Blue Coat adds Twitter to its PacketShaper

The software plug-in for Twitter is available immediately and is free of charge to customers with a current maintenance agreement. 

Peter Owen director of channels A/NZ Blue Coat Systems said according to Hitwise, the amount of Australians on Twitter has increased by over 1000 percent since the start of the 2009, naming Twitter as the 37th most visited website by Australian Internet users.

He said these statistics point to the importance of the application 'emphasising the ability to discover, monitor and control Twitter on a network'.

"The Blue Coat PacketShaper & Proxy SG appliances now allow customers to identify Twitter traffic on their network, measure and control it if need be," he said.

"For the channel, this is another point of difference for customers as it allows them to see and understand the impact of social networking on their networks. 

"Blue Coat offerings allow the channel to sell specifically to this market of Twitter or other social networking traffic control and  provides a number of deployment options either with the PacketShaper or Proxy SG or both working together."

Owen said the appliances provide a more comprehensive touch point for the channel and allows them to add value and gain services revenue through consulting, implementation and reporting engagements.

"The pervasive nature of social applications is a great example of the devil within," he said. 

"Threats regardless if they are security, risk or productivity oriented have a high percentage of traffic generated from within an organisation and a comprehensive secure web gateway solution is critical to deal with this type of environment. 

"Blue Coat PacketShaper and Proxy SG appliances can provide a comprehensive solution that not only  deals with the known social applications such as Twitter but allows for the introduction of new applications that we haven't even thought about."

PacketShaper can identify more than 600 applications helping network managers limit the impact of recreational applications and optimise the performance of business applications by applying granular controls such as bandwidth guarantees, limits, prioritisation and other quality of service mechanisms.