Blue Coat PacketShaper

Features

Intelligent Traffic Classification

Monitor, measure, and report on applications and Web traffic with PacketShaper’s Layer 7+ deep packet inspection and integration with Blue Coat’s WebPulse URL categorization service. PacketShaper’s Application Performance Monitoring Module provides deep insight into network traffic, including web-based applications and content categories such as social networking and streaming media. Assess, troubleshoot and measure any network with a PacketShaper deployed inline or on a span port, with no impact on traffic, and no changes to existing systems.

• Deep Packet Inspection – Classify more than 700 applications on your network with Layer 7+ technology, which automatically identifies applications and allows you to separate business from recreational applications.
• Security Risk Assessment – Identify security concerns and breaches, such as phishing, malware effects, and proxy avoidance, to quickly uncover weaknesses in your current security deployment.
• Web Content Assessment – Measure and report on all Web traffic in 80 content categories, such as gambling, job search, web advertisements, and pornography.
• Monitor Utilization and Performance – Audit utilization and performance by links, users or applications, such as business critical, recreational and unsanctioned traffic types.
• Track Application Response Time – Track application response times, isolate performance issues and identify server- or network-related issues without agents.
• Monitor Service-Level Agreements – Monitor service-level agreements (SLAs) for critical applications or links.
• Diagnose and Troubleshoot Application Issues – Access performance diagnostics including connection profiling and server responses (TCP Health), network efficiency, traffic captures, traffic forensic history and more.
• Monitor Hierarchical Frameworks – Break down traffic to a granular level with visibility into peak and average utilization rates, bytes, availability, utilization, top talkers/listeners, and much more.

Shaping Module

Traffic Shaping and Quality of Service (QoS)

Provide powerful and flexible policy-based control.

Shape traffic, ensure Quality of Service (QoS) and provide latency-sensitive, business-critical applications with the bandwidth they need to perform at their peak using flexible policy-based control. With easy to set parameters such as priority, minimum and maximum bandwidth and per-session guarantees, PacketShaper ensures QoS for business-critical applications.

• Assure Critical Application Performance – Ensure business-critical applications have the resources they need to operate effectively over the WAN and Internet.
• Control Web Traffic – Contain the impact of Web-based traffic, such as social networking, sports, and streaming media, by capping the allowable bandwidth to a specific rate or percentage of the WAN link.
• Manage Web-Based Applications – Prioritize business-related Web applications such as WebEx and salesforce.com, while squeezing low-priority Web applications such as online games and file sharing.
• Prioritize Applications and Provision Sessions – Prioritize more important applications over less important ones using PacketShaper's application-intelligent QoS technologies. Also, provision per call or per session bandwidth for critical applications.
• Allocate Bandwidth for Remote Sites with Inbound QoS – With patented TCP rate control, PacketShaper determines the sending rates of computers at the far end of the network delivering bi-directional QoS.
• Minimize Network Congestion – Minimize network congestion, queuing latency and inefficiencies that hurt application response times between remote locations.
• Cap/Block Recreational Applications – Set the maximum bandwidth these applications are allowed on the network.
• Mark Traffic – Mark packets with prescribed DiffServ, IPTOS/Precedence, MPLS tags, VLANs and others.
• Suppress DDoS, Virus and Worm Propagation – Enhance the security of your network and application infrastructure by finding and stopping infected PCs and tracking every flow through the network.

Compression Module

Quickly increase WAN capacity, improving application performance and user response times with Blue Coat's application intelligent Compression Module. Reduce bandwidth usage and minimize WAN latency using the optimal compression algorithm for each application, while ensuring that added capacity from virtual bandwidth goes to the highest priority applications.

• Increase WAN Capacity – Increase WAN capacity over the same physical links with application-specific compression that utilizes high efficiency, low-latency algorithms, packet packing, MTU management and header compression.
• Improve Application Performance – Improve application performance and responsiveness by getting more critical traffic through constrained WAN links.
• Provide Application-Intelligent Selective Compression – Automatically and intelligently select what traffic to compress and which technology to provide maximum optimization.
• Auto-configure with Active Tunnel – Sets up tunnels between devices and maintain reliability of compression exchanges without any manual configuration.

Centralized Monitoring and Reporting

Deploy and manage multiple units with PolicyCenter for centralized management and IntelligenceCenter for centralized reporting.

High Availability

Automatic hardware bypass, Direct Standby mode and access link monitoring prevent traffic blocks from occurring in the event of failure and provide automatic adjustment of policies when a backup link is activated and active adjustment of traffic rates based on link congestion.