Blue Coat launches MACH 5 technology during Middle East CTO meeting

MACH 5 adds a framework of acceleration technologies to the latest software for Blue Coat appliances, and it is the first solution to accelerate both internal and externally-hosted applications that use encrypted SSL communication.

The launch of MACH 5 coincided with an exclusive meeting of leading regional CIOs and CTOs set up by Blue Coat to discuss its implications. Alagu Periyannan, Chief Technology Officer, chaired the discussions.

"With MACH 5, Blue Coat is in a solid competitive position to capture the opportunity at the remote branch. Its combination of security and optimization features at a competitive price available at the branch will enable customers to consider one device that hits a majority of their requirements," he said.

Ray Kafity, Blue Coat Middle East general manager attributed this growth to the general economic boom in the region, especially in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. He also referred to the heightened awareness regarding network security and the efficiency benefits acceleration brings to enterprise communications.

"The purpose behind bringing together leading technology experts from around the region is to showcase MACH 5 abilities which consolidate and accelerate all key enterprise applications, including: Web and secure Web applications (SSL), file services, email/Microsoft Exchange, video—live streaming and on-demand and any TCP-based application," commented Kafity. "We see tremendous potential for enterprises to finally be able to provide the same levels of security, application acceleration and access to their employees working in remote offices."

Blue Coat appliances with MACH5 integrate Blue Coat's well-established strengths in security and policy control with application acceleration. The solution is unique in its ability to significantly reduce bandwidth by eliminating unwanted or harmful traffic, such as spyware, viruses, peer-to-peer (P2P) applications and other unauthorized communication applications, including those that are encrypted, such as Skype. Conventional acceleration solutions lack the ability to control malware or unwanted traffic and may actually accelerate it. In addition, without being able to assess SSL encrypted sessions, conventional solutions have to pass all encrypted traffic through and lack any ability to accelerate the traffic.

Today most branch offices run their Internet connections over the WAN and through the Internet gateway at the headquarters location. As branch offices begin to evolve these "backhaul" WAN connections to a direct connection to the Internet, Web security and policy control become increasingly important. The same Blue Coat appliances deployed in the branch for acceleration of applications can also guard against viruses, spyware and other malware while providing consistent policy control of applications and content.