BT has turned to WAN services specialist Blue Coat to help bolster the performance and security of its Global Services division.

Specifically Blue Coat will provide its Managed Internet Accelerator to boost network performance, and Threat Reduction security services, as part of a managed service offering.

"BT has a long history of working with Blue Coat," said Ray Stanton, global head of business continuity, security and governance practice at BT Global Services.

"Its track record in securing and accelerating web traffic makes them an ideal platform for our managed services, and has seen strong uptake by our corporate clients."

Blue Coat recently integrated its own ProxySG appliance with Packeteer's PacketShaper technology, following its acquisition of the firm in June.

Bethany Mayer, senior vice president for worldwide marketing at Blue Coat, said that this gives customers an unprecedented level of packet examination, allowing them to classify and prioritise network traffic on an individual application level.

This allows operators like BT to intelligently manage user requests, and accelerate the delivery of web content to its own managed services clients by routing user requests to the cache for commonly requested content or fetching content on behalf of the users using object pipelining.

"BT now provides its customers with the ability to protect, manage and accelerate internet applications and content," said Craig Hicks-Frazer, vice president of service providers for Blue Coat Systems.

"By incorporating Blue Coat ProxySG appliances in its managed service offerings, BT can offer flexible and granular internet control while accelerating important or acceptable content, rather than face the typical penalty of impaired performance."

As well as optimisation, the ProxySG platform enables security protection and policy enforcement around web usage, allowing the BT Threat Reduction service to monitor web surfing activity and block sites or alert managers based on pre-defined policies.

Furthermore, BT is using Blue Coat appliances on its own corporate network to secure and accelerate web traffic across its global WAN, helping improve access to around 106,000 employees.