03
Does Your Network Need a Proxy Server?
To network administrators for big networks, the need for Proxy Server–intermediaries that stand sentinel between the open Internet and an internal network — is fundamental, it goes nearly without saying. But in smaller organizations that lack dedicated IT resources, the demand may not be so self evident….
Proxies intercept requests for Internet pages from users within an organization’s network and perform numerous chores related to enhancing functionality, shielding the network and applying business Web use policies. This is occasionally called a proxy server. It is the type that almost all organizations need.
If your firm hosts its own Web servers on its assumptions, you additionally want a reverse proxy to perform a a distinct, although complementary, place of security- and operation-related jobs around requests coming into your servers from the Internet.
We are going to focus in this post on the first type of proxy–and a service-based form of interest to mobile business users and consumers.
Proxy forward
This anonymity supplies an important measure of security by lowering the amount of info about its users and a network readily accessible to hackers on the web.
Caching may be, in addition, performed by the proxy server.
Display of cached pages accelerates for users, and cuts traffic going out over the business’s Internet portal, thereby possibly reducing congestion and bandwidth conditions that can degrade overall performance.
A third significant set of proxy server chores relates to enforcement of limitations and business policies around Web use.
In organizations that enable workers unrestricted access to the Internet but release policies restricting private use– no hate, pornography or betting literature websites, for instance, or just during breaks and lunch –network administrators can track proxy server logs to place users habitually violating policies.
But tracking proxy logs might be tricky business, warnings adviser Steve Armstrong, technical security director at UK-based consultancy LogicallySecure.
More than a few companies make the mistake of installing a proxy and after that never looking at it again, thus squandering much of its possible utility, Armstrong says. But others spend an excessive amount of time poring over logs.
If workers are permitted to use the Web for private surfing, also-close observation could lead to labour and solitude law infringements by the business–if an employee is studying a medical issue on his lunch hour, for instance.
Furthermore, if administrators afterwards attempt to bring disciplinary actions for infractions –and carefully track the task of an employee for no really good reason–particularly in the lack of clearly stated policies, attorneys or unions may have the capacity to maintain the worker was being victimized by the business.
There are no comments.