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Internet connection sharing
Internet connection sharing, as well as other related features, is in most cases the primary purpose for buying and installing a proxy server solution in a corporate network. UserGate is a very flexible program, allowing you to organize Internet access using either NAT (Network Address Translation) or application-layer proxy servers, such as HTTP or FTP. The same task or problem can be addressed in a variety of ways and fine tuned accordingly.
- Internet connection sharing
- Proxy servers
- Multiple ISPs and connection failover
- Traffic manager
- Web caching
- IP telephony support
Internet connection sharing (ICS)
With UserGate, you can share single or multiple Internet connections, such as DSL, cable, dial-up, wireless, ISDN, or any other among users in your local network. UserGate server is visible from both the Internet by an external IP address and from a LAN (or several LANs) by an internal IP address.
Since the traffic goes through a single server, an administrator is able to protect the local network against threats, get detailed statistics and usage patterns, and control what is downloaded or uploaded using flexible rules.
Proxy servers
UserGate includes a number of proxy servers for application layer protocols, such as HTTP, FTP, SOCKS, POP3, SMTP, SIP and H323. All of the proxies can work in transparent mode, eliminating the need to specify the proxy address and port in applications on user machines. You can also specify for what particular network interface a proxy server should be enabled.
A proxy server, such as HTTP-proxy, can be enabled in UserGate by an administrator for various reasons, such as the need to accelerate user requests (and save on traffic expenses) by using caching, or to filter out certain content by URL.
Multiple ISPs and connection failover
UserGate enables you to use several Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and make different providers available for different user groups. If the primary ISP connection is not stable, you can enable the Connection Failover feature. With this feature turned on, users will be switched to a secondary connection if the primary connection is broken.
Traffic manager
With the number of Internet-based applications and services constantly growing, administrators need to optimize application performance in their networks and avoid the negative effects of exceeding bandwidth limits. This can be accomplished through effective bandwidth management and by utilizing a tool that is specifically designed for that purpose. UserGate has all the features necessary for effective bandwidth management.
Web caching
Web caching is an important proxy server feature that accelerates service requests by retrieving content saved from a previous request in local storage (cache). A caching proxy keeps local copies of frequently requested resources, allowing large organizations to reduce their bandwidth usage and cost, while significantly increasing performance.
IP telephony support
UserGate supports IP telephony and can work as a gateway for softphones and dedicated IP phones. IP telephony is another name for Voice over IP (VoIP), a family of technologies for delivering voice communications over IP networks. This has become extremely popular in the last several years. The great advantage of VoIP technology is its low cost, making it the best choice for corporate use instead of traditional copper-wire telephone systems.
