Network Application Acceleration for Beginners

What is application acceleration? Simply put it is hardware, software, or a combination of the two which speed up programs which rely upon networks or the internet. Application acceleration does not work by making you computer process information faster but it does speed up and optimize the way your computer interacts with the networks it is connected to.

Software based application acceleration:

The most common and most used network application is a web browser. There are several pieces of software which optimize web browsers so that users can surf the web at fasters speeds. If you are a beginner then you are probably wondering: How does it work and why does not everybody use these programs? This article will explain how these programs work and why software application acceleration has some drawbacks.

Many of the programs cache (store in memory) frequently visited sites so that when you visit repeatedly not all of the information needs to be downloaded, only the information that has changed. The other common practice is that these programs pre-fetch pages which they think you will visit in the future. Both of these practices will improve web browsing speed but they need lots of memory so they are not the best solutions for people who maximize their computer use or who have older machines.

Hardware based application acceleration:

Hardware based application acceleration works by placing a piece of hardware in the middle of the network and having it control or optimize the network flow. If you think of a network as a road or highway (just like the term information superhighway) then the application acceleration hardware acts as a traffic cop directing traffic so it flows smoothly and even speeding up traffic if it moves too slow. If there are several servers (internet or network central data hubs) then the application acceleration hardware assure that they are all used evenly and no single server gets over used and crashes.

Conclusion:

Software application accelerators are optimal for home users surfing the internet with new or recently made computers. Hardware based application acceleration is ideal for offices that that use the internet or have an internal network. Hardware based application acceleration can speed up programs that the whole office needs to function, such as file sharing, task managing programs, internal messaging or emailing plus much more. Today’s latest application acceleration hardware lets offices speedily communicate with workers from their home, internal and external networks both wired and wireless, and with applications not computer based such as blackberries, cell phones, or palm pilots.

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Ariel is a writer and analyst for compucall-usa.com