Internet usage tracking

XMENPorsche · Post by **XMENPorsche** » Tue Jun 14, 2005 4:49 pm

Okay, guys.... here's one to ponder.

One of our VP's at work asked if I could help one of our VIP's (gotta love those acronyms). This VIP is a doctor with a small medical practice. He has a server running Windows 2000 Server and at least a few XP clients. He wants to be able to monitor where his users are going on the Internet, how often various sites are visited, how much time is spent on those sites, etc. I talked to our Microsoft TAM and he recommended ISA Sever 2004 Standard Edition to act as a proxy server on a dedicated box. The doctor feels that this is overkill and is interested in a somewhat smaller solution.

Thoughts?

XMEN Iceman · Post by **XMEN Iceman** » Tue Jun 14, 2005 5:39 pm

Wes,
Talk to Ron the contractor I have working for me. He has a killer little app that he uses to track usage on his daughters computer, it even will take screenshots, etc. It is pretty awesome.

Post by **XMEN Gambit** » Tue Jun 14, 2005 10:32 pm

That sounds like a client-side solution, then. Which is fine if that's what he wants. If the VIP doesn't want the client-side solution, then he's got to have the "monitoring" take place on a server that acts as a proxy, or built in to a router/firewall type device. Ron's app has the advantage of being simple and easy, but doesn't scale well to a large number of clients (probably not a problem in this case).

I put this search into Google: "internet" "monitoring" "employ," and got back a ton of results, several of which did the screenshot thing Ice mentioned. Don't have any firsthand knowledge, though.