FOSTER CITY, Calif., Mar. 22, 2004 - Furthering its leadership
as the premier provider of solutions that secure, manage, and
extend instant messaging (IM) and other forms of real-time
communications in the enterprise, FaceTime Communications today
announced the immediate availability of FaceTime RTG500TM, an
industry-first network appliance built for the safe, controlled and
easy adoption of instant messaging in the enterprise.
RTG500 is a purpose-built, hardened network device that is easy to
install, requires minimal IT administration resources and has no
impact on network performance. The appliance delivers complete,
non-stop protection from unauthorized IM connections, while also
eliminating peer-to-peer (P2P) filesharing. KaZaA, Grokster, and
Morpheus are among the P2P applications commonly downloaded by
employees without IT knowledge. These applications decrease
employee productivity, drain network performance, open corporate
networks to attack, and render organizations liable for copyright
infringement. With RTG500, IT administrators can easily keep up
with an ever-growing number of threats through automated, real-time
protocol updates to ensure their corporate networks are safe. In
addition to blocking, RTG500 allows organizations to standardize on
specific IM networks as dictated by corporate policy.
"We needed an extensible, comprehensive IM management and security
solution that would address our needs to adhere to strict
compliance and regulatory mandates," said Oscar Im, Director of
Technology at Betzold Research & Trading, Inc., a fixed-income
broker-dealer in Chicago, IL. "After an extensive technical
evaluation, we found that FaceTime's RTG500 was the solution that
provides the greatest network protection from rogue IM and P2P
usage while posing the least strain on corporate IT to protect the
productivity and cost saving benefits of legitimate IM
usage."
"Managing instant messaging and peer-to-peer communications is a
complex problem requiring a simplified solution," said Matt Cain,
vice president at META Group. "As the recent 'Osama Found' adware
and 'Bizek' worm demonstrated, enterprise IM users can be easily
manipulated to expose their corporate networks to attack. But
keeping traditional software solutions current with the latest
protocol updates can place an enormous strain on IT. Hardware
solutions that automate this process can effectively maintain
up-to-the-minute network security without overburdening
administrators."
"Most companies have come to realize the business benefits of IM,
but its complex nature has left many wondering how it can be
managed without the cost of additional IT resources," said Rahul
Abhyankar, director of product management at FaceTime
Communications. "RTG500 helps to make IM more useful by eliminating
rogue IM and P2P use in a very simplified way."
RTG500 extends the core real-time management and control
capabilities of FaceTime IM DirectorTM and IMAuditorTM. Designed to
be deployed in the corporate DMZ, RTG500 acts as a security gateway
for real-time communications, providing security from unsafe IM
features-such as file and image sharing, games and direct
connections-by providing valuable network usage statistics and
controlling rogue behavior through the blocking of port scanning
and dynamic port negotiation. RTG500 detects and enforces
application behavior based on patterns in the OSI model's
application and is designed to seamlessly deploy within existing
network security infrastructures. RTG500 complements existing
enterprise network security products and firewalls.
RTG500 offers key functionality in three areas: 1) detection, 2)
protection, 3) extension and integration:
Detection:
· Detect network behavior of all popular public IM networks and
P2P applications
· Generate detailed IM and P2P activity reports, including
bandwidth and application behavior
· Deploy seamlessly within existing network infrastructure
Protection:
· Block unauthorized IM connections, including protocol tunneling
and port scanning
· Defend the network by blocking unsafe IM features such as games,
image sharing and direct connections
· Block wide variety of P2P file sharing applications, including
popular VoIP applications such as Skype
Extension and Integration:
· Seamless integration with FaceTime's suite of IM proxy solutions
installed behind the corporate firewall
· Cisco AVVID and Symantec SESA certification
Key Benefits:
· Purpose-built and hardened security appliance with protocol
updates for non-stop protection
· IM remains an efficient business tool while blocking undesired
P2P applications
· Supports standardization on specific IM networks if
desired
· Certified by leading security solution providers
RTG500 is generally available with pricing starting at $5,000. For
additional sales information, FaceTime can be reached at
http://www.facetime.com/imwithus.htm, (888) 349-FACE, or via IM
screen name FaceTimeLive.
About Actiance
Actiance helps organizations manage, secure and ensure compliance
across unified communications, collaboration and Web 2.0
applications such as blogs, wikis and social networks. Actiance's
award-winning platforms are used by 9 of the top 10 US banks and
284 FINRA regulated firms globally.
The Actiance platform allows organizations to gain visibility of
applications in use, apply usage and content policies, ensure
compliance and gain valuable insights across the communications and
collaboration channels. Actiance supports all leading social
networks, unified communications and collaboration providers and IM
platforms, including Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google, Yahoo!,
AOL, Skype, Cisco, Microsoft, Jive, and IBM.
Actiance is headquartered in Belmont, California. For more
information visit or call 888-349-3223.
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