One of the dirty little secrets of software-as-a-service (SaaS) is how long it takes to get the service. Because a request for access to a SaaS application travels from the client device, across the corporate wide area network (WAN), across the public Internet, to the SaaS provider’s data center where the app is hosted — and back — a lot of time is spent making the connection, not to mention the hundreds or thousands of round trips made in just one session in which the app is being used. Application delivery platform provider Akamai Technologies has partnered with WAN optimization provider Riverbed Technology to include their technologies in each other’s products to improve the performance of SaaS applications.
Network Computing