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ISBN: 978-0-470-54290-3
Not resaleable Nancy Conner
The changing workplace and new era of IP-based
networking means that more applications are
competing for limited network resources. This is Want more
powered by the significant growth in adoption of
collaborative applications and services, including information on
next-generation voice, video, Web conferencing, and
other bandwidth-hungry real-time applications.
Unfortunately, IT organizations are struggling to
Blue Coats Application Delivery
support these collaborative applications in an era of
declining budgets. Many IT organizations lack the Network infrastructure?
resources, both in staff and equipment, to manage
application performance. As a result, many
businesses are turning to Managed Service Providers
(MSPs) to reduce operational and deployment costs,
and leverage the skill sets of the MSPs.
Thats where working with a Blue Coat MSP comes

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in. As early as 1998, Blue Coat had a vision for where business was heading. As and the latest technologies to build an
the world became more global and collaborative and more dynamic and
decentralized, Blue Coat developed an infrastructure designed to support and
enhance the changing WAN environment.
Application Delivery Network
The resulting Blue Coat infrastructure combines three core technologies: www.bluecoat.com/solutions/businessneeds
visibility, acceleration, and security, the core components of building an
Application Delivery Network (ADN).
In the WAN world, you need these three technologies working together to
provide the comprehensive application and user control required to contain
costs, enhance business productivity, and respond to ever-changing threats. In
a global business environment, the WAN is the center, allowing users to be -> Analyst Papers
productive at any time, in any place. In the meantime, organizations have found
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-> Podcasts
Managed Services For Dummies will help you identify and address todays most
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Blue Coat Systems, Inc.
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Managed
Services
FOR
DUMmIES

BLUE COAT MANAGED SOLUTIONS EDITION
by Nancy Conner
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01_542903-ffirs.indd i 9/3/09 10:47:33 PM
Managed Services For Dummies, Blue Coat Managed Solutions Edition
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01_542903-ffirs.indd ii 9/3/09 10:47:33 PM
Introduction
W elcome to Managed Services For Dummies, Blue Coat
Managed Solutions Edition. In a global business
environment, wide-area networks (WANs) have taken center
stage, letting companies do business around the world, using
employees in offices dotting the globe. Many enterprises
find it both difficult and expensive to manage and optimize
the WAN to ensure business operations run smoothly and
securely. Doing so requires ongoing investments in hardware,
endless updates, and staff training. Wouldnt it be better to
have your IT staff work on core business concerns than to
spend their time managing the network? And arent security,
reliable applications, and visibility essential to your network?
Thats where managed services come in. A reliable managed

service provider (MSP) has the expertise and equipment to
optimize and monitor your network and deliver applications
efficiently and safely. And instead of requiring upfront capital
expenditures, managed services let you shift network costs
to the operational side of things, paying for what you actually
use (instead of what someone thinks you might need).
About This Book

Managed Services For Dummies, Blue Coat Managed Solutions
Edition, covers the ins and outs of managed services. Chapter 1
introduces managed services. Chapter 2 is all about Application
Delivery Networks (ADN), and Chapter 3 talks about service-
level agreements (SLAs). Chapter 4 wraps everything up with
ten or so important reasons to use managed services to get
your network up to speed.
The content of this book was provided by and published

specifically for Blue Coat Systems. The top global service pro-
viders are already partnering with Blue Coat to deliver ADN
services over the WAN and youre thinking of joining them.
02_542903-intro.indd 1 9/3/09 10:48:01 PM
2 Managed Services For Dummies
Foolish Assumptions
For this short overview, we made a few assumptions about
you, the reader:
Youre no dummy. If you werent smart, you wouldnt be

interested in improving the performance of the applica-
tions on your WAN in the first place.
Youre an IT decision maker. Youve heard at least a
little about managed services, and youre super-interested
in what it can offer your organization.
You may be a managed service provider. You want to
make it clear to your current and potential customers why
managed services are a good idea, and you want to help
them move from basic WAN services to a spectrum of
value-added services, such as WAN acceleration and man-
aged security services. Youre also interested in what Blue
Coat solutions have to offer you.
You speak tech. Although we make a point of defining
terms and spelling out acronyms, this book assumes that
you have a general familiarity with computer lingo.
Icons Used in This Book

Throughout the margins in this book, you see little icons that
highlight different types of information.
When we present something that can save you time and effort,
we toss in this icon to highlight it.
This icon offers a little extra information of a technical nature.

You dont have to read it to follow the book, but its an inter-
esting aside.
This icon highlights important information youll want to keep

in mind.
02_542903-intro.indd 2 9/3/09 10:48:01 PM
Chapter 1
Making the Move to

Managed Services
In This Chapter
Defining managed services
Understanding how WAN services have changed over time
Capitalizing on managed services
M anaged services are on the rise. In fact, theyre poised

for explosive growth. According to analysts, by 2013,
the managed services market is expected to reach approxi-
mately $34 billion. Currently, an estimated 67 percent of firms
use managed services to reduce costs. And an analyst research
firm predicts that security applications delivered as cloud-
based services will more than triple by 2013. Sounds like some-
thing you should know about, doesnt it?
This chapter gets you up to speed with managed services: what

they are, where they came from, and most importantly
what they can do for your business.
So What Are Managed

Services, Anyway?
Simply put, managed services refers to the practice of transferring
the day-to-day burdens of network management to an outside
service provider (SP), called a managed service provider (MSP).
It allows businesses to purchase and deploy WAN solutions
through an MSP as a recurring monthly expense as opposed to
a major capital investment.
03_542903-ch01.indd 3 9/3/09 10:48:26 PM
Managed services let you free up internal resources to work on

strategic IT projects that relate directly to your core business
initiatives. Your business has better things to do than keeping
up with constant IT updates, security performance issues, and
maintenance. You may not want to divert your resources and
capital away from other areas of the business, where theyd
be put to better use. Its smarter to focus your resources on
what you do best your core business.
An MSP may reduce your IT price tag by providing lower-cost

alternatives to keep up with the times. By working with an MSP,
you shift capital expenses to operational expenses, paying only
for services you actually use. Prices and providers vary accord-
ing to business size, area of expertise, packages offered, indi-
vidual service, and the ability to meet customer needs.
The Evolution of WAN Services

Although managed services have recently become a hot topic,
theyve been around since the 1980s, the era of big hair, shoul-
der pads, and New Wave music. Back then, managed services
were highly customized and aimed at only a small segment of
the market mostly massive enterprises that wanted to out-
source their entire wide area network (WAN) operations to a
service provider.
Enter the 90s. Along with Seinfeld, Pokmon, and the dot-com
boom, the 1990s also brought changes to managed services. A
new crop of MSPs appeared, with a broader vision of what man-
aged services had to offer. These companies offered network-
monitoring services or hosted applications to small and medium-
sized businesses. But when the dot-com boom went bust, many
of these early MSPs went with it, thanks to heavy capital invest-
ments and only a small number of early adopters.
It took a new century for MSPs to really begin living up to

their potential. MSPs went from offering services that simply
transported data to offering network services, security, and
application delivery. MSPs typically have evolved to offer
these types of new services:
Access services: Authentication, proxy, and caching

Policy services: Compliance, security, and personalization
Application services: Visibility/monitoring, acceleration/
optimization, and hosting
03_542903-ch01.indd 4 9/3/09 10:48:26 PM
Chapter 1: Making the Move to Managed Services 5
Heres why MSPs are here to stay:
Increasing demand, based on a range of trends including

globalization, e-commerce, ongoing cost containment,
and telecommuting
More focused MSP business models, such as shifting
costs to a monthly recurring expense
Evolved WAN requirements
New Web-based technologies, emerging Web 2.0 collabo-
ration tools, SaaS and cloud computing that have made
managed services more powerful and cost-effective
Multiprotocol label switching

Multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) is one of the technologies
that has catapulted managed services into the 21st century.
MPLS uses labels short identifiers attached to data packets
to make decisions about forwarding and routing data.
MPLS enables high-performance data transfer between WAN

nodes, no matter what the data contains or what protocol (such
as voice, video, HTTP, or FTP) is used. With MPLS, your network
can assign appropriate priority and class-of-service to traffic,
whether voice, video or Internet. So Internet traffic, VoIP calls,
and video can all run on a converged network without every-
thing grinding to a halt. Case in point, your video conferences
and voice calls need a class-of-service with minimal delays
and jittering MPLS makes that a reality.
In a nutshell, MPLS offers some real advantages:
Better traffic management

Easier scalability
Support for multiple protocols
Improved security
Guaranteed quality-of-service (QoS)
Affordable cost
As Chapter 2 explains, Blue Coat solutions enable MPLS+, which

gives you even more visibility and control of whats on your
network so that you can better prioritize traffic. MPLS+ takes
network management and traffic prioritization beyond mere
03_542903-ch01.indd 5 9/3/09 10:48:26 PM
ports and protocols, letting you focus on applications and ulti-

mately end-user experience. (Find out more about MPLS+ in
Chapter 2.)
Value-Added Service
Opportunities: Cloud
Computing and SaaS
Cloud computing is more than just the buzzword du jour; its a
whole new IT paradigm. Thanks to the cloud (a network of data
centers offering access to powerful applications and services
delivered over the Internet), users can access, work on, share,
and store data all without huge capital expenditures from
the business.
A popular aspect of cloud computing is Software-as-a-Service

(SaaS, pronounced sass), which presents an alternative to
traditional, on-site software. SaaS is a lot like leasing a car.
Instead of owning, licensing, deploying, and maintaining a
software application, many organizations are choosing to
rent, rather than buy, their software. SaaS applications, usu-
ally offered on a subscription basis, are hosted remotely
and delivered over the Internet. Examples of SaaS include
Salesforce.com, Microsoft Live, and Google Apps.
The movement of enterprises to cloud computing and SaaS is

likely and offers service providers the opportunity to deliver
new value-added services. So the more value service providers
can offer in terms of managed services, the more they stand to
benefit. These days, service providers must position themselves
to do more than deliver traditional services, such as voice and
Internet; they need to bundle business-class services that satisfy
a range of business requirements. The MSP must offer enter-
prises the ability to see and prioritize whats on the network and
provide SLAs for specific applications, ensuring higher QoS and
security levels. Although thats a tall order, its what customers
need and expect.
03_542903-ch01.indd 6 9/3/09 10:48:26 PM
Chapter 1: Making the Move to Managed Services 7
Fortunately, todays MSPs can address the challenges of opti-
mizing network performance while keeping the network secure.
Chapter 2 shows how application delivery networks combine
visibility, acceleration, and security to optimize the WAN.
Why Service Providers Are

Moving to Managed Services
It makes sense for service providers to offer managed services.
Heres a look at some of the trends prompting SPs to become
MSPs:
Increased corporate demand for managed services:

Voice and data are no longer enough. Customers want
more from service delivery options and Table 1-1
shows why theyre choosing managed services.
A highly competitive SP marketplace: The market is
getting more competitive by the minute, so SPs have
been adding a range of managed services to their offer-
ings to make them stand out from the rest of the pack.
More and more services based on Internet protocols, such
as Web-based tools for communication and collaboration:
The need to optimize these Web-based services, such as
salesforce.com and WEBEX, offers SPs incremental
revenue opportunites.
MPLS is not enough. Global WAN requires richer
application-aware managed services.
Service providers have responded to these trends by rising to

the challenge of offering managed services that deliver appli-
cations with excellent bandwidth management capabilities,
security levels, and QoS all at an affordable price. Table 1-1
gives an at-a-glance look at MSP service delivery options and
what each has to offer customers. No wonder enterprises are
turning to MSPs to save money and manage their networks.
03_542903-ch01.indd 7 9/3/09 10:48:26 PM
Table 1-1 Service Delivery Options

Description Customer Benefit
Dedicated Dedicated equipment on cus- Shift costs from capital
tomer premise or hosted in SP expenses to operating
data center with managed ser- expenses
vice wrapper
Less equipment and
fewer people to manage
Hybrid Retain some functions on prem- Cost and management
ises (for example, acceleration, savings
advanced policy)
Scale and community
Push standardized functions to benefits
cloud (for example, Web filtering)
Design for performance
SaaS Applications fully outsourced Easy to provision, with
low switching cost
Shared, multi-tenant platform
Lowest cost and least
management effort
What Managed Services

Can Do for Your Business
Managed services offer many benefits for enterprises. First, your
business can focus on what it does best. After all, theres no
point in trying to do everything, especially when managed ser-
vices save you time and money and offer these advantages:
Network monitoring happens every minute of every day

of the year. Thats called peace of mind (and you cant
put a price tag on that).
You can simplify your life with a single point of contact for
all network issues. And instead of dealing with multiple
vendors (along with the multiple headaches that brings),
you deal only with a single provider.
Your business can save money. Avoid the costs associ-
ated with building your own management and reporting
systems and also lower capital expenditure and staff
levels in areas that arent central to your business.
MSPs have the expertise and state-of-the-art equipment to
offer better reliability and QoS than you can get in-house.
03_542903-ch01.indd 8 9/3/09 10:48:26 PM
Chapter 2
Putting It All Together:

Application Delivery
Networks
In This Chapter
Exploring ADNs
Seeing the traffic on your network
Getting your applications moving
Enhancing network security
Graduating to MPLS+
F or service providers, application delivery may sound

simple, but theres a lot more to it than simply making
sure that SaaS applications make their way from the cloud
to your employees desktops. Service providers are now in a
better position to deliver these services thanks to better
technology: When you can see and prioritize each application,
then delivering critical applications more efficiently is easier.
In this chapter, you find out how Application Delivery Networks

combine visibility, acceleration, and security to provide fast,
secure delivery of business-critical applications using existing
bandwidth.
Getting Familiar with ADN

ADN stands for Application Delivery Network. But spelling out
the words doesnt begin to define what an ADN can do for
your business.
04_542903-ch02.indd 9 9/3/09 10:48:53 PM
An ADN does more than simply deliver applications. It gives

you control over the network by letting you see and prioritize
network traffic, proactively respond to assure performance,
and safeguard against malware and other threats.
Heres what an ADN lets you do:
Peer into the network (no crystal ball required). See the
applications traveling across the network. Get a look at
users and their interaction with applications. Find perfor-
mance issues and address them proactively.
Optimize the good traffic mission-critical applications,
real-time voice and video, SSL, and other enterprise
traffic to the speed of business.
Protect against todays Web-based threats from malware
and other threats.
Increase productivity by making sure that the user expe-
rience is just as good as it would be at headquarters
no matter where that user is working.
ADN Managed Services:

The Blue Coat Approach
Imagine, for a moment, a three-legged stool. When you need to
sit down, one leg or two legs wont do the job youll totter
and fall over. You need three legs to provide a complete solu-
tion that does the job right.
The same principle applies to application delivery: For optimal

performance and control, you need a three-pronged solution:
Visibility: Simply put, you cant manage what you cant

see. Whether youre monitoring end-user experience or
giving a lower priority to nonessential traffic, you need to
know whats on your network to keep business running
smoothly.
Acceleration: They call business-critical applications
critical for a reason: Your business depends on them to
do business. Time is money, and you cant afford to have
employees sitting around waiting for sluggish applications
04_542903-ch02.indd 10 9/3/09 10:48:53 PM
Chapter 2: Putting It All Together: Application Delivery Networks 11
to do their thing. No matter where users are working at
a branch office, from home, or on the road business-
critical applications should perform as well as they do
at headquarters. Your users expect it, and your business
depends on it
Security: These days, security is a multifaceted issue.
You have to guard against malware, attacks, information
leaks, information theft. Its a wild n woolly world out
there, and you have to be ready for anything.
Covering just one or two of these issues isnt enough.

Fortunately, Blue Coats approach to ADN managed services
has you covered in each of these three crucial areas.
Visibility
Seeing is more than mere believing; its key to knowing whats
on your network. Only then can you set policies and become a
traffic cop to control whats passing across your network.
When you gain visibility into the network, you get these
advantages:
See all the traffic on your network. In any large distributed

enterprise, hundreds of applications use the network for
communications every hour of every day. Your employees
need only some of these applications to do their jobs.
Others, such as Hulu or iTunes, are recreational and prob-
ably have no business value. And downright dangerous
stuff, such as malware, is always knocking at your networks
door. Visibility lets you discover and classify what you do
want from the productivity-sapping (and even dangerous)
traffic you dont want. With Web-based content, visibility is
key to get the most out of MPLS.
As more local WAN traffic moves out onto the Internet,
visibility is key in getting the most out of MPLS.
Keep an eye on end-user experience. Your employees
expect applications to have the same quality experience
as if on a LAN. So visibility means more than just know-
ing that business-critical applications are on the network;
it means having the intelligence to proactively assure that
even real-time traffic is uninterrupted.
04_542903-ch02.indd 11 9/3/09 10:48:53 PM
Visibility is absolutely necessary to making sure that

next-generation voice and video traffic works as it
should. So you can set application-specific SLAs and
quality-of-service levels for critical applications.
Zoom in on network problems. When performance
slows down, can you see whats causing the problem?
A spike in application usage? A protocol issue? Who
knows? Your IT people do, if they have visibility. And
that means they can take immediate steps to get your
applications zipping along again.
Acceleration
Your goal is simple: Keep business-critical applications running
quickly and smoothly, while slowing or blocking everything
else. But thanks to the variety and sheer number of applica-
tions on the network, achieving that goal can be tricky.
Consider, for a moment, the different kinds of applications that

run on your network. Youve got internal bulk applications
(such as e-mail and file access), external applications (corpo-
rate training videos and SaaS apps, such as Salesforce.com and
Google Docs but also online games and other recreational
apps), and real-time applications (such as video conferencing,
VoIP, and credit-card transactions). To make things more com-
plicated, your enterprise may have multiple locations around
the globe. All those applications and branches require a flexible
approach to optimizing your WAN. Plus, with data consolidation
and compliance, you need acceleration to give users a LAN-like
experience, no matter where they happen to be.
To make sure that your employees, wherever they happen to

be, have access to the applications they need, you need
acceleration that includes
Byte and object caching: Caching speeds up the network

by storing data or an entire object in a local cache and
then sending a token over the network in its place.
Compression: This technique minimizes file services
data going over your WAN by using an algorithm to take
out predictable information before the data gets sent. At
the other end, the same algorithm puts that info back in
place. Compression saves bandwidth and backhaul costs.
04_542903-ch02.indd 12 9/3/09 10:48:53 PM
Chapter 2: Putting It All Together: Application Delivery Networks 13
Bandwidth management: Prioritize secure Web (HTTPS)
interactions between applications, content, and different
users and groups. The priority you assign affects when
traffic gets sent and how much bandwidth the traffic uses.
Protocol optimization: How chatty are the protocols
on your network? Protocol optimization parallelizes
communication that traditional travels serially, making
those chatty applications more efficient and improving
response times.
Security
The Web is changing. Thanks to SaaS applications and cloud
computing, more business content is crossing the Internet or
being stored on the Web. Sites such as YouTube may be used
for legitimate business purposes as well as time wasting. And
even trusted Web sites may be harboring hidden malware.
With so much HTTP traffic, port 80 is a wide-open door into
your network. And because not all Web traffic is equal, its
essential to have a security solution that classifies that traffic,
knowing what to accelerate, what to treat as run-of-the-mill,
and what to keep out. MPLS+ has you covered.
They say, You snooze, you lose, right? The bad guys cer-
tainly arent sleeping. Theyre constantly looking for new ways
into your network. In fact, 2008 saw the discovery of about 16
million new kinds of malware. And that means your security
strategy needs to address known threats while evolving
quickly to be ready for potential threats before they hit. For
example, viruses used to sneak into your network via e-mail
attachments. That threat still exists, of course, but thanks to
the rise in business-related HTTP traffic, hackers got the idea
of injecting malicious code into legitimate Web sites. In fact,
90 percent of malware now comes from download pointers
hidden in popular Web sites that people think they can trust.
As more businesses embrace cloud computing and subscribe

to SaaS applications, its more important than ever that Web
access is both reliable and secure. Thats where MPLS+ comes
in. An ADN with MPLS+ will help you control the applications
and content that come in from the Web, give you visibility and
control over SSL (the secure socket layer), and prevent data
from leaking out of your network.
04_542903-ch02.indd 13 9/3/09 10:48:54 PM
Putting It All Together

As this chapter shows, an ADN brings visibility, acceleration, and
security to optimize your network. Visibility lets you see whats
on the network. Armed with that knowledge, you can prioritize
traffic, accelerating the good stuff, and beef up security. When
you combine the Blue Coat benefits of an ADN with the benefits
of multiprotocol layer switching (MPLS, discussed in Chapter 1),
you get MPLS+. And thats good news for your network.
Traditionally, MPLS has used custom access control lists to set

priority by class-of-service (COS). That means lots of hard work
trying to group similar traffic together and giving that class of
traffic a single priority level. But routers arent all that smart,
and you need to do most of this work manually. For example,
routers cant distinguish between the different kinds of traffic
within web protocols like HTTP or HTTPS protocols between,
say, someone using a Web-enabled business application and
someone accessing a personal Webmail account, such as Gmail
or Hotmail. Both kinds of traffic go through a Web channel (such
as port 443), but because COS traditionally assigns the same
priority to all traffic on this port, personal and recreational traffic
gets the same high priority and acceleration that business traffic
receives. This setup isnt a good use of network resources!
Thanks to enhanced visibility and the ADN solutions, MPLS+

gives you the ability to fine-tune prioritization right down to
the level of specific groups and users thereby choosing what
traffic speeds up and what doesnt. This fine-tuning is particu-
larly important for Web traffic, an ever-growing percentage of
all traffic on the network. With MPLS+, traffic essential to your
business, such as CRM or database apps, is recognized as such
and given higher priority. Personal and recreational network
use watching online videos, checking personal e-mail, and so
on receives no higher prioritization or acceleration. You can
apply other policies, too for example, to set policy or ensure
security and compliance.
MPLS+ gives providers of ADNs and managed service the

chance to offer a new generation of managed network services
that are truly focused on the application, not the packets,
which paves the way for cloud and SaaS application services
and for significant profits and ultimately happier end-users.
04_542903-ch02.indd 14 9/3/09 10:48:54 PM
Chapter 3
Managed Services
and SLAs
In This Chapter
Exploring SLAs
Understanding why traditional SLAs arent enough for todays
managed services
Discovering what application-aware SLAs can do for your business
M any a business deal has been cemented on the basis of

a simple handshake. But when it comes to managed ser-
vices for the network your business depends on, a handshake
isnt nearly enough. Managed service providers and customers
use service-level agreements to define what customers can
expect.
Just as managed services are evolving (see Chapter 1), so are

the SLAs that govern those services, as this chapter explains.
Proactive Planning: Service-

Level Agreements
A service-level agreement (SLA) spells out the agreement between
the managed service provider (MSP) and the customer. An SLA
makes sure that both parties MSP and customer are crystal
clear about the services, priorities, responsibilities, guarantees,
and warranties that comprise their relationship. For each part of
the agreement, the SLA defines the level of service the customer
can expect. For example, the SLA might indicate the time window
for how quickly an MSP must respond to a service outage, or it
05_542903-ch03.indd 15 9/3/09 10:49:20 PM
might give the hours for the MSPs network operations center.
The SLA also specifies penalties imposed when the service
provider fails to provide the agreed-upon levels of service.
SLAs may specify minimum and target levels of service. A

minimum level of service indicates the base level of a service;
a target is a measurable value that indicates what the average
level of service should be.
Out with the Old:

Old-School SLAs
Traditionally, SLAs have put the concerns of service provid-
ers before customers needs. Thats not surprising because
theyre often written from the service providers perspective.
These SLAs dont give you much say about end-to-end appli-
cation performance over the network or user experience.
Old-style SLAs often apply one-size-fits-all metrics to all a service

providers customers, with little or no customization to address
a particular customers unique requirements. Such SLAs also
tend to focus on what the service provider knows it does best,
emphasizing things like network resiliency and availability.
Of course, you need to have your network up, running, and
available. But you also have other crucial requirements like
security management and the performance of critical applica-
tions. You cant mess around with these things; you need to
be absolutely sure that your MSP can offer you high perfor-
mance, security, and full support of Web applications.
A recent study by the Aberdeen Group found that nearly half

of organizations using managed services are not satisfied with
service-level guarantees of application performance.
Ring in the New: Application-

Aware SLAs
As Chapter 1 explains, customer expectations have evolved
right along with the changing landscape of managed services.
Straightforward hardware and network management used to
05_542903-ch03.indd 16 9/3/09 10:49:20 PM
Chapter 3: Managed Services and SLAs 17
be enough. Not anymore. Today, customers need and expect
application performance and security management from
MSPs and SLAs are changing to reflect that.
As the term suggests, an application-aware SLA spells out

levels of service not just for the network, but for the applica-
tions running on the network. By defining acceptable appli-
cation performance from the end-users perspective, you
know that your MSP can keep critical applications running
smoothly. Application-aware SLAs are also more focused on
security and security events than traditional SLAs.
What does an application-aware SLA look like? It might, for

example, measure application availability based on what per-
centage of the time a specific application is available, through
measures such as these:
The number of transactions attempted and responded to

The number of successful attempts to connect with
a server
Granular reporting capability on application availability
at specified increments
Real-Time Reporting
From the customers point of view, application performance and
network security are what count. MSPs that offer application-
aware SLAs have a real advantage in setting themselves apart
from the pack and meeting customer expectations.
When youre trying to keep applications running smoothly and

manage security, real-time reporting offers a big advantage, let-
ting you address performance slowdowns and security threats
as they happen. So to satisfy user expectations, smart MSPs are
delivering reporting solutions.
Performance
Nobody installs and maintains a network just for the fun of it.
Rather, a network is the infrastructure that supplies the appli-
cations and data the business needs. If end-users are sitting
around drumming their fingers on the desk waiting for a slug-
05_542903-ch03.indd 17 9/3/09 10:49:20 PM
gish application to respond, the network isnt delivering the

required level of performance.
An Application Delivery Network (see Chapter 2) offers the

visibility, acceleration, and security customers need in order
to make sure that business-critical applications perform the
way they should. This visibility allows flexible policy controls
all the way down to the user level, making sure that applica-
tion performance meets business objectives. You also get
service-level metrics and statistics in comprehensive reports,
letting you manage users experience by identifying problems
immediately and resolving them fast.
The Blue Coat ADN infrastructure continually measures appli-

cation response times, letting IT know when performance dips
below acceptable levels. The ADN also tracks metrics for use,
delay, availability, jitter, and loss.
Security
When it comes to security, just a little late is too late. Security
has to happen in real time. And so does security-related
reporting. An ADN offers security capabilities that include fil-
tering Web requests and content, Web virus scanning, malware
detection and quarantine, content and certificate validation,
data-leak prevention, SSL traffic inspection, and control of iffy
traffic such as instant messaging, peer-to-peer sharing, and
streaming audio and video.
The Blue Coats approach to ADNs, emphasizing visibility,

acceleration, and security, offers a suite of technologies that
makes it possible for MSPs to incorporate service levels for per-
formance, security, and reporting into application-aware SLAs.
05_542903-ch03.indd 18 9/3/09 10:49:20 PM
Chapter 4
Ten or So Ways ADN

Managed Services Benefit
Your Business
In This Chapter
Focusing on your strengths
Saving money
W e can come up with a whole lot of reasons to switch to

ADN managed services. This chapter lists ten or so of
the best.
Focus on What You Do Best

Nobody can be all things to all people and neither can your
business. Do you have the skills and resources to set up and
maintain a critical communications network? And if so, how
much does that cost compared to outsourcing? (Dont forget to
factor in hidden costs, such as staff time and technical support.)
It makes more sense to direct resources to the things your

company does best while simultaneously optimizing your
network by leveraging the expertise and resources of a man-
aged services provider. Let your internal IT staff focus on core
competencies, rather than juggling whatever IT challenges
happen to come up today.
Do More with Less

Think about all the money you currently spend on your net-
work. Then, before you get a headache, think how much you
06_542903-ch04.indd 19 9/3/09 10:49:36 PM
can save by shifting capital expenses to operational expenses.

Pay as you go and pay only for what youre actually using. It
makes good economic sense.
Get Better Quality-of-Service

With an Application Delivery Network, you can maximize
application performance by using granular quality-of-service
(QoS) controls to regulate traffic and increase the capacity of
your WAN through application-specific optimization techniques.
You can get the most out of your WAN investments with MPLS+.
Gain Peace of Mind

As Chapter 3 notes, one of the most recent trends in managed
services is the development of SLAs. These SLAs come with
strong verification and reporting capabilities so you know
that your MSP is living up to its side of the bargain.
End Up with Better Management

You cant manage bandwidth if you dont know whats on the
WAN. But with enhanced visibility, you can see all the traffic
on your network, allowing you to set policies and priorities
that keep your business-critical applications moving while
slowing down lower-priority traffic and blocking threats.
Better visibility also means that you can monitor end-users

experience of the applications they work with. Plus, you can get
reports that let you understand user behavior how employees
are actually using the network on a day-to-day basis.
You can sum up the benefits of better visibility in one word:

control. And when it comes to managing network traffic, thats
exactly what you want.
Speed Up Business-Critical
Applications
Enhanced visibility gives you a detailed picture of whats on the
network, so you can speed up the applications that are central
06_542903-ch04.indd 20 9/3/09 10:49:36 PM
Chapter 4: Ten ADN Managed Services Benefits 21
to your business, while slowing down or blocking everything
else. An ADN can optimize legacy applications over the WAN
and deliver a host of SaaS and Web 2.0 applications securely
and reliably.
Fine-Tune Network Policies

With hundreds of applications zipping around, how does the net-
work know what traffic you consider good, what you consider
bad, and what doesnt worry you all that much? To complicate
matters further, some traffic watching videos, for example
may be business-related in some cases and purely recreational
in others. You can set all the policies you like, but they wont do
much good without the technology to back them up.
With the visibility an ADN offers and support for authentication,
you can set granular policies right down to the level of groups
and users. MPLS+ lets you combine understanding of the user
with understanding of the application so that you can better
line up your network with your business needs.
Keep Users Connected Anywhere

The proliferation of branch offices, outsourcing, telecommut-
ing, and an ever-more-mobile workforce means that your end-
users may be anywhere in the world. At the same time, your
applications may be housed in a central data center or out
there in the cloud somewhere.
As applications and data cross the network, it takes time for the
packets to travel. This network latency can combine with issues,
such as too little bandwidth and recreational Web surfing to
create sluggish applications and file transfers. Plus, when
business-critical traffic crosses the Internet, optimization
becomes more of a challenge.
An ADN provides the visibility, acceleration, and security that

lets you control user experience and access no matter where
your users happen to be.
Enhance Security
Your companys digital assets customer lists, trade secrets,
financial data are some of its most valuable, and you need
06_542903-ch04.indd 21 9/3/09 10:49:36 PM
to keep that information safe. In addition, you need to keep all

kinds of malware out of your network and make sure that traffic
and applications crossing the Internet remain secure.
With ADN infrastructure from Blue Coat, you get the security
benefits you need, including scanning to protect against mal-
ware; filtering of Web sites and content; a centrally managed,
distributed security gateway; granular policy management;
and real-time reporting even for mobile workers.
Get Real-Time Reporting

Whats happening on the network not an hour ago, not even
five minutes ago, but right now? With an ADN, you know, because
you have real-time reporting. Measure Web traffic performance,
errors, and streaming traffic levels. Assess security risks, get
anti-virus reports, and track iffy activity by users, all based on
real-time scans.
Make Branch Offices

Direct-to-Net
Some companies approach the issue of branch office security by
backhauling all traffic from the branch to headquarters and from
there out to the Internet. But this approach can cause perfor-
mance problems, particularly when the backhaul is a long haul.
An ADN lets you eliminate backhauling and go directly to the

Net. A Direct-to-Net approach speeds up application perfor-
mance while reducing traffic on the WAN.
Get the Most out

of Your Network
MPLS+ combines the advantages of an ADN with the benefits
of MPLS, offering the spectrum of managed services in a single
platform. With MPLS+, you get unmatched visibility, accelera-
tion, and security and thats the way to get the most out of
your network.
06_542903-ch04.indd 22 9/3/09 10:49:36 PM
The changing workplace and new era of IP-based
networking means that more applications are
competing for limited network resources. This is Want more
powered by the significant growth in adoption of
collaborative applications and services, including information on
next-generation voice, video, Web conferencing, and
other bandwidth-hungry real-time applications.
Unfortunately, IT organizations are struggling to
Blue Coats Application Delivery
support these collaborative applications in an era of
declining budgets. Many IT organizations lack the Network infrastructure?
resources, both in staff and equipment, to manage
application performance. As a result, many
businesses are turning to Managed Service Providers
(MSPs) to reduce operational and deployment costs,
and leverage the skill sets of the MSPs.
Thats where working with a Blue Coat MSP comes

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BLUE COAT MANAGED SOLUTIONS EDITION

LIMIT OF LIABILITY/DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY: THE PUBLISHER AND THE AUTHOR MAKE

Thats where managed services come in. A reliable managed

About This Book

The content of this book was provided by and published

Youre no dummy. If you werent smart, you wouldnt be

Icons Used in This Book

This icon offers a little extra information of a technical nature.

This icon highlights important information youll want to keep

Making the Move to

M anaged services are on the rise. In fact, theyre poised

This chapter gets you up to speed with managed services: what

So What Are Managed

Managed services let you free up internal resources to work on

An MSP may reduce your IT price tag by providing lower-cost

The Evolution of WAN Services

It took a new century for MSPs to really begin living up to

Access services: Authentication, proxy, and caching

Increasing demand, based on a range of trends including

Multiprotocol label switching

MPLS enables high-performance data transfer between WAN

In a nutshell, MPLS offers some real advantages:

Better traffic management

As Chapter 2 explains, Blue Coat solutions enable MPLS+, which

ports and protocols, letting you focus on applications and ulti-

A popular aspect of cloud computing is Software-as-a-Service

The movement of enterprises to cloud computing and SaaS is

Why Service Providers Are

Increased corporate demand for managed services:

Service providers have responded to these trends by rising to

Table 1-1 Service Delivery Options

What Managed Services

Network monitoring happens every minute of every day

Putting It All Together:

F or service providers, application delivery may sound

In this chapter, you find out how Application Delivery Networks

Getting Familiar with ADN

An ADN does more than simply deliver applications. It gives

Heres what an ADN lets you do:

ADN Managed Services:

The same principle applies to application delivery: For optimal

Visibility: Simply put, you cant manage what you cant

Covering just one or two of these issues isnt enough.

See all the traffic on your network. In any large distributed

Visibility is absolutely necessary to making sure that

Consider, for a moment, the different kinds of applications that

To make sure that your employees, wherever they happen to

Byte and object caching: Caching speeds up the network

As more businesses embrace cloud computing and subscribe

Putting It All Together

Traditionally, MPLS has used custom access control lists to set

Thanks to enhanced visibility and the ADN solutions, MPLS+

MPLS+ gives providers of ADNs and managed service the

M any a business deal has been cemented on the basis of

Just as managed services are evolving (see Chapter 1), so are

Proactive Planning: Service-

SLAs may specify minimum and target levels of service. A

Out with the Old: