Akonix L7's patent pending technology allows IT administrators to:

• Create and enforce granular corporate policies
• Specify which employees can use IM, and what type of features
  
• Protect from information leakage (by automatically keeping internal messages inside the network)
  
• Record any or all conversations (log and archive)
  
• Generate detailed reports on usage (more than a dozen standard reports, and custom reports easily created)
  
• Protect from viruses (by virus scanning any file transfers)
  
• Protect from hackers (by enforcing patched versions)
  
• Protect from malicious content (by active built-in content filtering)
  
• Reduce liability
  
• Integrate with legacy systems (CRM/ERP/Email/Storage)(through rich API)
  
• Address compliance with SEC, NASD, and HIPAA regulations

Akonix L7 allows employees to continue to derive the benefits of using public instant messaging, but gives IT administrators the tools they need to secure the network, and manage instant messaging like an enterprise application.

Frequent misconceptions

Our employees don't use public instant messaging
Don't think your employees are using public instant messaging from AOL, MSN, or Yahoo?  Download FREE Akonix Rogue Aware and see for yourself. Chances are that you will be very surprised.

We've implemented a proprietary system for in-house use, so the problems are gone
If you have implemented a proprietary instant messaging solution such as Lotus SameTime or Jabber, Akonix L7 is a critical piece to add into the infrastructure to make sure that public instant messaging is under control.

Many organizations want to allow their employees to communicate with external resources such as customers, partners, and telecommuters, and proprietary solutions are not made for this. Therefore, Akonix L7 is a perfect compliment to systems such as Lotus SameTime. In fact, Akonix L7 integrates tightly with Lotus SameTime to provide unified archiving and reporting of both internal, and external messaging.

8 Questions to ask before selecting a public instant messaging gateway

1. Why can’t I use a firewall to manage public instant messaging?
Firewalls are not built to effectively manage public instant messaging because they rely on ports, standard protocols, and destinations as their control variables. Public instant messaging is NOT port specific (can use any open port), authentication server destinations can change, and the protocols are not standards based, making a firewall an inappropriate tool to manage this type of traffic.

2. Does the gateway support all of the public instant messaging networks?
Akonix L7 supports all of the public instant messaging networks, including, AOL, MSN, Windows Messaging, YAHOO!, and ICQ*. Akonix works closely with all of the public networks to insure that Akonix L7 continues to integrate flawlessly. Akonix L7 is also closely integrated with IBM’s Lotus Same Time, a proprietary messaging server.

3. Can the Gateway I am evaluating enforce granular policy on the use of public instant messaging?
All public instant messaging gateways are not created equal. Although solutions exist today to let organizations monitor public instant messaging, ONLY Akonix L7 allows IT administrators to set and actively ENFORCE granular policies on usage, content, and versions, and more.

Akonix L7 is the only gateway available today that has ACTIVE granular policy enforcement.

4. Could an employee or outsider circumvent the Gateway that I am evaluating, and still use public instant messaging without being managed?
Unless that Gateway is Akonix L7, the answer is YES! Most gateways require you to make changes to the firewall or DNS server in order to prevent instant messaging traffic from circumventing the gateway. Since public instant messaging can be tunneled out via any open port, and authentication destination blocking can be easily circumvented, these methods just do not work.

Only Akonix L7 provides a complete solution which includes our patent-pending L7 Enforcer Module that monitors network traffic (using protocol signatures, rather than ports and destinations), looking for stray instant messaging, terminating any attempts to circumvent the gateway, and making sure that ALL instant messaging traffic is under management of the gateway.

Financial services organizations are especially vulnerable when it comes to gateways being circumvented. Because SEC and NASD regulations require that all instant messaging traffic be archived and available for reporting, any instant messaging traffic that circumvents the gateway undermines their compliance. The fact is that Akonix L7 is the ONLY gateway that truly allows financial services organizations to become compliant, by ensuring that ALL instant messaging traffic is archived.

5. Does the gateway insure that internal company conversations are not seen outside the corporate network?
Akonix L7 is the only gateway that automatically detects when employees are talking with each other, and keeps those messages within the safety of the corporate network. This patent-pending technology allows all of the conversations between employees to be secure.   Other gateways simply let these messages through, exposing the confidential content to the public network in unencrypted form.

6. What does it take to install the Gateway?
Some gateways require that you add complex rules to existing firewalls, modify proxy servers, augment DNS servers, and install components on client’s machines.

Akonix L7 installs quickly in any environment, and does not require additional components on the client machines. In fact, Akonix L7 has more network integration methods than any other gateway. It can sit as a standalone proxy, be proxy-chained, DNS routed, or integrated tightly with firewalls. The typical implementation is performed by the IT manager, and takes less than an afternoon.

All other gateways require the IT manager to manually associate screen names with network credentials. Akonix L7’s patent-pending, User Discovery technology automatically associates all screen names with real directory names, and L7 even supports multiple domain integration from a single gateway. Akonix L7 integrates with Windows NT 4 (NTLM), Windows 2000 (Active Directory, Mixed Mode Active Directory), and LDAP. An auto-synchronization procedure always keeps the gateway synchronized to the domains.

7. How scalable is the Gateway?
Everyone claims that their product is scalable. Have them prove it! Akonix L7 has been benchmarked to support over 10,000 simultaneously connected and actively conversing users on a single Intel box. Akonix L7 is a true enterprise solution, built in C++ with a proprietary in memory application server that is optimized for dealing with instant messaging traffic. Other gateways are built on top of web server technologies, and are simply no match for Akonix L7.

8. Is the Gateway extensible, and can it be integrated with other systems?
Unlike all other gateways, Akonix L7 exposes a feature rich, well documented, high-performance API (Application Programming Interface), that can be used to integrate it with many third party applications such as NIDS, CRM, ERP, and other legacy systems. In fact, this API is used extensively by Akonix’s own developers to develop many modules that are resident within L7.

Copyright Akonix Inc.