Over 40% of Asia Pacific Companies Provide Direct Internet Access in Branch Offices Rather Than Backhaul Traffic Across the Wide Area Network
New study also shows nearly 85% of companies want the same level of Internet protection and control in branch as in headquarters or data center
Tweet-- Blue Coat Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: BCSI), the world leader in WAN Application Delivery and Secure Web Gateway, today released the results of a market study on networking trends of Asia Pacific companies. Over 40% of the respondents surveyed for the study indicated their companies provide their branch offices with direct Internet access, rather than "backhaul" the Internet traffic across a Wide Area Network (WAN) to a centralized Internet gateway in the headquarters or regional data center.
Over 1,100 Asia Pacific companies participated in the survey, which was conducted online by Blue Coat in August 2008. The survey explored topics regarding branch office Internet access, work force mobilization and consolidation of datacenters. Respondents to the survey included IT professionals from companies in Australia; Bangladesh; Greater China; India; Indonesia; Malaysia; New Zealand; Pakistan; Philippines; Singapore; Sri Lanka; South Korea; Taiwan; Thailand; Vietnam; and Japan.
In India, the survey was conducted with over 120 companies and the findings revealed that as compared to 40% of Asia Pacific companies, 46% of Indian companies provide branch offices with direct Internet access. However, more than 50% of branch office internet traffic is still backhauled over the Wide Area Network, and 70% of companies would want to provide the same level of protection at the branch office as in headquarters or data centers.
Although a significant number of companies still backhaul branch office Internet traffic hundreds or thousands of miles to a remote data center or headquarters over private or semi-private data lines, a growing number of companies have established local Internet service at the branch and receive direct Internet access there. Some companies have local Internet access, but route all corporate traffic directly to headquarters or a data center using a site-to-site VPN, which serves as the WAN link, and do not allow access to the Web in the local branch office.
"We see a significant number of companies that either have branch offices with direct Internet access or are in the process of migrating to such access, rather than relying on backhauling that traffic to a centralized access point across the WAN," said Matt Young, vice president, Asia Pacific, Blue Coat Systems. "Companies are rejecting the high cost and inefficiencies of backhauling Internet traffic. With Blue Coat appliances, companies can gain 'direct-to-the-net' branch office access while maintaining consistent, centrally-managed security and control by using the same appliance that provides WAN optimization. We enable companies to migrate away from backhauling to direct Internet connections in the branch."
Notes to Editor
About Blue Coat Systems
Blue Coat secures Web communications and accelerates business applications across the distributed enterprise. Blue Coat's family of appliances and client-based solutions – deployed in branch offices, Internet gateways, end points, and data centers – provide intelligent points of policy-based control enabling IT organizations to optimize security and accelerate performance between users and applications. Blue Coat has installed more than 40,000 appliances worldwide. Blue Coat is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. For more information on Blue Coat, please visit our website: www.bluecoat.com.