Monitoring Internet Usage

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networkn

Networkn
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#112184 29-Nov-2012 12:31

Hi There!

Anyone here have any experience first hand with monitoring of Internet Usage? Ideally this client wants to be able to get an executive friendly report that allows them to challenge a staff member on their internet usage if it falls outside of the TOC of their employment. It needs to be specific enough to be accurate, but not 1000 pages long for every day for every user, if you understand what I mean by that.

We currently use the products associated with the Sonicwall TZ Series (Viewpoint/analyser), though I can't get my head around how a product could be missing reports which fundamentally don't address showing internet usage in a usable format.

Ideally we would like usage broken into hourly blocks, by user, and be able to drill down into the reports to get granular information. Right now they get hundreds of pages showing every byte transferred.

They don't have a massive budget, but I am happy to hear any recommendations.

xpd

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#724629 29-Nov-2012 12:54

Cant remember the initial costs, but Webmarshal does what you want - has good reporting via a web interface (which can then be output to PDF etc) - we purchase our licenses via Origin IT.

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

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reven

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#724642 29-Nov-2012 13:08

can suggest webmarshal.

note: i work for truswave who develop webmarshal (but not a developer for webmarshal)

networkn

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#724648 29-Nov-2012 13:20

Hi There!

I did look at WM but it seems fairly expensive. Does WM require an existing proxy server or does it have it's own? This customer came from a Proxy server (Wingate) product, but we spent a fair bit of time getting stuff through the proxy which was a pain?

xpd

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#724650 29-Nov-2012 13:22

Can do its own proxy'ing or uplink to another existing proxy.

(adds Reven to "handy list of people to know")

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

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gjm

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#724655 29-Nov-2012 13:33

You could chuck an untangle server in the mix. There is a free version which has a pretty good reporting module. The user you want to monitor needs a static ip obviously but you can see a graph which shows hourly usage, websites by hits and size, violation categories etc. We trialed it for a while and have just bought a 1 year subscription to use on our wireless network in the office.

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vulcannz

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#727931 6-Dec-2012 10:50

networkn: Hi There!

Anyone here have any experience first hand with monitoring of Internet Usage? Ideally this client wants to be able to get an executive friendly report that allows them to challenge a staff member on their internet usage if it falls outside of the TOC of their employment. It needs to be specific enough to be accurate, but not 1000 pages long for every day for every user, if you understand what I mean by that.

We currently use the products associated with the Sonicwall TZ Series (Viewpoint/analyser), though I can't get my head around how a product could be missing reports which fundamentally don't address showing internet usage in a usable format.

Ideally we would like usage broken into hourly blocks, by user, and be able to drill down into the reports to get granular information. Right now they get hundreds of pages showing every byte transferred.

They don't have a massive budget, but I am happy to hear any recommendations.

You can do it just fine with Analyzer (assuming it and the security services for the Sonicwall are licensed). It does everything you've asked and more, and you'd be hard pushed to find a product as good (even runs rings around webmarshal imho). Make sure you install the SSO Agent so you can collected usernames for reporting.

Whereabouts are you based?

raytaylor

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#733137 16-Dec-2012 13:56

Kerio Control will do what you want.
I use it for our p2p notice verification

Costs about $35 per user i think.

Will also do antivirus and web filtering by site category filtering (eg facebook proxies) or url filtering.

Has hourly reporting on a per user basis with a walled garden so you can allow some websites for a group of users, with full access to others, and anyone that uses their own device on the network needs to login to gain internet access.

www.kerio.com

They are also currently working on ipv6 support - when i last checked, you have the option of blocking ipv6 data until you are happy with the ipv6 support in the product as they add to the featureset which i think should be done within the next 12 months.
What this means is that users cannot bypass the monitoring by using ipv6

Ray Taylor

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