WebSpy and IT Management
Helping IT Managers Protect their Internet Investment

Chief Information Officers, IT Managers and System Administrators are increasingly under the executive spotlight to consistently prove the business values associated with IT investments. Whether the requirement is security driven, resource based or simply role justification, one thing is certain; senior executives, the board or your immediate managers, need to see the justification.

The prerequisite to substantiate internal business cases, coupled with diverse demands from the entire organisation, places IT Managers in a challenging position. Many managers are in a constant state of 'reactionary management' as demands escalate, security threats change and systems quickly become obsolete.

It has always been agreed that prudent and proactive IT management is achievable, providing you are constantly in an informed position.

Vendors and service providers have risen to this challenge by offering an array of 'unified threat management', 'holistic network management' and 'ubiquitous security' solutions to address these needs.

One weakness of this approach is the lack of holistic, network device reporting. That’s where WebSpy comes in - providing analysis and reporting on over 150 different log file formats. WebSpy reports on firewalls, proxy servers, filtering appliances, QoS devices and virtually any other network device or service that writes a suitable activity log file.

WebSpy's solutions help IT Managers:

Justify IT and security investments

Verify the performance of network devices

Report across numerous existing network devices

Ensure compliance, accountability and legal recourse

	Justifying the Security Investment Trending Analysis (Click to enlarge) Successfully securing budget approval for even the most obvious security necessities requires greater accountability in the form of meaningful metrics and reporting processes. The challenge to produce meaningful reports is often compounded by the need to balance technical data with business impact information; both equally important when justifying a business case for funding or substantial systems change. WebSpy's solutions provide trending ability on user browsing activity as well as detailed network-level information, allowing you to predict future values and create strong business cases for IT investments.
	Verifying the Performance of Network Devices Interrogating Unidentified Traffic (Click to enlarge) Many network optimisation and security devices come equipped with mechanisms to view simple traffic metrics such as live bandwidth utilisation and the amount of data transferred by a particular user or IP address. However, most of these devices do not provide further details about the traffic actually being shaped, blocked or optimised. Many IT administrators simply assume that their device is working correctly and are often surprised, after a little investigation, to find something slipping through the cracks of their complex shaping and blocking rules. WebSpy's solutions provide in-depth information drilldown functionality to help you interrogate your log files and verify that your devices are performing the job they are supposed to. You can then use this information to make further adjustments to the configuration of these devices.
	Holistic Reporting for your Network Devices Extensive list of supported log formats (Click to enlarge) Most IT Managers know which aspects of network performance and service delivery require regular measurement, but with so many disparate network devices and services, they are increasingly looking for holistic reporting tools to provide all the required information. WebSpy’s solutions offer the translation of technical data from a variety of network devices into meaningful business information through a single, easy to use software program. Click here to view the full list of supported log formats
	Compliance, Accountability and Legal Recourse Identifying User Browsing Habits (Click to enlarge) Compliance with regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley and various other country specific privacy legislations has become a top priority for organisations. Coupled with the growing need for improved identity management and access control procedures, mitigating risk requires the ability to efficiently investigate security breaches, identify users and produce substantiated reports. Proactive monitoring and reporting helps mitigate the risks associated with serious incidents of policy breaches. These incidents may require the provision of a user’s activity records to substantiate or dismiss an alleged policy breach. WebSpy’s solutions provide both live and post-incident analysis and reporting, and can assist in gathering the forensic electronic evidence required for incident investigations.

The WebSpy Solutions

	WebSpy Vantage Giga Advanced Network Analysis for Enterprises. WebSpy Vantage Giga empowers IT Managers to prudently manage network resources, plan capacity, enforce usage policies and validate service levels. Vantage Giga also provides valuable employee productivity and compliance reports. Click here for more information.	Vantage Giga (click to enlarge)
	WebSpy Live Real Time Internet and Email Monitoring. Real-time alerting serves to assist any sized organization in identifying policy breachs in a proactive and timely manner. WebSpy Live provides immediate alerts for parameters such as large file downloads, popular online chat room visits and other impeding Internet practices. Click here for more information.	WebSpy Live (click to enlarge)

IT Managers talk about their experiences

Don't take our word for it. Read about how our clients in the IT industry are successfully using WebSpy products.

New Zealand Educational Institute

Steve Coates (Senior IT Officer) says:
"Here's how it has helped us this week: - On Friday of last week we discovered that our email address had been blacklisted apparently due to SPAM being sent from our server. I had the tech chap around, he looked at the logs and declared that all was good and perhaps the addresses were being spoofed. On the strength of this I got the blacklisting removed only for it to recur on Monday.

Our ISP was adamant the traffic was coming from our site so if the SPAM was not going via our email server how was it going out? Using Kiwi Syslog we started logging the traffic on our Cisco router then pulled the logs into Webspy Analyzer Premium. As soon as we did this we could see that there was a PC on our network that was sending an unusual amount of email traffic directly to the router, hence no record in the email logs.

Thanks to Webspy we were able to identify the PC immediately, pull it off the network and clean it up. We subsequently discovered that the virus had apparently disabled the anti-virus software on the PC and had been spewing out about 250MB of sludge every day since last Thursday.

This will be reflected in our Internet bill at the end of the month plus the cost of the techo. An expensive reminder indeed! Also, our internet costs for last month were way up on normal so I looked at the logs for yesterday and found a user going to overseas on-line radio and video clip sites. We have learnt our lesson well here and will be relying on Webspy from now on to curb these nasties.

Lineas Systems AG

Matthias Schirmag (Systems Administrator) says:
"Since installing WebSpy Analyzer Premium , we can now apportion the correct amounts of data usage to the correct departments and divisions. Additionally, WebSpy also highlighted the need to adjust our existing network filtering and security procedures, including further prioritisation of our TCP/IP protocols, giving the necessary prioritisation of data delivery to our customers. We also reduced our overall bandwidth costs considerably."

"Analyzer Premium has a nice and simple interface allowing non technical people to use it without long training sessions. We also like its ability to drill down to actual web pages that have been viewed."

  Read the Lineas Case Study

Anglican Homes (Inc)

Peter Mildenhall (Information Technology Manager) says:
"Anglican Homes has been using WebSpy Analyzer Premium software since 2003. It has enabled management to build a profile of internet and email usage and the ability to audit this usage for compliance with company polices and procedures. The visibility of our online activities enables us to prove what we may have only had subjective evidence for in the past.

The best aspect of the Analyzer software is being able to ‘slice and dice’ raw data through the analysis function. If we were to do this analysing manually it would take days out of our working week. We would suspect that any organisation that has accountability for what their staff are using the internet/email for, should have the capability that WebSpy software ultimately delivers."

Reynolds & Reynolds

Mathew Bugden (Infrastructure Administrator) says:
"Reynolds & Reynolds uses WebSpy software on a weekly basis. Since installing WebSpy Analyzer Standard we are able to identify and analyse accurate information on bandwidth/download problem areas. We find the reporting tool very detailed and comprehensive which allows us to investigate any internet or email misuse. WebSpy software has increased our productivity, assisting in cost savings and time management. We are very happy with this user friendly monitoring software."

Swedish Municipal Agency

Stefan Forsman (Network Administrator) says:
"We began experiencing heavy Internet usage on our 2 X 2Mbit access. We wanted to acquire a good statistical program to identify and resolve the bottlenecks. After an initial evaluation we decided to buy WebSpy Analyzer Standard application and install it on one of our desk top computers. We currently run a monthly statistical analysis and also have also implemented the WebSpy application in our education network. This provides our teaching staff with a far better view of the student’s internet habits.

The support for Novell Border Manager Proxy, and the ability to see the Internet material accessed and subsequently divided into different categories, gives us a far greater perspective of Internet usage behaviors, overall."