The 2008 Handbook of Application Delivery

A Guide to Decision Making

by Jim Metzler, Kubernan
Published February 2008, Posted March 2008

Abstract:

If you work in IT, you either develop applications or you deliver applications.
 

Put another way, leading edge companies are creating an IT organization that is comprised of two functions: application development and application delivery. Both of these functions must work holistically in order to ensure acceptable application performance.

This view of IT affects everything - including the organizational structure, the management metrics, the requisite processes, technologies and tools. While this transformation is indeed fundamental, it will not happen quickly. We have just spent the last few years coming to understand the importance and difficulty associated with application delivery and to deploy a first generation of tools typically in a stand-alone, tactical fashion. As we enter the next phase of application delivery, leading edge IT organizations will develop plans for how they want to evolve from a stove-piped IT infrastructure function to an integrated application delivery function.

This transformation will not be easy in part because it crosses myriad organizational boundaries and involves rapidly changing technologies that have never before been developed by vendors, nor planned, designed, implemented and managed by IT organizations in a holistic fashion. Successful application delivery requires the integration of tools and processes.

One of the goals of this handbook is to help IT organizations plan for that transformation - hence the subtitle: A guide to decision making.