With Cyber Monday (News - Alert) now upon us, one question is looming among online retailers – will they be able to handle the volume to ensure optimal sales performance? Radware, a global company focused on integrated application delivery and application security solutions, has valuable tips online companies can use to ensure that their business is continuously available while processing peak transactions volumes.

 

To help protect the performance of the site, Nir Ilani, Product Marketing Director for Application Delivery at Radware (News - Alert), has provided five specific business objectives that translate into critical IT requirements:

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are also several things that an online retailer must do throughout the holiday season to keep performance consistent. Initiatives include such things as continuously monitoring service traffic to be aware of capacity, traffic volume and type; detect service level degradation, such as available or performance issues; quickly pinpoint the root cause of a bottleneck or issue to ensure that the service meets its SLA as quickly as possible; and use on an on-going basis the aforementioned application delivery tools and services to migrate potential service issues.

Aside from obvious threats that are inherent with increased traffic volumes during the holiday season, or any time of the year, the biggest threat to optimal performance of online retail businesses is when expected and unexpected traffic surges cannot be handled by existing application and network infrastructure.

For this reason, it is imperative that the company implement an application delivery solution that enables on demand capacity growth to deliver the capability and scalability necessary to drive optimal performance. In addition, key success factors for achieving a good QoE for an online retail service include tuning the application for seasonal usage peaks and continuously monitoring the service traffic level.

While days of peak volume are critical times to pay close attention to the network and its traffic, many of the activities and capabilities provided above should be implemented no matter the anticipated volume. Radware positions itself as providing online retailers with the tools necessary to ensure optimal performance both on Cyber Monday and throughout the year.

The company’s comprehensive application delivery solution consists of such products as AppDirector for an intelligence ADC; DefensePro as a real-time IPS to maintain business continuity; LinkProof, a multi-WAN switch providing uninterrupted access; AppXML to guarantee the high availability of Web services; and VirtualDirector, an application delivery optimization solution.

For companies that are seeking to maximize the higher volumes associated with Cyber Monday, Radware can offer the necessary solutions. Such a partnership can help ensure the online retailer is prepared to handle traffic both today and into the future.