Over the past 10 years, the use of applications to enable business processes has evolved drastically. What was once a nice-to-have is now a mainstream staple that exists at the core of business, education, and other operations across the globe. As application usage has increased, response time has become more and more important-- and with good reason. Time wasted while waiting for data is money wasted and productivity lost. Factors affecting response time today include congested WAN pipes, inefficient/chatty protocols, and latency due to long distances between users and data. All these factors are exacerbated as applications and data resources are consolidated, centralized, or outsourced. In many cases, delays translate into frustrated users.