Web proxy transparently intercepts HTTP traffic bound to the internet and provides acceleration services such as web caching, caching of eligible YouTube video content, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) decryption and encryption services (for example, HTTPS) to enable encrypted content caching, and logging services through audit trails.

Web proxy uses the traditional single-ended internet HTTP-caching method enhanced by Riverbed for web browsing methodologies of today. The web proxy feature enables SteelHeads to provide a localized cache of web objects (or files). The localized cache alleviates the cost of repeated downloads of the same data. Using the web proxy feature in the branch office provides a significant overall performance increase due to the localized serving of this traffic and content from the cache. Furthermore, multiple users accessing the same resources receive content at LAN speeds while freeing up valuable bandwidth.

RiOS has embedded features such as strip-compression and parse-and-prefetch, which provide dual-ended SteelHead deployments with HTTP and HTTPS acceleration abilities. For more information about strip-compression and parse-and-prefetch, see the SteelHead Deployment Guide - Protocols.

Riverbed enhanced the traditional HTTP caching feature on RiOS by including HTTPS data caching. Use of the web proxy feature differs from traditional SteelHead acceleration because you do not need a server-side SteelHead for web proxy to intercept and accelerate traffic. The web proxy feature is a true single-ended interception because you need only a branch-side SteelHead for accelerating HTTP-bound internet traffic.