Automation, analytics and multi-cloud 'advancements'

A10 Networks has introduced major advancements to its Thunder Application Delivery Controllers (ADCs) with Harmony Controller support for centralised, multi-cloud management, rich per-app analytics and DevOps tool integration. Numerous new enhancements also enable integration with Kubernetes, enhanced Ansible Playbooks and simplified ADC policy configuration with expanded Application Centric Template (ACT) support. Organisations are striving to become more agile as the role of IT and software becomes paramount. Fast roll-out, control and optimisation of applications drive revenue, competitive advantage and customer satisfaction. Apps must be secured and quickly delivered regardless of where they reside.

  • Friday, 26th October 2018 Posted 6 years ago in by Phil Alsop

A10’s ADCs with their tight coupling to the Harmony Controller lead the industry in enabling administrators to intelligently manage, control and automate the deployment of application delivery services to maximise agility, provide actionable insights and ensure app availability and security while simplifying operations with lower TCO. Augmentations to A10’s Thunder ADC with Harmony Controller intelligent automation capabilities include:

  • Centralised multi-cloud management, including on-premise, Amazon Web Services and Azure to distribute policies to all application services.
  • Expanded L4-7 per-application analytics across clouds with hundreds of metrics on an aggregate or per-request basis in real-time.
  • Integration with DevOps tools including Ansible Playbooks and a Thunder ADC based A10 Ingress Controller for Kubernetes environments.
  • Support for a secure portal enabling a provider-tenant model. Line of business and application owners can manage secure application service policies and view application responsiveness with centralised control from IT.
  • Application Centric Templates (ACTs) for many common software solutions, such as new versions for Windows Integrated Authentication and SSL Offload along with existing ACTs for Microsoft Exchange, Skype for Business, SharePoint and more.
  • Integration with private cloud orchestration tools including VMware’s vRealize Orchestrator and Cisco UCS Director.
  • ‘Nutanix Ready’ certifications for A10 vThunder and Harmony Controller on Nutanix’s Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI).

“Prior generation ADCs lacked visibility and support for centralised management that bridge on-premise and cloud infrastructures with their diverse APIs and toolsets,” said Raj Jalan, CTO at A10. “Current processes are manual, inefficient and error prone and result in an inability to proactively and automatically modify infrastructure based on dynamic traffic profiles. A10 is addressing these challenges to improve agility for businesses of all types.”

“At Delta Dental, we like to work smarter, not harder. Combining Thunder ADCs with their support for automation, centralised control and deep analytics with A10 Harmony Controller helps us do that” stated Kevin Klott, Network and Hosting Services Manager. He further noted: “By choosing A10, we are future proofing our plans for the shift to cloud-native applications”.

Among the benefits customers achieve from using Thunder ADC with Harmony Controller:

  • Actionable Intelligence – Complete visibility into user experience, end-to-end latency, contextualised traffic profiles, anomalies, malicious intrusions and server health and utilisation levels enable proactive infrastructure modifications.
  • Multi-cloud Support – Support the transition of apps to hybrid cloud environments with the same services, management, and visibility as found on-premise.
  • Automated Workflows – Increase efficiencies, expedite application deployments and lower troubleshooting times by up to 80 percent with a 3-6x ROI.
  • Increased DevOps Agility – Centralised software defined functions that enable collaboration between networking and development teams.
  • Ease of Deployment – Tight integration with Harmony Controller provides a single pane-of-glass to simplify the provisioning, control, management, and elastic scaling.