Blue Coat Launches Proxyav Appliance For High-Performance Web Anti-Virus
SUNNYVALE, Calif., June 21, 2004 — Blue Coat Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: BCSI), a leading provider of proxy appliances, today introduced ProxyAV, a high-performance Web anti-virus appliance that delivers up to 249 Mbps throughput and 4 millisecond average latency for “real-time” Web traffic virus scanning.
Gateway Web anti-virus is not widely deployed in organizations today due to unacceptable throughput and latency experienced with existing products. When a Web anti-virus solution is installed that slows down response times for browser-based traffic, IT staff are faced with the challenge of compromising between the performance users demand, and the security required by the business. This has been the situation with Web anti-virus, which unfortunately has created open back doors in the security infrastructure that have allowed Web-based viruses to infect enterprise systems. These open doors include employee use of Web-based personal email and Internet file downloads.
Blue Coat now enables organizations to deploy Web anti-virus with scalable, high-performance options designed to meet the “real-time” requirements of Web traffic. The ProxyAV works in concert with Blue Coat’s ProxySGâ„? platform, which quickly and intelligently processes Web objects to determine which objects should be scanned for viruses. Web objects are then sent to the ProxyAV appliance where they are quickly scanned for viruses, and sent back to the ProxySG where they can be cached for an additional performance benefit. This integrated approach delivers Web traffic throughput of up to 249 Mbps with only 4 milliseconds average latency, based on internal tests simulating “real-world” Web traffic loads.
“With Blue Coat’s ProxyAV appliance, we have been able to detect and prevent numerous viruses from infecting our network that would have bypassed our existing anti-virus security through personal Web email and Internet file downloads,” said Glenn Wright, senior telecommunications technologist for the State of Delaware. “Blue Coat’s ProxyAV solution is the first and only solution that has enabled us to turn-on Web anti-virus without impacting our network performance, scanning Web traffic for viruses for more than 114,000 education users and 35,000 state users over a 200 Mbps connection to the Internet.”
According to IDC Security Products’ vice president Chris Christiansen, “In many cases, performance issues interfere with customers’ plans to install Web traffic virus protection that complements existing email and desktop anti-virus installations. Blue Coat developed an innovative approach to solving the Web anti-virus performance problem by combining a proxy appliance, known for Web control and performance, with a dedicated anti-virus appliance optimized for scanning Web objects.”
“Every Web anti-virus product we had tried would not work because of the added latency put on our network,” said James Heyen, principal network analyst for the third-largest U.S. public power and water utility based in Phoenix, Arizona. “Then we deployed Blue Coat’s ProxyAV appliance and saw a huge difference over the previous attempts. The ProxyAV appliance scans Web traffic for viruses quickly and effectively.”
Blue Coat offers customers the flexibility to choose among industry-leading anti-virus engines, including McAfee, Panda, Sophos and Trend Micro, each providing customers with automated updates. This flexibility of ProxyAV allows customers to implement a layered anti-virus defense across the distributed enterprise, where a different anti-virus engine can be deployed at the Web gateway to complement email servers and desktops.
“The proxy appliance is the key to implementing high-performance Web anti-virus at the Internet gateway,” said Steve Mullaney, vice president of marketing for Blue Coat. “The combination of Blue Coat’s ProxySG and ProxyAV appliances has made gateway Web anti-virus deployable.”
Availability
The Blue Coat ProxyAV is available today from Blue Coat Systems and its global network of channel partners. The ProxyAV appliance comes in both a 400 Series and a 2000 Series, offering scalable processor, memory and network interface configurations. For more information and pricing, please visit the Blue Coat Web site at www.bluecoat.com or call (408) 220-2200.
About Blue Coat Systems
Blue Coat enables organizations to keep “good” employees from doing “bad” things on the Internet. Blue Coat wire-speed proxy appliances provide visibility and control of Web communications to address today’s new business risks – such as inappropriate Web surfing, viruses brought in via back door channels such as instant messaging and Web-based email, and network resource abuse due to peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing and video streaming. Trusted by many of the world’s most influential organizations, Blue Coat has shipped more than 18,000 proxy appliances. Blue Coat is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, and can be reached at (408) 220-2200 or www.bluecoat.com.