Who doesn't want speedier applications? This week Network World published a collection of stories focused on application acceleration and network optimization (Compare Application Acceleration and WAN Traffic Optimization products). There's a ton of great material to check out. Here are some of the highlights:

* Pimp your apps: Some folks want to see a merging of front-end application acceleration devices and network gear that optimizes application traffic going across the WAN - or at least better communication between the devices. The goal is end-to-end application optimization. You can read what they’re proposing here. 

* Virtual goo: Virtualization is one of hottest technologies around these days. But it could use some better oversight if IT teams want to maximize its potential. Ed Traylor, senior director of IT at Care2, an online community for green living and social change, has an idea of how an optimized virtual environment might work, in an ideal world:

"If we're being hypothetical, then a fair assessment would be that [virtual machines] would operate in scalable, self-aware clusters that provision themselves for specific applications based on demand - and all of this would happen completely without human interaction," Traylor says. "Tasks such as provisioning, load balancing and fault tolerance would be handled by the virtual machines' artificial intelligence. From an operational or engineering perspective, all you provide is bandwidth, content and electricity."

The full story is here. 

* Four cool net optimization start-ups: Read about what makes start-ups tick, including Talari Networks (whose appliances let enterprises combine private WAN capacity with broadband Internet links), Aspera (whose niche is bulk data transfers), FastSoft (another company that speeds file transfers across the WAN) and Strangeloop Networks (accelerating .Net, Ajax and Web-services-enabled applications is its specialty).

* Dear IT: Forget the technology. IT veterans say for applications to run smoothly and speedily, IT teams can’t operate in the silos of old. Communication and cooperation are necessities, but change won’t come overnight. Here’s the full story.

Plus we’ve also got stories about using managed services; a story about a school district that now runs podcasts and video sessions over once-saturated WAN links; a slideshow of tips for optimizing applications; and a podcast addressing how WAN optimization is going virtual.

Ann Bednarz is associate news editor at Network World.