Enterprises must proactively adapt to reliably deliver applications and services across the internet, whether they’re web-based transactions, SaaS applications, or latency-sensitive video or unified communications applications. That’s according to Brad Casemore, Research Vice President, Datacenter Networks, at IDC.

Our team talked with Casemore recently for “Optimizing Application Delivery in an Internet and Multicloud World,” a new IDC Analyst Connection publication sponsored by Citrix. He shared with us his thoughts on application delivery and the state of the internet, the visibility required across far-flung and disparate networks, data center conditions, how to design networks to enhance application delivery and user experience, GSLB as a service, and much more.

The internet is increasingly a delivery vehicle

As applications and content continue their steady march to new cloud-based homes, there is an increasing reliance on the internet for application delivery to users. The internet is a dynamic environment not under the control of a single entity, Casemore says, which causes huge problems for the enterprise delivering content to the users and customers.

Capture and use internet state data from real users to improve experience

Application performance and user experience — and business outcomes — will depend on whether the enterprise can find ways to proactively adapt to internet state changes. As Casemore says, capturing internet data from far-flung and disparate networks is a daunting challenge and potentially involves billions of data points from real users across the globe.

Data center insight completes the picture

The real benefit, Casemore says, comes when you can combine the health of the data center and application components into the decision making. Automatically feeding in data from an application delivery controller (ADC) assesses a site’s ability to process a request. Are the servers up? How many connections does the site currently have? How busy is the back end? This added dimension results in a “complete line of sight” for application delivery, enabling the best destination to be selected for each individual user in terms of availability, capability, and performance.

Enterprises need holistic application delivery

Application delivery should include all aspects of the journey, from the user to the application, according to Casemore. As enterprises rely more heavily on the internet and continue to differentiate themselves based on experience, IDC foresees a considerable increase in demand for services that build upon the traditional approach of GSLB and bring new levels of internet visibility necessary to ensure the best user experience, which can make a big difference to a business.

Click here to download the IDC Analyst Connection.


Citrix collects more than 15 billion data points a day from over 900M real users across 50,000 ISP networks, using machine learning techniques to collate, process and store this data to create the largest user experience map of the internet. Citrix Intelligent Traffic Management can use this data to guide traffic to the best site for each individual user at a given instant in time. Citrix ITM is available today as a cloud service, with nothing to install or maintain.

An application delivery and load-balancing solution, Citrix ADC enables a high-quality user experience for your web, traditional, and cloud-native applications no matter where they’re hosted. Citrix ADC is available in many different form-factors and deployment options, without locking you into a single cloud.