The increase in mobile device has resulted in network challenges for businesses of all types and sizes. According to the Monetate Q1 2013 Ecommerce Quarterly, tablets have exceeded traditional desktops in driving web traffic and conversion rates, suggesting that users rely more heavily on mobile devices to make purchases and complete transactions through web applications and mobile sites.
According to Radware, this trend extends beyond the ecommerce industry impacting banking, CRM and supply chain industries - mobile device usage has proven to be a real challenge for network administrators as they struggle to meet new bandwidth, connection, security and performance demands.
There are five immediate actions that companies can take to prepare their websites and applications for mobile device access:
Visibility into Application Performance: 80-90% of end-user response time is spent on the front-end of an application or mobile site. Engineers need to take this into account during development to ensure that applications are both responsive and well maintained - gaining visibility to user experience and becoming proactive in optimizing it.
Automated Web Performance Optimization Technology: Faster page load times directly impact sales and conversions. Businesses should invest in technology solutions that have the ability to automate acceleration of web content such as a mobile browser cache that offers site owners the ability to configure persistent, reliable storage for caching objects from their site on mobile devices, enabling significant acceleration also for mobile users.
Application Certification: Certification templates for applications result in quicker deployment while reducing IT costs and improving employee productivity.
Denial of Service (DoS) Protection: Increased web access demands tighter security. Typical victims of DoS attacks are online businesses and service providers, and often result in revenue loss or increased network costs. It’s critical for businesses to utilize technology to protect against both application and network-level attacks.
Application Delivery Controllers (ADCs): Asymmetric and symmetric deployment of ADCs will address many of the challenges listed above – while reducing downtime, managing web traffic (particularly during high-peak times) and improving overall Quality of Service (QoS).