Blue Coat Introduces Secure Web Gateway Virtual Appliance for Small Branch Offices

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, 3 October, 2012 – Blue Coat Systems, Inc., a market leader in Web security and WAN optimization, today introduced its Secure Web Gateway Virtual Appliance for small branch offices. The new Virtual Appliance extends the same depth of protection and control delivered by the Blue Coat® ProxySG® appliances to small branch office locations with limited space and IT resources. The new Virtual Appliance complements Blue Coat’s existing ProxySG appliances and Cloud Service, providing customers with the flexibility to choose the deployment model that best meets their unique security requirements on a location-by-location basis.

“For each of our projects, we establish secure, temporary mobile offices that need to be quickly set up, but we didn’t want to use a cloud-based security service due to the proprietary nature of our services,” said Jonathan Townsend, infosec analyst at Wood Group Mustang, a global project management, engineering, procurement, and construction operations company serving the offshore and onshore oil and gas, refining and chemicals, pipeline, automation and control, and industrial markets. “The Blue Coat Virtual Appliance allows us to flexibly deploy and scale on-premise security solutions to suit each job site and easily move the infrastructure to the next site when a job is done.”

Businesses continue to look for ways to reduce costs throughout their network without compromising security. To better address today’s small branch office challenges of limited rack space and IT resources, businesses are increasingly shifting to consolidated infrastructure. The new Blue Coat Secure Web Gateway Virtual Appliance can be deployed on a virtualized server. This allows businesses to support Web security and other critical remote office infrastructure on a common platform, reducing costs and IT resource requirements.

“Businesses see the ease of deployment and integration into existing security environments that virtual security appliances provide as an easy way to extend security to branch offices,” said Phil Hochmuth, program manager, security products research at IDC. “Increasingly, enterprises require different security solutions for different locations and scenarios; Web security vendors with more diverse deployment options – from traditional appliances to virtual security appliances and cloud-based services – will be better positioned to address customers’ rapidly evolving Web security requirements.”

Like Blue Coat’s ProxySG appliances and Cloud Service, the Secure Web Gateway Virtual Appliance is backed by the WebPulse™ Collaborative Defense. WebPulse unites 75 million users in a common defense against Web-based threats and other malicious activities. By tracking more than 500 malnets (malware networks), WebPulse provides the industry’s only Negative Day Defense to block attacks before they launch.

The Blue Coat Secure Web Gateway Virtual Appliance also delivers the same unmatched policy controls used by enterprises on the ProxySG appliances. The robust policy framework allows businesses to set advanced policies based on more than 100 different parameters to protect their users, data and networks. Additionally, the Blue Coat Secure Web Gateway Virtual Appliance provides the most comprehensive set of Web, Mobile and Mobile Web Application Controls that give businesses control over the applications and operations running on their networks.

“The Blue Coat Secure Web Gateway Virtual Appliance is a simple and powerful way to seamlessly extend the same on-premise threat protection and policies that ProxySG appliances provide at the corporate gateway to branch offices with limited IT staff,” said Dave Ewart, Director of Product Marketing, EMEA at Blue Coat Systems. “The new virtual appliances complement Blue Coat’s existing on-premise appliances and cloud-based service, giving businesses the flexibility to deploy the solution that best fits their unique security requirements.”

Businesses can easily and quickly roll out deployments of the new Blue Coat Secure Web Gateway Virtual Appliances to small branch office locations worldwide without the shipping and logistics delays that can stall global deployments.

The Blue Coat Secure Web Gateway Virtual Appliance is also ideal for proof of concepts. With a simplified, faster time-to-deployment and the same security features that are available in Blue Coat ProxySG appliances, the Virtual Appliance enables Blue Coat channel partners to more quickly demonstrate the value of Blue Coat solutions in business networks.

“Increasingly, businesses are looking for ways to support Web security and other critical remote office infrastructure on a common platform that is easy to deploy and manage with minimal IT resources,” said Pat Huth, director, global technologies, Westcon Group. “Blue Coat’s new virtual appliance is well positioned to meet this demand and will help us accelerate our sales cycle by providing an easy way to conduct proof of concepts for customers that are looking to deploy robust Web security in their small, remote or branch offices.”

The Secure Web Gateway Virtual Appliance is part of the Blue Coat Unified Security solution, which extends the security perimeter of the corporate network by delivering global threat protection, universal policy and unified reporting to all users on any network in any location. The Blue Coat Unified Security solution is the only one in the industry that uses the same policy and protection framework across all deployment models, ensuring seamless threat protection and control for all users, regardless of location.

Availability
The Blue Coat Secure Web Gateway Virtual Appliance will be available in November.

About Blue Coat Systems
Blue Coat Systems provides Web security and WAN optimization solutions to 85 percent of FORTUNE Global 500 companies. As the market share leader in the secure web gateway market, Blue Coat sets the standard for enterprise security. Its solutions provide the visibility, protection and control required to optimize and secure the flow of information to any user, on any network, anywhere. For additional information, please visit www.bluecoat.com.

Blue Coat, ProxySG, WebPulse and the Blue Coat logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of Blue Coat Systems, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the United States and certain other countries. All other trademarks mentioned in this document are the property of their respective owners.

For more information, please contact:
Manal Abi Rafeh
Blue Coat Systems ME
Telephone: +971 4  3911620
Fax: +971 4 3911635
Email: manal.abirafeh@Blue Coat.com

Media Contact:
Colin Saldanha
PR Consultant
PROCRE8
Villa 41, 81-d Street, Uptown Mirdif
P.O. Box 78835, Dubai
United Arab Emirates

This release was published on openPR.