Blue Coat Systems, the provider of application delivery networking infrastructure, has added Twitter to the applications that the company’s PacketShaper appliances can discover, monitor and control.
The company claimed that PacketShaper appliances allow enterprises to gain understanding of how employees utilise social networking tools and set policies to manage them. Using its PacketShaper appliances, enterprises can set appropriate IT policies to either enable or control collaboration.
According to the company, PacketShaper appliances can identify and classify more than 600 applications and can monitor more than 100 metrics per application session. This visibility enables network managers to 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.
The company said that with the visibility provided by PacketShaper appliances, network managers can set and enforce corporate IT policies to optimise business applications and block or limit non-business applications.
Steve House, director of product marketing at Blue Coat Systems, said: “Understanding which social media tools are being utilised and how employees are using them is valuable information that helps network administrators set and enforce corporate policies.
Blue Coat PacketShaper appliances provide the visibility, actionable intelligence and control that enable enterprises to fully realise the value of their network investments.”
The new software plug-in for Twitter is reportedly available free of charge to customers with a current maintenance agreement.
