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Nevada Department of Corrections Selects Blue Coat to Optimize WAN for New Inmate Tracking SystemSUNNYVALE, Calif., May 15 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Blue Coat Systems, Inc. , the leader in secure content and application delivery, today announced that the Nevada Department of Corrections (NDOC), the state's largest agency, has selected Blue Coat(R) SG(TM) appliances to optimize its Wide Area Network (WAN) by securing and accelerating its primary application, the Nevada Offender Tracking Information System (NOTIS), between its 20 prison facilities statewide. Without the use of Blue Coat appliances, this application would not work in many of the Department's remote locations. Over 3,000 Nevada state employees rely on the department's critical NOTIS application, which manages everything from inmate sentences and facilities occupancy to information about potential threats to inmates among the prison population, such as opposing gang members who could pose a lethal menace to them. NDOC selected Blue Coat appliances to make NOTIS available to all of its locations across the state, even in the most remote areas. The solution also reduces bandwidth usage and enables Web security and policy control. "Blue Coat is enabling us to deploy a new application that is critical to our effective operations," says Dan O'Barr, systems administrator, Nevada Department of Corrections. "It's important that the application has a fast enough response time to make its use interactive, even to our most remote locations." Prior to deploying Blue Coat appliances, it took as long as 50 seconds for NOTIS screens to update at remote locations, rendering it unusable for many of the agency's facilities. Using Blue Coat SG appliances, pages now typically load in about five seconds, even over a satellite WAN link with limited bandwidth, an increase in responsiveness of 625 percent. Now the critical NOTIS application is now both functional and accessible to all of its prison facilities, many of which are separated by significant distances. Another objective for NDOC is to reduce operational costs through decreasing the amount of bandwidth consumption. NDOC's Internet traffic has traditionally been backhauled over the WAN and then secured and filtered by central proxy servers at the data center. With Blue Coat appliances, NDOC can provide direct Internet access because external traffic can be secured and controlled directly at each branch office. This way, the Department can avoid "paying twice" for backhauled Internet traffic while still maintaining security and control. Web security is an important issue for NDOC. Employee Internet access for web browsing or email is tightly controlled due to the sensitive nature of the information the agency's staff handles. The security and control features of the Blue Coat SG appliances help NDOC achieve its objective of protecting its resources and confidential information. Currently SG appliances have been deployed at six of NDOC's twenty locations, some of which are in the most remote locations in the continental United States. Other locations should be deployed shortly. NDOC also plans to explore using Blue Coat SG appliances to enable streaming video and audio broadcasts over the WAN throughout the state, accelerate SSL-encrypted traffic that passes through state WAN links, and possibly encrypt certain links that are currently not encrypted. "Blue Coat has enabled the Nevada Department of Corrections to implement its vision of a centralized system that provides real-time inmate information to all of its facilities, even at its most remote locations," said Chris King, director of strategic marketing, Blue Coat Systems, Inc. "The same Blue Coat SG appliances provide a platform for acceleration, security, and control for the Department while lowering operating expenses by using less bandwidth." About Blue Coat Systems, Inc. Blue Coat secures Web communications and accelerates business applications across the distributed enterprise. Blue Coat's family of appliances and client-based solutions -- deployed in branch offices, Internet gateways, end points, and data centers -- provide intelligent points of policy-based control enabling IT organizations to optimize security and accelerate performance between users and applications. Blue Coat has installed more than 30,000 appliances worldwide and is ranked #1 by IDC in the Secure Content and Application Delivery market. Blue Coat is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, and can be reached at (408) 220-2200 or http://www.bluecoat.com/. FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS: The statements contained in this press release that are not purely historical are forward-looking statements, including statements regarding Blue Coat Systems' expectations, beliefs, intentions or strategies regarding the future, and including statements regarding the capabilities and expected performance of Blue Coat Systems' products. All forward-looking statements included in this press release are based upon information available to Blue Coat Systems as of the date hereof, and Blue Coat Systems assumes no obligation to update any such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. These and other risks relating to Blue Coat Systems' business are set forth in Blue Coat Systems' most recently filed Form 10-Q for the quarter ended January 31, 2007 and Form 10-K for the year ended April 30, 2006, and other reports filed from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission. NOTE: Blue Coat and other applicable product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of Blue Coat Systems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks, trade names or service marks used or mentioned herein belong to their respective owners. Blue Coat Systems, Inc. CONTACT: Media, Steve Schick of Blue Coat Systems, +1-408-220-2318,[email protected]; or Kevin Kosh of CHEN PR, +1-781-672-3111,[email protected], for Blue Coat Systems; or Investors, Carla Chun of Blue CoatSystems, [email protected] Web site: http://www.bluecoat.com/ |