Blue Coat positioned in 'Visionaries Quadrant' in prestigious analyst firm's WAN Optimization Report

Blue Coat SG appliances offer:
• "Comprehensive security" integrated with WAN optimization
• Proven scalability
• Ability to accelerate a range of business applications, including SSL encrypted traffic and streaming media for internal training or communications

Comprehensive Security Integrated with WAN Optimization

The same Blue Coat SG appliances that provide WAN optimization and application acceleration to branch and remote offices also provide "comprehensive security." The appliances protect an organization's network and computers in its headquarters location and branch offices from spyware, viruses and other threats by providing Web filtering and security at the Internet gateway connection. Blue Coat SG appliances also enable organizations to manage or curtail the use of unauthorized or bandwidth-consuming applications, including peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing and instant messaging (IM). As more branch offices have direct Internet connections, it becomes critical to provide the same level of security and control at each office as at the headquarters location.

Proven Scalability

Blue Coat SG appliances are known for their scalability. Blue Coat provides important centralized management and reporting capabilities and the ability to create and deploy consistent policies to locations around the world for fine-grained, flexible management of security, control and acceleration. Policies can also be set to meet varying needs at each location.

Acceleration for a Wide Range of Business Applications, including SSL and Video

Blue Coat SG appliances can accelerate a full range of business applications, including SSL encrypted traffic between internal users and both internal and external applications. SSL encrypted traffic is "invisible" to other WAN optimization solutions and cannot be controlled or accelerated. Because of its proxy technology and its ability to have visibility into SSL encrypted traffic, the Blue Coat SG appliance can stop, limit or accelerate this traffic as appropriate. With more companies utilizing outsourced applications from Application Service Providers (ASPs), more business-critical traffic is being encrypted between external sources and internal users.

Blue Coat SG appliances can also manage and accelerate video and streaming media as a part of Enterprise Content Distribution Networks (ECDN) for internal training and corporate communications. The SG appliances reduce bandwidth consumption and provide high-quality viewing experiences. For the majority of streaming on-demand video, Blue Coat SG appliances cache the content at each branch office location to offload traffic across the WAN and maintain a high-quality viewing experience for employees. Blue Coat SG appliances also assign appropriate levels of priority for content and applications and enforce minimum and maximum limits for bandwidth utilization. In the case of live streaming video, Blue Coat SG appliances can take multiple requests for the same video feeds within the same office and only have to download one stream and split it as needed for all of the local requests.

Blue Coat Perspective

"We are pleased to be positioned by Gartner for our application delivery solution," said Nidal Taha, Blue Coat General Manager, MEA. "Blue Coat has a fundamentally different approach in combining acceleration with security and control to more fully meet the needs of both the headquarters and branch office."

The report, Magic Quadrant for WAN Optimization Controllers, 2006 is written by Andy Rolfe and Joe Skorupa and published October 4, 2006.