As WAN optimization projects become more strategic to enterprise IT, the issue of manageability grows in importance as well. With that in mind, Silver Peak Systems just joined a group committed to simplifying the management of networking devices in multivendor environments. Meanwhile, Ipanema Technologies retooled its management platform for large-scale WAN optimization deployments, and F5 Networks struck a partnership to improve Web application security.

Here are the highlights:

* Silver Peaks zips into ZONA
Silver Peak last week took the step of joining the ZipTie Open Network Alliance (ZONA), a consortium of technology vendors dedicated to promoting interoperability, standardization and best practices for the networking community. ZipTie is an open source project created in late 2006 by configuration management vendor AlterPoint to help network managers automate chores including device discovery and backup, configuration comparisons, and configuration change detection for devices ranging from routers and switches to firewalls, load balancers and WAN optimization controllers. A number of vendors have since contributed to the management framework, including Citrix, Juniper, Vyatta and more.

"WANs are not 'one size fits all' and optimizing each network requires a unique set of applications, tools and best practices,” said Dave Barry, vice president of business development at AlterPoint, in a statement. “Silver Peak's commitment to ZONA and to open network management provides their customers and the industry with a superior set of solutions that match their diverse needs and requirements."

As part of ZONA, Silver Peak has integrated its NX appliances into the AlterPoint product portfolio. In addition, content from Silver Peak, including links, scripts, change templates, rules, policies, adaptors, plug-ins and best practices, can be found at the ZipTie site. 

* Ipanema bulks up
Ipanema announced Version 5 of its Scalable Application Level Service Architecture (SALSA) platform, which is geared for telcos, managed services providers and large enterprises. A highlight of SALSA v5 is its scalability: Users can manage 5,000 sites per server, and each SALSA platform can control 100 servers, Ipanema says. SALSA v5 also features a new reporting server, Web portal, GUI, redundant Radius interface, inventory management features and more flexible license management options.

Ann Bednarz is associate news editor at Network World.