Blue Coat unifies security reporting in cloud service, appliances

Blue Coat Systems said yesterday it has unified the real-time reporting in its cloud-based security service with that in its full line of ProxySG security appliances so that enterprises receive real-time information related to both.

“It’s unified the reporting into a single pane of glass,” said Sasi Murthy, director of web security at Blue Coat.

The Blue Coat Cloud Service provides equivalent functionality in the cloud to Blue Coat’s line of ProxySG appliances for authentication, Web filtering, anti-malware, data-loss prevention and bandwidth management used on premises. But the real-time reporting for the cloud and the appliances had been separate. As of now, this information can be shared fully between the two, she noted.

These unified reports would include those related to infected client computers, identifying which users need remediation; the histories of log-in information; and usage of web applications, social networking and bandwidth, she said. The intention with the unified reporting is to assist Blue Coat customers that use both cloud and appliances.

Ellen Messmer is senior editor at Network World, an IDG publication and website, where she covers news and technology trends related to information security.