SUNNYVALE, Calif. -- Blue Coat® Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: BCSI), the leader in secure content and application delivery, today announced that SSL-encrypted traffic now represents a sizeable amount of Wide Area Network (WAN) traffic, and it will increase this year according to a February 2007 Blue Coat-sponsored survey of more than 1,300 IT professionals in enterprises and organizations around the world. The survey shows about 35% of enterprises currently believe SSL-encrypted traffic to represent at least 25% of all traffic across the WAN. Of those surveyed, 62% believed that this SSL-encrypted traffic would increase during 2007. In addition, 53% of the respondents noted that they have applications that communicate using SSL encryption, and 45% plan to use applications with SSL-encrypted communication in the next year.

“The survey confirms that SSL-encrypted traffic already makes up a significant amount of WAN traffic, and that it will increase even more this year,” said Chris King, director of strategic marketing, Blue Coat Systems. “Today, if it’s important, it’s encrypted—and it can be traffic from outsourced or internally-hosted applications. Any enterprise-grade WAN optimization solution must manage and accelerate SSL-encrypted traffic along with other vital traffic.”

Blue Coat Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: BCSI)