Appliance to reduce WAN costs with secure Internet connections

Blue Coat Systems presented the ProxyAV 210, an appliance for optimizing WAN resources by enabling secure direct Internet connections to branch offices. It eliminates the cost and congestion of backhauling Internet traffic over the WAN while enforcing centrally managed corporate IT policies.

Traditionally, larger enterprises backhaul Internet traffic to and from the branch office over the WAN to the corporate Internet gateway. With the growing adoption of Web 2.0 applications and the rise of video and other bandwidth-intensive applications, this practice creates congestion on the WAN.

The Blue Coat ProxyAV 210 utilizes the same malware detection and policy enforcement technologies that are used to protect corporate Internet gateways, and supports branch offices with up to 100 users. Update intervals ranging from 5 to 30 minutes can be set by the network administrator. The appliance also provides inline malware detection for Web-based threats that are hidden behind user credentials (web mail, file downloads, social networking sites).

The Blue Coat ProxySG appliances work in conjunction with the inline malware detection provided by the Blue Coat ProxyAV 210 appliances. ProxySG appliances use Blue Coat WebFilter to block hidden malware downloads on popular websites, access to objectionable sites and downloads from unrated sites. Using the ProxySG appliance, enterprises can also inspect encrypted traffic to determine if it should be further analyzed by the ProxyAV appliance.

Centralized policy enforcement and anti-virus updates enable IT managers to simultaneously protect all employees, reducing management complexity. Blue Coat ProxyAV appliances support the leading anti-malware engines from Kaspersky, McAfee, Panda Security and Sophos.

The ProxyAV 210 starts at $2,750 in the U.S.