Understanding Accelerator Control Features and Integration

Understanding Accelerator Control Features and Integration

The previous sections in this chapter outlined a few of the many key network technologies that you can employ to help understand how the network is used and to effectively align network resources with the relative business priority of the applications that consume those network resources. Put simply, by gaining a firm understanding of how the network is used and then implementing an appropriate set of control and manageability services, the administrator can establish the foundation for an application optimized network.

All accelerator devices and technologies have some form of posture toward the functions that are implemented within the network: accelerators either work in conjunction with these functions, or, they can defeat these functions. The introduction of accelerator technology can be either disruptive or complementary to the functions deployed in intermediary network devices. The posture of accelerators relative to the features in the network that are used for visibility and control is largely dictated by the way optimization services are implemented in the accelerators themselves and also by the way in which accelerators are introduced and integrated into the network.

The following section examines the primary purpose of an accelerator and the functionality that it provides. The subsequent sections examine how accelerators are integrated into the network and how optimization services are implemented.