Appcito Aims to Optimize Docker App Deployments
Appcito's Cloud Application Front End (CAFE) doesn't deliver coffee to enterprise IT, but it serves a similar purpose to caffeine in that it can help stimulate and accelerate applications. Siva Mandalam, VP Product and Strategy at Appcito, told Enterprise Apps Today that CAFE is essentially a front end for cloud services, providing infrastructure support.
“CAFE allows organizations to automatically insert a service in front of an application,” Mandalam said. “We can help to make the application highly available, meaning we can do advanced load balancing.”
The CAFE system also provides security for cloud applications with an integrated web application firewall (WAF). A WAF looks for malicious data packets within an HTTP stream. The CAFE system also provides distributed denial of service (DDoS) protection.
Application Optimization
Looking beyond security, Mandalam said the CAFE platform performs front-end application optimization. Its caching and compression features minimize an application's size, with a goal of ensuring that applications are delivered to end-users in 100 milliseconds or less.
CAFE now supports Docker containers, which presents a new set of challenges for distributed application deployment. A particular challenge with the Docker container model, Mandalam explained, is when multiple containers are deployed in a highly available manner.
“There is a need for a front-end reverse proxy mapping element to help direct traffic,” Mandalam said. “CAFE does that mapping, as well as a policy-based engine for optimization.”
For HTTP-based apps running in a container, there is also a need for front-end security, which Mandalam said is something CAFE provides. Appcito leverages Docker APIs to help enable and control container-based application delivery. Prior to the new Docker support, Mandalam said CAFE had been working at the application level.
“Now with Docker, the app is not a single thing, it's a micro-services based-application that has multiple services working together that all use HTTP to communicate,” Mandalam explained. “The application needs to be protected and available, so CAFE has now extended the footprint to the micro-service level.”
Currently CAFE Docker support is limited to Amazon Web Services, although Mandalam said Appcito plans to expand to other cloud service providers.
Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at Enterprise Apps Today and InternetNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.
Sean Michael is a writer who focuses on innovation and how science and technology intersect with industry, technology Wordpress, VMware Salesforce, And Application tech. TechCrunch Europas shortlisted her for the best tech journalist award. She enjoys finding stories that open people's eyes. She graduated from the University of California.
