Protecting the network from instant messaging abuse

While the multitude of emerging messaging technologies can add value to business and enhance interpersonal communication, the reality of systems like MSN Messenger, ICQ and Yahoo is that abuse of these facilities can have a severe negative impact on business networks.

"These types of messaging systems have a place in the enterprise, but businesses must be aware of the fact that they can generate considerably more traffic across the network. If excessive personal use and therefore unnecessary pressure on the network is to be avoided and eliminated, the usage of these messaging systems must be constantly monitored and regulated," states Dirk Loosen, product manager, application performance management at Compuware SA.

Loosen explains that Compuware`s Vantage management solution features improved functionality that enables IT professionals to identify and monitor instant messaging (IM) traffic and perform network security breach analysis.

"Some enterprises see IM as an effective means of communication that reduces the load on e-mail systems," he comments.

"However, there are also concerns that, as a pervasive application, IM systems can open security holes or add undue loads to expensive WAN links, ultimately causing delays to strategic applications and impacting an organisation`s ROI."

Vantage manages the impact of IM by identifying both ends of the conversation and the amount of traffic it generates. The solution reports on traffic from leading IM vendors such as AOL, MSN, Yahoo and IBM.

In addition, Vantage discovers traffic moved over the Internet by KaZaA, the most widely used purveyor of peer-to-peer file sharing on the Internet.

Looking at security concerns, Vantage`s historical collection of traffic data assists network security professionals with breach analysis. The solution shows when unwanted traffic occurred, the source and destination of the offending traffic, and how much data was moved.

"Through Vantage, businesses can capitalise on the benefits of IM systems without paying the heavy price of network performance degradation and security compromises," concludes Loosen.