According to a study on global office Internet access by Dynamic Markets Limited, enterprise staffs across the world spend time on non-work related Internet access during office hours.

 

Office Efficiency in the Office Network
The Internet is giving staff more options every day. On the one hand, it facilitates business workflow, but on the other it is also a source of non-work related entertainment or personal matters. Staff might find it hard to resist the temptation of non-work use during office hours and thus reduce their productivity. In fact, non-work Internet activities are often the first things employees do when reporting to work. All these behaviors result in not just increased bandwidth consumption but also reduced organizational productivity and effectiveness.

 

Internet Access Management Solution: Reasonably Block Non-business Network Applications
The more we are learning about how to manage the modern enterprise, the more acceptable is the idea of online behavior management. At the same time, effective management and use Internet resources are becoming important requirements for enterprise success. Thus, improving internal networks and operational efficiency have become the top concerns of many IT managers.

 

SANGFOR, one of the world leaders in online behavior management, has rich experience in supplying tools for governing enterprise office networks and improving staff efficiency. Many well-known enterprises have selected SANGFOR’s IAM solutions to improve their Intranet office productivity.

 

click here to enlarge

 

As shown in the figure above, businesses can effectively manage their Intranet staff’s network application behaviors by deploying SANGFOR’s IAM products via gateway, bridge, or bypass modes. These modes ensure that non-business applications and websites that detract from business efficiency are blocked during work hours. Additionally, the applications that take up the company’s bandwidth are traffic- controlled to ensure that important business applications are provided sufficient bandwidth for proper operation and office efficiency. When used to block non-business network applications, SANGFOR products provide the following benefits:

 

Restricts P2P, Assures Bandwidth for Proper Office Workflow
P2P applications deliver users unprecedented resource (files) sharing, but they also use up tremendous amounts of bandwidth. P2P bandwidth usage has become a prominent issue for every IT manager, as it results in increasingly negative resource impact. To combat this issue, SANGFOR’s IAM products can completely block common P2P software by detecting the software packets’ signatures. For trickier encrypted BT, uncommon, and unknown versions of P2P software, SANGFOR has designed unique intelligent P2P network behavior analysis technology to maintain IT policy enforcement.

 

Given that some departments and leaders need to use P2P for legitimate business reasons, SANGFOR’s IAM products can provide P2P traffic control functions for some users, while fully blocking P2P usage for others. In other words, IAM can be programmed to allow assigned users to use P2P with controlled bandwidth quotas. Alternatively, IT managers can opt to allocate bandwidth and traffic control for various users based on the time of day. SANGFOR’s IAM products can effectively balance a company’s need to adhere to certain infrastructure requirements while achieving improved core office efficiency.

 

Individual Application Management with Adjustable Control
Nowadays, with new network applications appearing almost continuously, it is more difficult for IT management staff to collect a full set of network application software types and versions, for the design of proper management policies. Even with great effort for timely collection of this information, it can be pragmatically impossible to achieve complete identification and management.

 

To alleviate this problem, SANGFOR products collect software types and versions based on the most recently used network application software, and continuously update their application rule recognition databases. Currently, the SANGFOR IAM products’ application rule recognition database contains over 500 application protocol rules, with dozens more being continuously updated. SANGFOR also has a professional application rule recognition management team. These features allow SANGFOR IAM products to precisely identify and effectively manage all network application behaviors so IT managers don’t have to.

 

Selective Content Filtering With Flexible Methods
In addition to measures for network application software, SANGFOR IAM products also have a built-in URL database with tens of millions of entries. Thus, IT managers can easily control and block non-work related websites, and new categories and new URLs can be manually added, further enhancing operation flexibility for administrators.

 

Differentiated Permissions for Smooth Operations
SANGFOR’s IAM products can set up differentiated network usage permissions for different users and departments, overseeing the entire enterprise in a way that meets the individual needs of every user and department. For example, users in the sales department could be granted sufficient webpage browsing permissions to facilitate online customer research, while staff from the logistics department will be denied access to P2P applications, and gaming and share-trading websites, as these are not related to their job responsibilities.