Blue Coat Systems has extended its application delivery network infrastructure with the introduction of a new family of virtual WAN optimisation appliances for branch office IT infrastructure consolidation on standard servers.
The company said that a server running on the new ProxySG Virtual Appliance can also support Microsoft Windows Server 2008, various networking functions and any locally-run applications.
According to Blue Coat, the ProxySG Virtual Appliance enhances centralised enterprise applications, remote file access, email and back-ups in branch offices, including enhanced optimisation for internally-hosted or cloud-based SharePoint and Exchange 2003 and 2007.
For the hardware-based appliance, the new offering is designed to optimise web-based applications, including cloud-hosted Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) that use SSL encryption for communication over the web.
In addition, the virtual appliance is also purpose-built to provide integrated delivery and management for live and on-demand video from internal company resources or external sources utilising split-streaming, local caching and pre-population technologies.
The new family of virtual appliances operates on VMware vSphere running natively on industry-standard servers, enabling IT firms to streamline operations through the deployment of a flexible consolidation platform, the company said.
The new family of ProxySG virtual appliances is available in four models VA-5, VA-10, VA-15 and VA-20 that support up to 10, 50, 125 and 300 concurrent users, respectively.
ProxySG Virtual Appliance is available on March 31, 2010 with US list prices starting at $1,110 a year for a VA-5 model supporting up to ten simultaneous users.
