Blue Coat enhances CacheFlow appliances to speed delivery of Rich Web 2.0 Media

Blue Coat Systems, Inc. today announced a new software release for its Blue Coat CacheFlow appliances.  This update enables CacheFlow appliances to provide 50 percent bandwidth savings for general Web traffic and even greater bandwidth savings for dedicated large file and video caching.  For mission-critical service provider deployments, this release delivers greater manageability, resiliency and scalability to support rapidly growing demand for new, rich media Web content.  

Since its introduction in 2010, CacheFlow appliances have been deployed around the world. Customers include FASTtelco in Kuwait, Afribone in West Africa, True Internet in Thailand, REDtone in Malaysia, Telecom New Zealand, and North-Eastern Pennsylvania Telephone Company in North America. 

“CacheFlow appliances have proven their value in delivering high-quality, rich Web 2.0 content, including video, at substantially lower operational costs for the service provider,” said Nidal Taha, Managing Director EMEA – Carrier Division at Blue Coat Systems.  ”They have become a valuable tool for service providers that are struggling to reduce bandwidth consumption while improving the Web experience.” 

Utilizing next-generation caching technology, Blue Coat CacheFlow appliances scale content delivery to meet burgeoning subscriber demands.  CacheFlow appliances also provide a “shock absorber” to address traffic spikes that occur when Web sites and content become popular over a very short period of time, such as major news, sporting or political events.  The new software release delivers the following benefits to service providers struggling to deliver rich, dynamic Web content to their users: 

Enhanced Feedback Loop – To provide specialized caching rules in a dynamic, automated fashion as Web content changes, the new software release provides tighter integration between CacheFlow appliances and the Blue Coat CachePulse service, a cloud-based service that automatically delivers optimized caching rules and instructions to the appliances.  For example, the CachePulse service can identify changes in how popular sites such as YouTube or RapidShare serve content to users and then generate site-specific caching instructions for the CacheFlow appliances. 

Enhanced Diagnostics & Infrastructure Monitoring – Improved diagnostic capabilities allow administrators to better understand the complex interactions of the CacheFlow devices with other critical network elements, such as DNS servers, load-balancers and core routing infrastructure. 

Simplified Management for Multiple Appliances – To simplify the set-up and ongoing management of large cache farms, the new Blue Coat CacheGroup tool allows administrators to set a master configuration for a single CacheFlow appliance and propagate that configuration to other appliances.  The CacheGroup tool can also apply a software upgrade across an entire cache farm, reducing administration time and long-term total cost of ownership. 

Greater System Resiliency – With the new CacheGroup tool, a secondary CacheFlow appliance in a cache farm can take over in the event of a failure in the master appliance.  The secondary appliance seamlessly resumes primary control for management of all CacheFlow appliances, providing built-in resiliency for mission-critical service provider environments. 

Flexible Power Support – With a field upgrade kit, customers can now convert their CacheFlow appliances to support DC power for deployment in legacy co-location or other facilities where DC power is required. 

Pricing & Availability

The new, one-click software upgrade is immediately available for download by customers currently under an existing support contract.  The DC power option for CacheFlow appliances is also now available through an add-on hardware upgrade kit that can be purchased separately.