Blue Coat Proxy Server Appliances
To maximize employee productivity, organizations need to ensure a high quality Internet experience for users. In addition, enterprises need to implement content and user policies to manage Web traffic growth, while effectively using network resources. But corporate security cannot be compromised and Internet performance improvements can't be allowed to impact corporate security.
Blue Coat Secure Proxy
Servers:
First generation proxy servers - software-based applications running on
general-purpose operating systems - offered a point of control for securing
network access. But the performance, degrades under today's heavy Internet
and Intranet usage. In addition, as organizations look to maximize
administration resources, the management, scalability and reliability of
these existing software proxy servers demands improvement. Blue Coat Systems
Web security appliances provide next-generation proxy functionality that
delivers business and technology benefits to Web-dependent enterprises.
Blue Coat Proxy Servers Provide:
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Optimised appliance for Web security well beyond traditional proxy caching to enable content security, Web virus scanning and bandwidth management
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Centralised device management and policy configuration for "one-click" distribution across all Blue Coat products in the organisation
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Granular, exceptions-based approach provides flexibility to control exactly who, what, when, where and how users can access the Web
The Blue Coat Solution
Configured as a proxy caching server deployed between corporate users and
the Internet, these optimized appliances intelligently manage user requests
for content. When a user selects a URL, the request goes first to the Blue
Coat Proxy Appliance for authentication and authorization. If the objects
from the requested page are already in cache on the Blue Coat appliance,
they are immediately served to the user. If the objects are not stored
locally, the Blue Coat security appliance acts as a proxy for the user by
communicating to the origin server via the Internet. When the objects are
returned from the origin server a copy is delivered to the user and also
stored on the systems cache to serve all subsequent requests. The entire
transaction is monitored and logged for reporting and planning purposes.
The Blue Coat Technology Advantage
Blue Coat's unique Web Knowledge Framework allows enterprises to handle all
Web protocols, including HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, Microsoft streaming (MMS and HTTP
streaming), Real streaming (RTSP and HTTP streaming), QuickTime streaming
(over RTSP), MP3, Flash, and hundreds of other Web object types.
Our Patent-pending Policy Process Engine provides the power to define a
comprehensive set of rules for protection, control and acceleration, and to
tie those rules to any number of policy conditions - leveraging user
information in existing directories/databases. The solution uses an
authenticated identifier to trigger all actions and rules. Web requests can
be authorized and managed based on any combination of known identifiers.
The examples below illustrate the powerful policies that are possible using
Blue Coat Systems:
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Security administrators facing a new security threat could implement a policy that restricts the use of browsers susceptible to a security flaw, and only allow access to certain web sites that are mission critical to business operations for a given group of users.
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Network managers with a need to control access to Web resources could create a policy that allowed access to multimedia content only to users with membership in the group marketing, using Microsoft Media Player, requesting an .asp file, from www.media.com, during the hours of 8am and 5pm, and using the HTTP protocol. Blue Coat's Web virus scanning enables security and network administrators to assure that the files stored in the proxy cache are safe and free from virus, worms and other network threats. Without virus scanning this content, existing proxy caches simply serve dangerous content more quickly.
All Web transactions through the Security Servers are logged, providing detailed accounting information. This gives the visibility necessary to determine web usage patterns, audit user history, track security issues, and develop comprehensive web protection and control policy.