The application delivery controller is a key component within enterprise and cloud data centers to improve availability, security and performance of applications. Application delivery controllers (ADCs) provide functions that optimize delivery of enterprise applications across the network. ADCs provide functionality for both user-to-application and application-to-application traffic, and effectively bridge the gap between the application and underlying protocols and traditional packet-based networks. This market evolved from the load-balancing systems that were developed in the latter half of the 1990s to ensure the availability and scalability of websites. Enterprises use ADCs today to improve the availability, scalability, end-user performance, data center resource utilization, security of their applications.
Virtual private networks (VPNs) are products and services used to achieve security and confidentiality for data in motion by means of encryption and access controls. Solutions may be implemented in software on end-user devices, servers and appliances. They may be purpose-built as dedicated systems, and/or built-in virtual constructs in cloud infrastructure. Security can be applied to communications that originate within devices and servers, and at various boundaries, including gateways and firewalls (FWs). In the case of virtual environments and multitenant architectures, VPN communications may occur within a server hosting the equivalent of several sites and tenants.
Gartner defined Web Application and API Protection (WAAP) as the evolution of the web application firewall market (WAF), expanding WAF capabilities to four core features: WAF, DDoS protection, bot management and API protection. WAAP development started with cloud-delivered WAF services that were easier to deploy, and from the start bundled WAF with DDoS protection. Slowly, the WAF market evolved to offer more than basic capabilities for bot management and API protection. 2019 marked a tipping point with four vendors acquiring specialized bot mitigation providers. During 2020, Gartner observed improvements related to API security features availability, but also more stringent enterprises’ requirements related to the four core WAAP features.