application delivery network (ADN)

Application Delivery Network (ADN) is a network concept that provides information about network traffic, the use and prioritization of business-critical programs and security-related aspects.

An ADN network is about traffic-related information, network utilization, available resources, availability of transmission links and available bandwidth. It is about more than just transporting data from one endpoint to a second quickly and without errors.

With an ADN network, the administrator has a set of tools with which he can accelerate business-critical applications, provide time-critical applications with the required bandwidth, and provide security-critical applications with the required security mechanisms.

An application delivery network is based on the transport layer and monitors all traffic. Functionally, it consists of application delivery controllers( ADC), application performancemonitoring, WAN optimization, and a secure Web gateway.

An ADN network should be able to present traffic in a completely transparent manner and automatically detect and distinguish whether it is a streaming application or a high- priority application, a complex application or a Web application. It supports appropriate acceleration techniques such as quality of serviceclassification, compression, and advanced management features.