Difference between BCWF database and license subscription expiration

Products

• ProxySG Software - SGOS
• Symantec WebFilter (formerly Blue Coat WebFilter - BCWF)

Issue/Introduction

You want to know the difference between the Blue Coat Web Filter (BCWF) database expiry and the license subscription expiry.

The "License subscription" authorizes a customer to use the BCWF database and obtain database updates for the term of the subscription.

The "database" is simply the categorization file that is downloaded and resides on the appliance.

Resolution

The term of the BCWF subscription is not displayed  on the ProxySG appliance. The ProxySG appliance is not aware of when the BCWF subscription will expire, thus the only time a customer will  know that the BCWF subscription has expired is when the content filter updates returns an error of "401" or when the appliance is unable to perform categorization lookups as all categories are recognized as "none".

Database expiration applies to the on-box version of the BCWF database.  By default, the ProxySG checks for automatic database updates and resets the database expiry date after each update. The BCWF database is valid for 30 days after it is published and the "Database expiry" period is reset after every update.