For companies that want a hand measuring, controlling and accelerating application delivery over the WAN, managed service providers including AT&T, BT Global Services and Verizon Business are standing by.

With managed services, companies don't have to purchase, deploy and manage WAN optimization appliances on their own. In addition, managed services can reduce start-up costs and enable quicker deployments, industry watchers say.

Most recently, Tata Communications unveiled an application performance optimization service based on Ipanema Technologies’ WAN optimization gear. (Tata Communications is part of the $62.5 billion Tata Group. It offers transmission, IP, converged voice and mobility services, as well as managed services for network connectivity, security, collaboration and business transformation.)

Launched last week, Tata’s service is available globally and can be implemented across thousands of sites. As part of the managed service, Tata assesses a customer’s environment then designs and implements a WAN optimization strategy. Reporting and alerts (if application performance degrades, for example) also are part of the managed service. In addition, Tata says it can propose application-specific service-level agreements (SLA) when the performance optimization service is bundled with customers’ connectivity solutions, such as IP and VPN services.

In other managed services news, BT unveiled enhancements to its managed WAN optimization service and launched a new application performance monitoring service.

Based on gear from Riverbed Technology, BT’s new WAN optimization service is designed to speed the performance of applications between data centers, remote offices and mobile workers. The application performance monitoring service, which is based on technology from Compuware, is designed to help IT executives ensure that applications perform according to required service levels.

Both are part of BT’s Applications Assured Infrastructure (AAI) portfolio of services.

BT’s decision to add acceleration components to its AAI portfolio is a good one, and Riverbed’s strength in TCP acceleration, WAN data reduction and application acceleration complements BT’s existing traffic-management technology from Ipanema, according to Current Analysis analysts Dustin Kehoe and Gary Barton.

Ann Bednarz is associate news editor at Network World.