Verizon Business Helps Companies Improve Performance of Key Applications, Enhance Bandwidth Usage

BASKING RIDGE, N.J. - Companies will be able to more quickly and efficiently provide essential applications - such as e-mail, instant messaging and file transfers - to employees based in the U.S. and around the world, by using an expanded set of services announced Tuesday (Oct. 14) by Verizon Business.

Typically, business-process applications are designed to be provided via a local area network to employees who work near one another - for example, in a single building or in a group of nearby buildings.  Extending these applications to far-flung offices can compromise the user's access to them, often requiring additional network capacity, or bandwidth, which can be costly.

Helping to resolve these issues are Verizon Business' newly expanded Managed WAN Optimization Services, which now include global offerings from industry leaders Cisco Systems and Juniper Networks. The new services enable companies to fine-tune their Internet protocol networks to better manage their applications and to reduce latency - the amount of time it takes for data to transfer between company locations.  As a result, employees can quickly access business applications, helping to boost productivity.

"Application performance is one of the most critical issues affecting chief information officers today," said Nancy Gofus, senior vice president and chief marketing officer for Verizon Business.  "With these new application performance and management capabilities, we are helping global enterprises maintain their networks and applications more efficiently and cost-effectively."

[NOTE:  An audio podcast discussing Verizon Managed WAN Optimization Services and how they can help enterprises address application performance challenges is available here.]

Two Platforms, Expanded Availability

Verizon Business is giving customers around the world more choice. The company is extending its Juniper Networks offering, originally launched in October 2007 in the U.S., to customers in many countries in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.  The company also is adding a second platform from Cisco that is immediately available in the U.S., as well as in many European and Asia-Pacific locations.  Both platforms offer a highly scalable application-acceleration solution for geographically dispersed organizations such as retail, finance and manufacturing companies.

Verizon Business is the first major U.S. service provider to offer both the Cisco and Juniper Networks platforms on a global basis.

The Juniper Networks WXC platform provides information technology (IT) managers with fast and consistent application performance over wide-area networks and offers ease of deployment, configuration and trouble-shooting to help maintain access to mission-critical applications and services.  The WXC platform integrates several innovative technologies, including next-generation compression, sequence caching, application- and protocol-specific acceleration, bandwidth management, and path optimization. 

Enterprises that rely on Cisco technology will find the Wide Area Application Services (WAAS) product family a good fit for their networking environment.  Cisco WAAS helps IT departments centralize applications and storage in the data center, reducing the complexity of branch-office networking while cost-effectively maintaining local-area network application performance and helping improve workforce productivity. 

As part of its day-to-day management, Verizon Business assesses, inventories and manages a customer's network infrastructure and applications to determine network health by evaluating bandwidth availability, potential impact to latency and traffic prioritization, among other key factors. 

Verizon Business professional services experts provide customers with a detailed quarterly overview of network and application performance, including insight into the potential causes of performance degradation, such as rogue applications, unauthorized Internet usage, data replication and backup programs, or network architecture issues. 

"Verizon Business' multivendor approach to managed WAN optimization is a key service differentiator that enables customers to choose the platform that best suits their specific network and application requirements," said Melanie Posey, research director - hosting and telecom services, IDC.  "With its modular design and standardized processes, Verizon Managed WAN Optimization Services will greatly benefit customers around the globe."

Verizon Managed WAN Optimization Services are supported by Verizon Business' IMPACT network management platform, a fully automated system that provides round-the-clock network and application monitoring and fault resolution.  IMPACT gathers data that serves as the foundation for monthly reports covering application performance analysis, capacity audits and recommendations for enhancing network efficiency.

For complete information about Verizon Business' application and performance management portfolio that provides end-to-end visibility and improved application performance across the entire network infrastructure, click here.

About Verizon Business
Verizon Business, a unit of Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ), operates the world's most connected public IP network and uses its industry-leading global-network capabilities to offer large-business and government customers an unmatched combination of security, reliability and speed.  The company integrates advanced IP communications and information technology (IT) products and services to deliver leading enterprise solutions including managed services, security, mobility, collaboration and professional services.  These solutions power innovation and enable the company's customers to do business better. For more information, visit www.verizonbusiness.com.

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