In May, TMCnet reported that WAN optimization segment is faring better than other networking segments, with sales up 7 percent to $256 million in Q4 2009. The findings were based on Infonetics' (News - Alert) latest quarterly report, titled 'Data Center Network Equipment.'

 
In its latest market share report, Infonetics Research (News - Alert) reveals that Blue Coat Systems, the technology provider in Application Delivery Networking or "AND," continued its lead in the Wide Area Network or "WAN" optimization market through the entire calendar year of 2009 and the first quarter of 2010.
 
Application Delivery Network infrastructure solutions from Blue Coat (News - Alert) Systems optimize and secure the delivery of applications, legacy and Web 2.0 content. Its technology provides visibility combined with policy-based control for granular classification and prioritization of applications. Distributed enterprises can optimize their WANs according to their business priorities with this functionality, the company said.
 
The Blue Coat ADN infrastructure provides the comprehensive application and user control required to contain network bandwidth costs and enhance business productivity. Blue Coat accelerates critical applications by optimizing traffic, conserving bandwidth and metering or blocking recreational applications. External applications specifically benefit from industry-leading HTTP protocol optimizations and caching, along with the industry's most advanced SSL/TLS acceleration.
 
Infonetics Research forecasts 29 percent growth for the WAN optimization appliance market in the next four years, from $1.2 billion in 2010 to $1.5 billion in 2014.
 
WAN optimization is the base of Blue Coat ADN infrastructure. The Blue Coat ADN infrastructure combines visibility, acceleration and security technologies and enables network managers to optimize and secure the delivery of applications across the extended enterprise. Blue Coat identifies and control unauthorized network traffic such as online ads, inappropriate Web surfing, Web-borne malware and customer-designated applications.
 
Blue Coat WAN Optimization products include Blue Coat ProxySG appliances, Blue Coat ProxyClient, Blue Coat Director and Blue Coat PacketShaper. They provide LAN-like application performance to remote users and branch offices, the company said. These solutions deliver outstanding performance for streaming audio, video and other rich media applications. They help reduce recurring network bandwidth costs with multiple levels of compression and content caching, and accelerates live and on-demand rich media, as well as SSL-encrypted traffic.
 
Blue Coat's application intelligence enables enterprises to adjust network investments with business requirements, speed decision-making and secure business applications for long-term competitive advantage, the company said.
 
Recently Blue Coat announced the launch of Blue Coat Data Loss Prevention or "DLP" family of appliances that provide data loss protection in a single integrated appliance, TMCnet reported. The company has added these DLP appliances to its hybrid Secure Web Gateway (News - Alert) solution.

Rajani Baburajan is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Rajani's articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Alice Straight