NEW YORK, March 11 /PRNewswire/ --

- New Version Makes it Easier Than Ever for Multiple Teams to Develop, Test and Deploy 'Network-Aware' Applications that Dramatically Improve the End-User Experience and Reduce Support Issues

Shunra Virtual Enterprise (www.shunra.com), the world's leading provider of network emulation solutions, today announced version 4.0 of the Shunra Virtual Enterprise (VE) Desktop Professional WAN emulation solution. A component of the award-winning Shunra VE suite of application and network performance solutions, VE Desktop Professional 4.0 enables users to test application performance under a variety of existing and potential network conditions, directly from the desktop. This new Windows-based version adds critical customer-driven features, including: integration with HP LoadRunner and QuickTest Professional (QTP) load tools, a thorough application analysis module, and a robust testing and reporting repository.

This product launch now enables Shunra customers to fully integrate real-world WAN conditions into existing testing processes at each stage of the application development lifecycle. The approach used by VE Desktop Professional to proactively test and optimize applications on an emulated WAN specifically during the Development and Quality Assurance phases of the lifecycle confirms a best practice that has been validated by both customers and market analyst firms. With the benefit of increased application deployment success and reduced post-production support and troubleshooting, companies are more actively adapting this best practice approach. With a fully distributed software solution -- spanning all phases of application development -- Shunra now removes the technical hurdle and makes it easier than ever for end-users to accomplish the common sense approach used by Shunra customers world wide: building applications using actual network conditions.

Wyeth, a global leader in pharmaceuticals, consumer health care products, and animal health care products, has deployed Shunra to ultimately ensure applications perform as expected over the WAN. "VE Desktop Professional was extremely easy to integrate with our HP LoadRunner and QTP tests," said Ming Liang, Automation Test Engineer at Wyeth. "The ease of integration and automatic storage of results were major benefits that helped us understand the network impact on our applications quickly and then share our results with others."

"A few years ago we developed our desktop solution to enable remote users of the centralized network performance testing labs to access our application performance technology. Over the past few years the profile of the 'remote users' has changed," said Thomas Charlton, Shunra CEO. "The demand is now coming from Development and QA professionals who are interested in understanding how the network will impact the code they are developing or the applications they are testing. This new release of our desktop offering represents a product that still meets the needs of performance testing labs, our historical buyer, but in addition adds enterprise desktop deployment and functionality to support those in Development and QA. Different buyers with different requirements and one goal -- to understand how the network and applications will impact each other prior to production."

Shunra VE Desktop Professional 4.0 enables application developers and QA groups to test applications or code under a variety of current and potential network conditions, including bandwidth, latency, and packet loss, on an emulated WAN. It enables IT team members to see the impact that applications and the network have on each other during the development and QA stages of the application lifecycle and resolve, before deployment, any issues that are uncovered. This mitigates the risk of network performance problems caused by applications and end user dissatisfaction if these problems occur.

"With the growing complexity of enterprise applications and services, the ability to test network performance as early as possible in development is more essential than ever," said Olga Yashkova, Analyst, Test & Measurement Practice with analyst firm Frost and Sullivan. "By empowering application developers and quality assurance professionals with a desktop version of their market leading WAN emulation tool, Shunra is not only answering the IT organization's call for increased synergies, they will ultimately help organizations save untold time and money."

New to Shunra VE Desktop Professional version 4.0 -- Load tool integration with HP's Performance Center, Quality Center, LoadRunner, and QTP -- Runtime and offline data displayed in easy-to-read reports; easily archive and export test results -- Silent install feature that allows rapid and automatic enterprise deployment and installation by network administrators without end-user interaction -- Virtual machine support allows all VE Desktop Professional components to run in VMware environments -- Test plan integration, including business processes and network scenario files -- Redesigned user interface that enhances ease-of-use for those with limited network knowledge

VE Desktop Professional is available now for all geographic regions. A trial version is available at http://www.shunra.com or by contacting Shunra at +1-877-474-8672.

Contact Shunra for detailed pricing information and active promotions that allow customers to get started quickly with minimal investment.

About Shunra

Shunra Virtual Enterprise is the market leader in WAN emulation solutions for application performance testing throughout the entire application development lifecycle. Shunra's award-winning solutions enable development, quality assurance, pre-deployment and operations teams to create an exact replica of their production environment or design what-if network scenarios; allowing them to predict exactly how applications or infrastructure changes will perform in any networked environment-before rollout. Shunra's solutions and services are typically deployed in projects including data center consolidation; application performance readiness testing; VoIP testing; website testing and WAN optimization technology testing.

Shunra's solutions and services are used by thousands of customers worldwide. Clients include 3M, Boeing, Cisco, Dow Chemical, EMC, FedEx, General Motors, JPMorgan Chase, Kelly Services, Merrill Lynch, Motorola, Nestle, Pitney Bowes, and Vodafone. Shunra has offices in New York City, Philadelphia, Israel, and the UK. Shunra is also supported through a global network of channel partners. For more information on Shunra, please visit www.shunra.com.

Shunra is a trademark of Shunra Software Ltd. All other trademarks and registered trademarks used herein are the property of their respective owners.

Web site: http://www.shunra.com

Rhoan Morgan, Shunra, +1-215-519-5109, rhoan.morgan@shunra.com