Another policy enforcement product, but with some added features that really give it some teeth, is iomart's NetIntelligence. As well as monitoring URL requests, it also looks at the network as a whole (hardware, software and all files) and can instantly detect whether any unauthorized changes have been made, or whether any prohibited content is suddenly present.
iomart suggests that the product be installed on a dedicated PC, and when you see the hardware and memory requirements, you can see why. With a minimum of a Pentium 4 processor and over 100Gb of disk space, it's not really a product that happily shares resources.
Installation of NetIntelligence is extremely straightforward and adding users and groups is very simple. All the windows in the product are clear and uncluttered. These users and groups are then assigned to machine groups, to ensure that only authorized employees can use particular resources.
Following this, the Deployment Manager is run: this automatically senses the entire network, after which the NetIntelligence client can be rolled out to all machines on the network. You can also fingerprint all files on the network. A database of over 15 million prohibited categorized threats is then used to see whether any of them are present on the network. There is also the option of customizing the database. This is not restricted to text: NetIntelligence can also perform an image scan of all files and detect objects such as pornographic pictures, and very cleverly searches internet caches.
The product is replete with alerts. Any hardware or software alterations are immediately reported when a search is run, as are frequently visited URLs. Searches can be easily scheduled to run at particular times, allowing you to manage network traffic.
By scanning for keywords, images and perceived threats such as program files, NetIntelligence gives you a permanently up-to-date snapshot. Information can be compiled into a number of reports, depending on your business needs.
NetIntelligence is an extremely powerful product, ensuring that you always know the exact status of your network. Because any alterations are immediately reported, you can really enforce your internet and data policies. We are told that email filtering is also on the cards for a future release of the product.
