Whether or not you get a kick out of NASCAR or Formula 1 auto racing, you have to admit the engineering is pretty impressive.   Forget the speed, and the risk-taking bravado of the drivers. Instead, think about the ingenious use of real-time control that creates a competitive machine out of so many diverse technologies. Everything—tires, fuel, engine, aerodynamics, and countless other specialized systems—must all work together to deliver that winning thousandth of a second.   The same is true for your business applications. If you don’t have true visibility across all the applications running on your network, you can’t take control of performance. And you can’t ensure that your users will enjoy a consistent, always-on application experience.   And when the unexpected happens―as it surely will―it’s that much harder to make sure everything keeps running smoothly.   Even on a routine day, if your systems struggle to maintain efficient application workflows, it will impact business-as-usual operations.     Performance matters because agility is the key to maintaining a competitive edge. Running applications in the cloud often allows you to react faster to new business challenges and opportunities.   But it requires investment, often with significant change management and software costs, especially for ERP applications, customer management systems, and product lifecycle and supply chain management systems.   But investment doesn’t always pay off. Poor application performance can significantly impact your business results. In fact, the majority of companies say they regularly face application performance issues, which in turn leads to poor business performance.*   It’s not difficult to see why, when the average impact of a critical application failure can reach up to $1 million per hour of downtime. Productivity wanes and there is a tangible cost in the amount of time and money required to resolve business application issues.*   Why is this? The lack of an integrated approach to managing application change is behind most incidents that impact business applications.   The challenges only increase as the demand for business applications grows. And so performance can stagnate during peak periods of application demand; security risks can rise; and management becomes increasingly difficult due to the complexity of mobility and the cloud.   To improve application performance, you need a highly capable application delivery solution that provides both visibility and insight—along with the performance your end users depend on.   Brocade Virtual Application Delivery Controller (vADC) solutions give you that visibility. On-demand scaling enables high application availability at all times, and you can customize your configuration to meet the most complex application requirements.   A built-in application firewall option provides application-aware security, and seamless portability helps ensure that you get the right level of performance at the right time—on-premise or in the cloud.   With Brocade vADC solutions, you can automate the fine-tuning of application performance, so your end users are never left struggling with inadequate service or sluggish response.   After all, they are the ones in the driver’s seat who can help determine whether your business continues to win.   You can find out more, and access a free 30-day trial by downloading the eBook: “Shift Your Apps from Slow-Motion to Fast-Forward”   *Source: EMA, IDG & CIO, IDC   ... View more