Certeon, the application performance company, today announced availability of Certeon’s aCelera wide area network (WAN) optimization platform for Windows Azure. The interoperability of aCelera software with Windows Azure unlocks the vast application capabilities of the Microsoft public cloud, helping users experience the benefits of seamless, high-speed and secure data access and an enhanced end user experience for any application running in Windows Azure. In addition aCelera accelerates virtual machines (VMs) moving between datacenters and any cloud, a wide variety of applications and optimizes network performance. The combination of Certeon and Windows Azure can enable IT organizations and cloud service providers to optimize computing resources and maximize utilization of their IT investments.

"Maximizing the power of public cloud platforms is best accomplished through the use of a dynamic, consistent WAN Optimization platform," said Massood Zarrabian, CEO, Certeon. "With Windows Azure and Certeon aCelera, organizations can now make the most of what Windows Azure offers right along side their internal business environments, delivering maximum flexibility, ease of use, productivity and adapting to business change."

The integration enables customers to connect Windows AZURE and data centers through a single accelerated access point to get the all benefits of WAN optimization. When moving or replicating data across any WAN, there are reductions in responsiveness that impact user experience and business critical processes. Certeon and Windows Azure’s solutions can help customers optimize their WAN, so companies can realize the benefits of utilizing hybrid cloud environments without compromising performance. The aCelera platform provides significant WAN performance improvements across, and helps reduce the costs associated with WAN infrastructure.

In his recent research note Managing Network Performance of Cloud-Based Applications, Gartner analyst Eric Siegel observed that "Cloud computing is a hot topic, and the performance of the network is a critical factor in user satisfaction," and that "Network performance is a key component of the total performance of cloud-based applications." Mr. Siegel concluded, "If the application or network can't be redesigned, WAN performance optimization can make the difference between useable and useless."

Certeon aCelera features the scale, speed and simplicity enterprise applications need and also includes integrated cloud intelligent features like wan bridging, on demand security and a profile based configuration management system. The combination of Windows Azure and aCelera enables organizations to deploy a single integrated solution that is managed through a single interface and deployed across data center, private and public cloud.

Certeon aCelera for Windows Azure environments provides:

• Integrated High Availability and Failover
• Integrated Quality of Service, Traffic Shaping and on demand Security
• Highest performance/cost ratio in the industry
• 400% more acceleration
• Up to a 50 times improvement in application response times
• Subscription licensing

About Certeon

Certeon‘s award-winning software helps enterprises eliminate traditional network constraints and accelerates application performance providing LAN-like experience when using applications and/or data from branch offices, data centers and the cloud. Certeon’s platform is specifically built for virtualized environments; is both hypervisor and hardware agnostic and can also run on Windows Server. These capabilities provide unmatched performance; scalability and flexibility – while allowing organizations to leverage their existing infrastructure - and future proof their IT investment. Whether your initiative is virtualization, consolidation, cloud computing, or disaster recovery Certeon can help.

Founded in 2004, Certeon is a private company backed by Sigma Partners, RRE Ventures and Globespan Capital Partners. More information can be found at www.certeon.com.