Blue Coat sizes up video traffic

Stephen Withers
Thursday, 13 October 2011 15:19

Business IT - Networking

Worried about the amount of network bandwidth being used up by web video? A new version of Blue Coat's Reporter keeps tabs on what's going on.

The inappropriate consumption of web video can be a drain on corporate network bandwidth. The latest version of Blue Coat Reporter provides insight into video traffic.

New reports provide top-ten rankings by site, user, groups and protocols or methods. So not only can you see who is responsible for the greatest amount of video traffic and how much they are using, you can also see where the traffic is coming from.

Rather than simply putting restrictions on users or blocking web sites, Blue Coat's other products can be used to reduce the bandwidth taken up by video through caching on-demand content and stream-splitting live video.

"The new Reporter product provides important insight on how employees are using web video and enables companies to understand and address trends and patterns of behaviour," said Rajeev Mitroo, managing director of Blue Coat Australia and New Zealand.  "In addition, our next generation WAN optimisation solutions reduce the impact of video by a substantial factor while boosting the performance of business-critical applications."

Blue Coat Reporter 9.3 is a free upgrade for existing customers on a support plan, and is free to new purchasers of Blue Coat ProxySG or MACH5 appliances. In the latter case, the software is licensed for up to 750 users; if more are needed, an additional charge is involved.