Blue Coat speeds apps to client machines

Blue Coat Systems this week announced plans to add client-side software to its security and acceleration suite to help enterprise IT managers improve application delivery to all types of end users -- including teleworkers and traveling employees.

The company says its Blue Coat SG Client architecture can deliver application acceleration and security features to all endpoint machines, even those used by remote, mobile and teleworking employees. It comes in two flavors: persistent software that gets installed on end-user laptops and desktops; and on-demand software, which involves a small bit of code downloaded to client machines when they log in through a company VPN.

Blue Coat offers a variety of modules that address security, access, filtering, acceleration and monitoring. Customers can pick and choose among them, says Chris King, product marketing manager at Blue Coat. "It may not make sense for a traveling user to download filtering software, but it would be a fit for acceleration," he explains.

SG Client software integrates with Blue Coat's MACH5 (Multiprotocol Accelerated Caching Hierarchy) framework of acceleration technologies. The MACH5 technology adds bandwidth management, protocol optimization, object caching, byte caching and compression technologies to Blue Coat's operating system, which is loaded onto the company's SG appliances. The company says its devices accelerate key enterprise applications, including secure Web applications such as SSL traffic.

When used as a proxy appliance, Blue Coat gets positioned between users on a network and the Internet and serves as a central point of control over employee Internet use. The proxy appliance can apply policy-based controls to Web traffic before delivering content to end users. To enable some of the acceleration technologies, appliances should be installed on either end of a WAN link, Blue Coat says.

Adding client-side acceleration will enable IT staff to give remote and traveling end users acceleration capabilities they would get if they logged in via a branch office equipped with an SG appliance, Blue Coat officials say. The software acts as a peer to such appliances and communicates to a management console in the data center that can monitor both distributed appliances and software, Blue Coat says.

The company, once best known as a proxy vendor, has been augmenting its product suite through new technologies and acquisitions. With its acquisition of Permeo earlier this year, Blue Coat has been able to incorporate security into its client software. Company officials explain that when using the on-demand model, the software download encapsulates the application communication in a "wrapper" so the kiosk or public PC operation system can't see it and then "scrubs itself" to eliminate future risk from spyware or key loggers.

"In the on-demand model, you can't control all factors like you could on an end-user machine," King says. "We assure that when in the on-demand model, the application and its communications are protected."