Blue Coat Interop Survey Reveals Broad Adoption Of Virtualization In Branch Offices

SUNNYVALE, Calif--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Blue Coat Systems, Inc., the technology leader in Application Delivery Networking, today released the results from a survey focused on the adoption of and user preferences for virtualization in the branch office. Commissioned by Blue Coat, the survey was randomly conducted at Interop 2010 in Las Vegas with in-person questionnaires to over 150 IT and networking professionals. The survey results revealed that virtualization is already in use in branch offices in addition to what is being used in data centers. The survey also indicated a strong preference for industry-standard servers over proprietary networking appliances or routers as the platform of choice for virtualized services and applications in the branch office.

According to the survey conducted by the Merritt Group:
    * Virtualization Migrates to the Branch Office: Virtualization has gained a strong foothold in branch offices with 59 percent of surveyed networking professionals responding that they utilize virtualization in their branch office environments today. This follows broad adoption of the technology in the data center, where 76 percent said they have deployed virtualization.
    * Virtualization in the Branch Office Grows Quickly in 2010: Adoption of virtualization in the branch office is expected to continue in 2010. According to the survey, 44 percent of those surveyed who are not currently using virtualization in their branch offices reported plans to deploy it this year. For those companies reporting existing branch office virtualization deployments, 81 percent reported that they have additional initiatives planned for this year.
    * Virtualization on Industry-Standard Platforms: Of the networking professionals and IT managers surveyed, 82 percent reported that they prefer industry standard servers as the platform of choice for virtualized services and applications in the branch office.

Blue Coat recently introduced the Blue Coat ProxySG Virtual Appliance product, a new family of virtual WAN Optimization appliances that optimize the delivery of advanced business applications and streamline branch office IT infrastructure consolidation. ProxySG Virtual Appliances provide WAN optimization, video delivery and Internet optimization while running along with Microsoft Windows Server 2008, networking functions and any locally-run applications all on a single industry-standard server. Rather than provide a virtualized environment for consolidating other branch office functions on its traditional hardware-based appliances, Blue Coat virtualized its solution to operate on industry-standard servers and provide a flexible and cost-effective solution.