EXECUTIVE SUMMARY. For IT Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

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1 Blue Coat Systems Adds Security And Control To WAN Optimization Appliances The Forrester Wave Vendor Summary, Q by Robert Whiteley with Simon Yates and Rachel Batiancila EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Blue Coat Systems surprised us with its very strong offering and came in fourth in our evaluation, almost tied for third. In addition to one of the best optimization architectures, Blue Coat also provides a strong road map for broader application delivery infrastructure. Its strength and weakness lie in the underlying proxy architecture. On the upside, a proxy means ultimate control over your WAN traffic, providing the best visibility, management, and optimization of all apps. On the downside, a proxy requires that, for best results, you insert a trusted middleman between your users and servers and that you size the device properly because it terminates all traffic and you don t want a bottleneck. If you can accommodate a proxy-based device, then Blue Coat delivers one of the most sophisticated caching engines available, as well as top-notch security, management, auditing, and logging. Bottom line: If you re an existing Blue Coat customer, then look no further. WAN optimization is a simple software upgrade to the SG product line. If you think Blue Coat is just for security, then we recommend reexamining it for secure WAN acceleration to branch and mobile users. BLUE COAT SYSTEMS IS BEST SUITED FOR SECURITY-CONSCIOUS COMPANIES Blue Coat has been in the proxy and cache business since 1996 and arguably in the WAN optimization market for just as long. Originally, Blue Coat sold caching equipment to ecommerce and ISPs as a way of mitigating exponential bandwidth growth. However, as the bubble began to burst, Blue Coat (then named CacheFlow) focused R&D on creating forward proxies for security. Now, as the WAN optimization market heats back up, Blue Coat is able to add the remaining features it originally lacked, such as byte-level caching, and reemerge to offer a combined security and WAN optimization controller. Forrester evaluated Blue Coat s current offering and strategy for WAN optimization against approximately 65 criteria (see Figure 1). Overall, the Blue Coat SG product has strong caching, mobility, and security features but lacks scalability for concurrent session and throughput. This means that the product is an especially good fit for buyers that: Need to optimize apps for mobile users. Blue Coat is one of only two vendors that are currently shipping a software-based WAN optimization client. 1 Blue Coat builds on the clientless VPN product technology it picked up with Permeo. 2 The result is an enterprise-grade, scalable software client that can be delivered on-demand. Moreover, Blue Coat engineers have developed the mobile option without users requiring administrative access to their machines a critical feature for Headquarters Forrester Research, Inc., 400 Technology Square, Cambridge, MA USA Tel: Fax:

2 2 optimizing guest users or for companies that lock down remote machines. Blue Coat is the best option for companies that need to accelerate traffic to remote and mobile users ranging from road warriors to home workers to a small branch that doesn t warrant a full appliance. Require distributed security as part of a WAN optimization strategy. The real strength in Blue Coat s offering lies in its proxy-based architecture. In addition to a full suite of WAN optimization features, Blue Coat adds a forward proxy to patrol Internet connections, content filtering, and APIs that further integrate antimalware and data leak protection. Additionally, Blue Coat has the most mature support for SSL decryption to accelerate secure traffic, which requires a proxy architecture by default. As a result, we recommend that if you need to add WAN optimization but still require local security at all branch offices, put Blue Coat on your shortlist. Blue Coat is also the best option if you are looking to provide Internet split-tunneling to avoid the backhaul of Internet traffic as part of an overall WAN optimization strategy. To see how Blue Coat stacks up against eight other competitors, see the Forrester Wave evaluation of the WAN optimization appliances market. 3

3 3 Figure 1 Blue Coat Systems SG Appliances Evaluation Overview CURRENT OFFERING Product portfolio Architecture Optimization techniques Application-specific optimizations Manageability and usability Scalability Reliability Monitoring and reporting Blue Coat Systems currently offers four appliance families (each with multiple appliances): SG200, SG510, SG810, and SG8100. All appliances run the same OS and differ by size/capacity. The SG line provides WAN optimization/acceleration, Web security, policy control, and video management in a single appliance. Blue Coat has one of the more unique solutions with its proxy-based architecture. Unlike most vendors, it uses a more purpose-built appliance. Blue Coat offers a wide range of in-band and out-of-band options. The SG appliances have one of the best memory and storage architectures, which highlights Blue Coat s original heritage as a caching company. Blue Coat s solution is fairly transparent in that it s nondisruptive to your network architecture, but it does require tunneling across the WAN. And finally, Blue Coat is one of the vendors that is shipping a fully integrated client option for optimizing remote users. Blue Coat has a very strong, policy-driven approach to applying optimization techniques. It has one of the strongest and most mature caching capabilities for both byte- and object-level. Its proxy architecture also creates an excellent platform for optimizing protocols, and it fully supports 14 different protocols at this time, with specific acceleration for many of them. Blue Coat s compression and traffic management capabilities are average and use standard techniques. Finally, Blue Coat offers above-average capabilities for optimizing real-time traffic with video in particular. Blue Coat does not offer many specific optimizations above and beyond the standard techniques listed above. It works closely with application vendors to ensure that certain packaged apps especially media ones are accelerated. Its proxy architecture is also the most mature option for handling SSL-encrypted traffic, especially if you already have it as part of your trusted infrastructure. Blue Coat is one of the few vendors that offers appliance-based, centralized management tools. Both its Director and Report products are scalable, provide an average suite of options to minimize operational tasks and boost ease of use, and its XML API is one of the best for going above and beyond basic SNMP for third-party integration. Blue Coat provides great scale-out capabilities with above-average device clustering, but its session and throughput capabilities are only average. Blue Coat SG has built-in software-based bridging, failover network cards, and support for active/active load balancing with failover. Specific models support dual power supplies (AC mode), multiple power supplies (DC mode), multiple hot-swappable disk drives, and multiple network interfaces. Blue Coat allows the OS and configuration to be stored on each disk with up to five versions per disk for automatic rollback if necessary. Blue Coat uses a combination of its Director and Reporter appliances to provide appliance and application monitoring. It provides excellent visibility into the apps that it can proxy, but falls short of other solutions ability to identify apps. Blue Coat has excellent auditing and logging capabilities. Source: Forrester Research, Inc.

4 4 Figure 1 Blue Coat Systems SG Appliances Evaluation Overview (Cont.) STRATEGY Product strategy Corporate strategy Financial resources to support strategy Cost MARKET PRESENCE Installed base Revenue Revenue growth Services Employees Channel partners Blue Coat has an above-average vision for the market that looks at WAN optimization as part of larger application delivery infrastructure. Unlike many solutions, Blue Coat brings a stronger integration with remote access and security technologies, which positions it well as an ideal data center and branch gateway device. Blue Coat s technology partnerships are stronger than most vendors in this evaluation and it is one of the few vendors to have undergone Common Criteria certification. Blue Coat is well positioned to target the midsize and large enterprise space. Its focus is on both WAN optimization and forward proxies, but these are in the same product line, which makes it more focused on WAN optimization as a long-term staple of its portfolio. Blue Coat has the financial means and profitability to execute well against its strategy, but is not the largest or most profitable among the vendors evaluated. Blue Coat provides a well-priced solution that is in the middle of the pack, placing fourth for both its average list price and an example scenario we evaluated. It provides excellent maintenance options. Its SG appliances are based on a flat pricing structure, with a few features available as add-ons. Blue Coat is one of the most recent entrants into the WAN optimization market and, thus currently has the smallest installed base. It does well to include maintenance with most users and already has an impressive list of customers. Blue Coat s WAN optimization revenue is ranked seventh among vendors evaluated. Blue Coat s WAN optimization revenue growth is ranked first among the vendors we evaluated. Blue Coat has standard training classes for both administrators and experts. Blue Coat relies heavily on partners, but has a professional services staff for special customer projects, to assist system integrators, and to assist reseller partners with implementations and knowledge transfer. Blue Coat s employee base is strong, putting the vendor toward the middle of the pack (fifth) for overall size, but it proportionately has one of the largest engineering staffs. Blue Coat does not OEM its product, but it does have leverage as one of the larger reseller channels with more than 1,000 partners worldwide. Source: Forrester Research, Inc.

5 5 Go online to download additional in-depth data and scores for this vendor and other vendors included in this Forrester Wave evaluation. SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL Online Resource The underlying spreadsheet for Figure 1 is available online. The spreadsheet includes more detailed data and scores for this vendor. This detailed data and scores for this vendor are also available online through an Excel-based vendor comparison tool that provides detailed product evaluations and customizable rankings. The Forrester Wave Methodology We conduct primary research to develop a list of vendors that meet our criteria to be evaluated in this market. From that initial pool of vendors, we then narrow our final list. We choose these vendors based on: 1) product fit; 2) customer success; and 3) Forrester client demand. We eliminate vendors that have limited customer references and products that don t fit the scope of our evaluation. After examining past research, user need assessments, and vendor and expert interviews, we develop the initial evaluation criteria. To evaluate the vendors and their products against our set of criteria, we gather details of product qualifications through a combination of lab evaluations, questionnaires, demos, and/or discussions with client references. We send evaluations to the vendors for their review, and we adjust the evaluations to provide the most accurate view of vendor offerings and strategies. We set default weightings to reflect our analysis of the needs of large user companies and/or other scenarios as outlined in the Forrester Wave document and then score the vendors based on a clearly defined scale. These default weightings are intended only as a starting point, and readers are encouraged to adapt the weightings to fit their individual needs through the Excel-based tool. The final scores generate the graphical depiction of the market based on current offering, strategy, and market presence. Forrester intends to update vendor evaluations regularly as product capabilities and vendor strategies evolve.

6 6 ENDNOTES 1 At the time of this evaluation, Packeteer was the only other vendor that supported a client-based option. However, several vendors have indicated that a client would be shipping in Q3 or Q On January 3, 2006, Blue Coat Systems announced that it had signed a definitive agreement to acquire Permeo Technologies, a privately held provider of on-demand endpoint access, security, and information protection solutions, for approximately $60.8 million, including approximately $13.4 million in cash and approximately $47.4 million in Blue Coat common stock, based on the closing price of Blue Coat common stock of $45.72 on December 30, Forrester evaluated leading WAN optimization appliance vendors across 65 criteria and found that Riverbed and Juniper have established early leadership. They have demonstrated early innovation in the most critical optimization techniques like caching, data de-duplication, and advanced compression. Silver Peak leads WAN optimization appliance pure plays with the most scalable solution. Cisco and Blue Coat provide the full suite of capabilities but excel in offering technology that plugs into existing router and proxy products, respectively. Expand and Packeteer have well-established traffic management boxes with additional WAN optimization capabilities but need further integration to capture leadership positions. Citrix and F5 deliver good point products today but will offer much stronger devices when they integrate WAN optimization with their existing application delivery controllers. Ultimately, this is a tightly contested market, and we urge you to focus on optimization, scalability, security, and mobility criteria to determine the most appropriate solution. See the, The Forrester Wave : WAN Optimization Appliances, Q report. Forrester Research, Inc. (Nasdaq: FORR) is an independent technology and market research company that provides pragmatic and forward-thinking advice to global leaders in business and technology. For more than 23 years, Forrester has been making leaders successful every day through its proprietary research, consulting, events, and peer-to-peer executive programs. For more information, visit , Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Forrester, Forrester Wave, RoleView, Technographics, and Total Economic Impact are trademarks of Forrester Research, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective companies. Forrester clients may make one attributed copy or slide of each figure contained herein. Additional reproduction is strictly prohibited. For additional reproduction rights and usage information, go to Information is based on best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change. To purchase reprints of this document, please resourcecenter@forrester.com