Blue Coat aims for public cloud WAN optimisation

Blue Coat is aiming to fill a gap in the wide area network (WAN) optimisation field with software that gives IT administrators more control over virtual machine management in public clouds.

The firm's latest CloudCaching Engine for the MACH5 WAN Optimisation system for physical and virtual appliances is designed to give IT managers control over corporate systems interfacing with the cloud.

"Performance can be slowed by things like document access taking up bandwidth," Mark Urban, Blue Coat senior director of product marketing, told V3.co.uk.

"Few software-as-a-service vendors want to provide optimised WAN services, so we are aiming to fill the gap."

The new tool allows companies to optimise the deployment of virtual machines in the cloud within an administrative framework, and optimise bandwidth for services in use by public cloud vendors.

It also minimises unnecessary bandwidth by caching frequently used files to allow them to be sourced from inside the network, rather than pulling in new data each time a user wishes to access the information.