Application acceleration vendor NetScaler plans to release software this week to help network professionals improve performance and lessen the latency of enterprise applications from vendors such as Oracle and SAP on corporate WANs.

The AppTune software runs on NetScaler’s appliances, which perform a range of tasks from load balancing to compression to caching for Web applications and other applications.

NetScaler points out that applications require different resources on a WAN than they do on a LAN. To optimize WAN performance, compression is often put in place. But for LANs, other technologies take precedence. For example, NetScaler says it can cache dynamic content as LAN users begin to tap application resources. Also, to address latency, the software compresses and decompresses traffic using multiple protocols and a lightweight software agent on the client side.

"Latency issues are the biggest concern on the WAN, and that is when caching becomes more important for that environment," NetScaler President and CEO B.V. Jagadeesh says.

In addition to improving application traffic, NetScaler says AppTune provides network managers with templates to better optimize their enterprise applications. Network managers can choose a template for, say, an Oracle HR application, and NetScaler provides information on the best practices used to configure or set policies for the application.

"NetScaler put its knowledge of the applications and the conditions under which they run best into the templates, which enables network managers that aren't experts on various applications to ensure their performance," Jagadeesh says.

AppTune will be available free of charge to current NetScaler customers.

Ann Bednarz is associate news editor at Network World.