Blue Coat Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: BCSI), a leading provider of Web security and WAN optimization solutions, has recently announced that Hampshire Constabulary has reduced logon times for print, file share and reporting applications from as much as 20 minutes to only a few seconds with Blue Coat® MACH5 WAN Optimization appliances. This significantly reduces the amount of time officers spend on administrative and incident reporting tasks that take them away from their beats. To deliver the same experience to officers working in rural locations with low bandwidth, Hampshire Constabulary also deployed Blue Coat ProxyClient software for WAN optimization.
In the absence of local print and file servers, which were impractical from a cost and management perspective, police officers were forced to deal with painfully slow application performance, which limited the amount of time they could spend on patrol in their neighbourhoods, said Tony Hutchings, senior network engineer for Hampshire Constabulary. -The Blue Coat solution has minimised the amount of time and effort required to access applications through the remote server and has resulted in significant productivity gains for Hampshire Constabulary.
Hampshire Constabulary has almost 7,000 employees at 85 sites around Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. With officers located far from centralised applications, including print and file share systems, and others located in areas with limited bandwidth, basic administrative tasks often consumed large amounts of time. In addition to being cost prohibitive, installing and managing print servers at each police station posed an unacceptable security risk. Any deployment would require metal cages, extra ventilation and cooling and an uninterrupted power supply.
With the Blue Coat MACH5 appliances, Hampshire Constabulary dramatically reduced the time to logon to applications, print or access files. As a result, the IT and Communications department is no longer inundated with complaints about slow application and service response times. In addition to reducing the burden on the network administration team, officers can more quickly complete their required paperwork and return to providing a visible policing presence in the neighbourhoods to which they are dedicated.
As a result of the overwhelming improvement in productivity that the ProxyClient software delivered for remote officers, Hampshire Constabulary anticipates a broader roll out that will include all of the force’s laptop computers. ProxyClient software is currently available with MACH5 appliances at no additional charge.
In the current climate of local authority spending cuts, adding bandwidth to address slow application performance is not an option, even if that means officers spend more time on administrative tasks, said Steve Daheb, chief marketing officer and senior vice president at Blue Coat Systems. The Blue Coat WAN optimization solution enables organisations to accelerate access to centralised applications and services without adding additional bandwidth capacity, so officers can quickly complete their administrative duties and return to their beats.
You can read more about how Hampshire Constabulary is enabling its workforce to be more productive in the case study at www.bluecoat.com/doc/13966.
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