Request URL Category Object vs. Combined Destination Object - difference/uses?

[JS_2022]

Hi,

What is the difference between a Request URL Category Object and a Combined Destination Object? They both are just a list of URL's. When/why would you use one over the other?

[Jacob Miles]

Hi JS,

A Request URL Category object will provide a trigger based on the URL category of the Request URL. This could be custom categories you create, but it is more commonly used to pull the Blue Coat category (Gambling, Technology/Internet, etc). 

A Combined Destination object allows you to combine multiple destination objects into a single destination trigger. For example, if I wanted to block File Sharing sites that are risky, I could use a Combined Destination object, and combine the Request URL Category (File Storage/Sharing) AND URL Threat Risk Level (5-10) objects.  

I could also use the Combined Destination object to make OR logic between dissimilar destination objects. You may see this a lot when customers have a list of specific URLs they don't want a particular group to go to, (or only want a specific group allow to access). The key to remember when using OR logic with Combined objects is that proxy will check against each of the conditions every time it evaluates the rule. Depending on the situation and rule structure, this can affect performance vs creating separate rules. If you have separate rules, you can use the Policy ID feature and structure rules that are more likely to be hit earlier in the layer, and thus conserve resources.

You may also find the ProxySG Web Visual Policy Manager Reference Guide helpful.

[Klaus Klinge]

Hello,

There are two differences:

1. In a Request URL Category Object you can make a comment in each line/for each URL - Change Number/Who requested it/when vs. Combined Destination Object allows only one comment for the whole list.
   
   
2. A URL Category Object can be used in the Web Access Layer as well as in a Forward Layer - so you only have to maintain one URL list vs. in a Combined Destination Object you have "url.domain=", or "server_url.domain=" - so you have to maintain two lists with the same URLs