ADCaaS Definition
ADCaaS is an acronym for Application Delivery Controller As A Service. It is an on-demand application delivery controller (ADC) including load balancing and other application services. An ADCaaS is a hosted service in the cloud. Using an ADCaaS does not require owning any on-premises load balancing software or hardware.
What Does ADCaaS Stand For?
ADCaaS stands for Application Delivery Controller As A Service. The same concept is referred to as Load Balancing As A Service (LBaaS) in environments like OpenStack.
What Is ADCaaS?
ADCaaS is a global application delivery controller offered as an on-demand service. Application delivery controllers (ADCs) provide essential services such as load balancing and application firewall that applications must have to run properly. As the name implies, Application Delivery Controller as a Service (ADCaaS) refers to a service that provides ADC capabilities in an agile SaaS delivery model optimized for cloud computing.
How Does ADCaaS Work?
An ADCaaS offers all the functions of an application delivery controller (ADC), just delivered as a hosted service in the cloud. It is, of course, software-based as opposed to hardware-based, which also includes the virtual load balancer version. The primary role of an ADCaaS is load balancing, but it can also offer application acceleration, caching, compression, traffic shaping, content switching, multiplexing and application security. ADCs accelerate and optimize application performance with the following techniques: application classification, compression and reverse caching.
What Are the Benefits of Using ADCaaS?
As the amount of data traffic increases in the public and private cloud, the need for ADCaaS will also grow. The more on-demand data that organizations require, the more they will enjoy the efficient and cost-effective application delivery provided by ADCaaS use cases. Because ADCaaS is only in the cloud — users don’t have to own any on-premises software — ADCaaS allows companies to have a cloud-first infrastructure policy.
ADCaaS benefits:
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Lower up-front cost
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- — Software-based ADCs cost less than physical hardware ADCs, especially when depending on cloud computing and the need to load balance hundreds of applications. But ADCaaS takes the savings even further because it’s software on-demand. Companies don’t need to buy a server. Everything is hosted and billed on consumption.
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Ease of management
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- — ADCaaS is easier to manage than on-premises software because the vendor handles any software updates that a customer needs. ADCaaS does not require IT staff for installation, configuration and maintenance, which makes it much simpler than hardware versions. ADCaaS also avoids complicated service and support — or even having to own a server.
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Agility
- — ADCaaS can be procured, installed and configured in minutes regardless of on premises or in the cloud. Software-based ADCs can also be quickly reassigned based on workload demand.
ADCaaS Versus Hardware Application Delivery Controllers
Hardware-based ADCs tied to a physical location do not provide the same benefits as ADCaaS. It’s much easier to manage ADCs built using a completely software-based architecture which is hosted by the vendor for customers to use on demand.
When it comes to load balancing and scaling performance, organizations that depend on rapid growth will find ADCaaS much more easier to use than hardware ADC.
Hardware ADCs are usually offered at various levels of scalability and require configuring new hardware when an organization scale to the next level. With ADCaaS, scalability is possible on demand. The vendor hosts the software and its deployed whenever the customer needs it.
Does Avi Network Offer ADCaaS?
Yes. Avi’s ADCaaS product is called Avi SaaS. It is the cloud-hosted option to deliver application services including distributed load balancing, web application firewall, global server load balancing (GSLB), network and application performance management across a multi-cloud environment. Avi SaaS helps ensure fast time-to-value, operational simplicity, and deployment flexibility in a highly secure manner.
For more on the actual implementation of load balancing, security applications and web application firewalls check out our Application Delivery How-To Videos.
For more information see the following ADCaaS resources: