment strategies for each app based on dispersion of the end users accessing them and the latency thresholds that need to be met to deliver high QoE?

See example in chart below.

Our app infrastructure is centralized. I haven’t distributed because I don’t have data centers outside the U.S . Also, most of my staff


- A performance hub

- A global footprint

- Proximity hosting

No

4. Distribute your applications – Part 1



- SVCs

- Solutions Architects (SAs)


Locate these applications within the required service radius. Do more than one apply?

Ex: headquarters experience, branch office experience, remote office experience, or mobile experience

I need help with app distribution . My pain points are:

- Voice/video/collaboration

- VDI

- File sharing/SharePoint

- Anything back-ended by Oracle

These pose particular problems for my remote workers in EMEA and APAC.

? ?

4. Distribute your applications – Part 2


After you’ve determined your deployment strategies and located the apps within the service radius, are you able to assess appropriate and available delivery methods (public and private clouds, managed services and SaaS)? If yes, please do so.

Ex: public and private clouds, managed services, SaaS, etc.

I ’m evaluating cloud and think some of

my end users are already using cloud for

unofficial IT solutions. My main focus is on

migrating my current infrastructure to a

private cloud environment. I am looking at

public cloud for testing and development,

and potentially for analytics. I don’t/

can’t put sensitive data into a public cloud

environment. Some of my staff are using

Amazon Web Services on a tactical basis, but

I ’m not sure how much .


- Direct connect to cloud

- Compliance

- Hybrid cloud

- NetApp® Private Storage

Sort Of

5. Optimize service consumption


Ready to take the next steps in application performance optimization?Use your checklist responses as a starting point to establish a data center strategy properly tailored to your end user. Increasing this relevance boosts their satisfaction and level of connectivity, now and in the future.

NEED ADDITIONAL INFORMATION OR CLARIFICATION ABOUT THE ABOVE STEPS?

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