Editure Firewall – now with social networking control

At Editure, we pride ourselves not only on the effectiveness and value of our products, but also our ability to swiftly change and improve based on customer feedback. This is why we’ve now released a new facility on the ADC Firewall product to allow customers to control the use of social networking sites. Feedback from IT Managers is that social networking can have a negative effect on employee productivity and that managing this activity is important. Rather than seeking to block or deny access to social networking sites, Editure has designed a solution that allows network managers to control the amount of use by time that staff can access social networking sites.

This facility allows ‘classes’ of traffic to be defined with various access limits. Editure understands that different organisations have different policies regarding social networking, and that these policies may change over time. For this reason, Editure has created a management framework that allows customers with an ADC firewall to control access to social networking in line with corporate policies.

A user’s access limit can be based on the total period of time spent browsing a particular type of traffic, the total traffic that can be consumed, or the number of discrete sessions that are permitted during a given period. Editure believes that this new feature provides a level of customisation that will allow an IT team to meet the requirements of their management team simply and easily.

Time based usage seems to be the most popular function to date. This works where a session is based on an interval of repeated access to sites matching the given class. For example, a class matching destinations of type ‘social-networking’, and with a session timeout of 3 minutes, will accumulate time for as long as at least one social-networking destination is accessed every three minutes. For persistent connections such as chat, the connection being held open counts as continuous access and will extend the session.

When the limit for a given traffic class is reached, the option exists to either terminate all currently active connections, or allow current connections to complete. In all cases, once the limit has been reached, all further connections will be denied.

When the limit has been reached for a given client, a client configurable message can be presented explaining why traffic has been denied, and potentially redirecting to a company internet access policy or similar. This “deny” process can generate an email to administrators if required, or can be logged without alerts being raised.

These accounting limits are imposed on a “per account” basis. If the firewall has a proxy login process (either transparently or via a browser prompt) then the account will be an actual username. It is also possible to have the account based on client ip address or other properties.

It is possible to view, via the firewall https administration interface, the current status of all accounts hitting accounting classes. It is also possible to reset them, either on an individual basis, or on an entire class basis. Editure expects that this accounting class facility will typically be used for things like providing a controlled amount of time for social networking, or multi-media browsing during a given work day.

For more information, please contact:

Richard Brearley
Marketing Manager
Editure Australia

E. contactus@editure.com
T. 1300 860788