Verizon adds application awareness to VPN

Network World - Verizon Business has unveiled services to help businesses improve the performance of their IP networks and associated business applications.

The services, available in April for the carrier's Private IP VPN customers, are designed to help those customers monitor and tune the performance of applications like VoIP, ERP and video.

The services include network assessment, reporting, dynamic bandwidth and packet marking offerings, and allow Verizon Business customers to adjust network capacity to meet changing requirements and maximize value. They can tailor class of service and performance characteristics to meet specific application requirements, Verizon said, and fine-tune bandwidth to help optimize network performance against service-level agreements.

The network assessment service helps Private IP customers align network resources with business strategies and performance data; ease adoption of new technologies; and maximize cost savings by identifying performance barriers that affect user productivity. Network managers can view how enterprise applications affect the WAN and the performance of other applications as they introduce new business processes, Verizon said.

The network performance service allows customers to manage their Private IP networks to ensure that they are sized appropriately and performing as designed. Customers can monitor their applications, systems and networks, as well as application availability, server performance and network capacity.

Data is extracted from a customer's Private IP network router in all locations where Private IP is available so that additional CPE is not required, Verizon said.

The bandwidth optimization service allows Private IP customers to make bandwidth changes through the Verizon Business Customer Center, a Web-based customer portal.

The packet marking service helps Private IP customers optimize their MPLS networks by providing Web-based reports to evaluate application performance to the desktop and user level. Customers can control which applications take precedence for delivery through the network, Verizon said.

This capability replaces the need for site-by-site router configurations and enables more specific marking by application vs. broader marking by port, Verizon said. As a result, Private IP customers can adjust bandwidth and simplify network management, the carrier said.

Pricing for the new services was not disclosed.