The silver award for best WAN Performance Management was snapped up by Visual Performance Manager from Fluke Networks. Visual Performance Manager can use dedicated hardware flow collectors that monitor VoIP and application performance across different sites.

Fluke recently partnered with Cisco to leverage Cisco's Wide-Area Application Services (WAAS) technology to compare the performance of applications accelerated by WAAS with those that are not. This improves customers' ability to calculate return on investment for WAAS.

Fluke, which is known for its application performance management expertise, scored best among survey respondents for its ability to predict application performance on the WAN. Visual Performance Manager received at least four out of five stars in this category from nearly 70% of respondents, and also garnered at least four stars from 63% of users for its ability to measure application quality/experience. Readers also praised the product's capabilities in logging, monitoring and reporting, with 66% giving it four or more stars. One reader described it as a "great tool" for WAN performance management.

Shamus McGillicuddy, News Editor