Vantage Key Features
Import
Import text or SQL log data from a wide variety of third party vendor products, or Windows Event logs directly from servers or workstations on your network. WebSpy Vantage supports over 200 log file formats from different vendors.
View the full list of supported log formats.
Ad-hoc Investigation (Summaries)
Interactively drilldown into any area of logged information to interrogate specific events.
Reports
Choose from a comprehensive list of web, email, network and security reports or create your own custom report templates for your environment. Reports can be generated in HTML, Microsoft® Word, CSV and Text formats. Create separate report documents for each user, department, date or any other logged item.
Aliases
Represent raw log data more meaningfully using Aliases. For example, you can transform IP addresses and computer names into actual employee names and then group them into departments. You can also group IP addresses into network subnets, or long user-agent strings into browsers, instant messaging applications and other common web-enabled programs.
Profiles
Categorize web site URLs, email subject lines, instant message chats and any other logged data using customizable keyword profiling technology.
Tasks
Schedule any action such as importing and reporting to occur at convenient times such as overnight or on weekends.
The Vantage Web Module (Web Application)
The Web Module is an ASP.NET web application that can be installed on any Microsoft® Windows workstation or server in your organization that has Microsoft® Internet Information Services 6.0 or above installed. You can install and create more than one Web Module if necessary (for example, one for each country or branch).
Users in your organization login to the Web Module using a web browser to view reports and analyse storages that contain the information they are permitted to view. The Web Module can be configured to use one of three authentication mechanisms:
- Vantage In-built Authentication (Custom Login details created by Vantage)
- IIS Integrated Authentication (Windows Authentication etc)
- Client Certificate Authentication (Uses fields in Client Certificates to identify and authenticate users)
Vantage Ultimate (Windows Application)
WebSpy Vantage Ultimate enables you to configure and control all your Vantage Web Modules. This is done using the following two features in Vantage Ultimate:
1. The Organization Screen
A major part to Vantage Ultimate is the Organization screen that enables you to create users and organize them into multi-levelled groups representing your organizational structure. Users are mapped to information in your log files, enabling effective reporting on any organizational unit. Report on countries, cities, branches, offices, departments, teams, individuals, or the entire organization.
Vantage Ultimate‘s Organization screen also stores a record of each user‘s email address, which is used to automatically notify users when new information is available for them.
2. The Web Module Screen
The Web Module screen enables you to create a connection between Vantage Ultimate and your Web Modules in order to synchronize permissions and settings.
It is also used to assign permissions to users and groups (created on the Organization screen) that define what they can and cannot access within the Web Module.
The web module screen includes easy to use wizards that enable you to upload storages and reports with the appropriate permissions to make them available to the right people in your organization.
New Features in Vantage 2.2.0.1.0
- Support for Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway (Beta)
Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway (FTMG) is still currently in Beta, and is due to be released around November 2009. For those that do not know, FTMG is the next version of Microsoft’s popular ISA Server. Information and downloads for FTMG can be found here http://www.microsoft.com/forefront/edgesecurity/isaserver/en/us/tmg-beta.aspx. We have added support for FTMG beta 2 and 3 for both the W3C text logs (recommended) and the internal SQL Server Express Database logs. If you are currently trialling FTMG, we are very interested to hear your feedback. Let us know how you go!
Now Supported - Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway
- Data purge
You can now purge data from a storage, and schedule this purge to occur on a regular basis using Tasks. Purge options include data between a date range, data before a date, data after a date, data older than a date relative to now, and all data. This feature will let you easily maintain a single storage that only includes data for the last month or day.
Options for Purging data from your storage
- Import Organization from CSV can now be scheduled using Tasks
If you are importing your organizational structure from CSV, you can now schedule this action using Tasks. This enables you to update your organizational structure before any reports are run.
Import Organization from CSV via Tasks
- Added Support for ExoServer Web
If you’re running ExoServer Web, you can now analyze it’s logs using WebSpy Vantage.
Fixes
- Improved the start time for the application by improving the logic to check for Storage damage.
- Fixed the IronPort loader (Fixed out of range issues on excessive size fields).
- “Having” filters no longer override the sort order of a Report Template node.
- Fixed an issue that may result in duplicated storages after migrating settings from earlier versions.
- Fixed the inability to remove invalid entities from web module permissions list (users that no longer exist).
- Fixed a timeout issue when publishing storages to the web module.
You should be prompted to update your software on startup, but if you've turned off that feature, simply go to Tools | Check for Updates.
New Features in Vantage 2.2
- Multi-processing
Vantage now use multithreading techniques to utilizes the extra processing power on machines with multiple cores or CPUs to import log files and generate reports faster. Import a folder full of log files and watch 6 to 8 logs import simultaneously instead of watching them import one after the other. Run a full analysis or a comprehensive report with no filters and watch your CPU jump into gear to generate the report in 30% - 50% of the time.
- The new Performance tab in Vantage
- Improved report styles
HTML (including MHT) reports are now sporting an updated look and feel.
- New Report Style
- Updated Aliases and Profiles
Added support for the latest search engines, social networking sites and user agents.
- Profiles Aliases support the latest Internet tools and technologies.
- Storage Repair Utility
Storages can become damaged if there is a system crash or if WebSpy.Vantage.exe process is ended when an import is in progress. Damaged storages are now detected automatically and you have the option of repairing them. Storages can also be manually checked and repaired on the Storage properties dialog.
- Storage Repair Utility
- Save / Open Tasks
Scheduled Tasks can now be saved to an external file (.Tasks) for backup and migration purposes.
- Save and Open Tasks
New Features in Vantage 2.1
New Addition to the Vantage Range:
Vantage Ultimate is WebSpy's latest software solution that incorporates all innovative Vantage features as well as being able to satisfy the surging organizational need of distributing information - securely and responsibly.
Vantage Ultimate includes a Web Module, which is a separate web application that your organization can host within its network. Vantage Ultimate can publish reports and storages to the Web Module and assign permissions to these potentially sensitive files. Users can securely login to the Vantage Web Module via a web browser to view reports and analyze storages that contain only the information they are permitted to view.
More Vantage Ultimate Information
New Features in ALL Vantage Products:
- Improved Event Log Support
Import Event logs from multiple servers or workstations at once. - Improved Tasks Interface
Easily see when a task will run and the actions it will perform at a glance. - Extensions
Right-click an item in the Summaries screen and send it to a 3rd party application. Defaults include ping, nslookup, and trace route. - Troubleshoot Aliases and Profiles
Find and fix duplicate and superfluous Alias or Profile entries.
New Features in Vantage Giga and Vantage Ultimate:
- Organization Screen
Your company’s organizational structure and managerial hierarchy can be imported from LDAP, LDIF, CSV or created manually. With Vantage Ultimate this organization structure is used to assign permissions and to split reports, or storages, by users or organizational unit. With Vantage Giga the Organization screen can be used to easily import your users, departments, locations and any other organizational unit, and convert this information into multiple aliases at once. This organization structure can then be utilized in reports, filters, and ad-hoc analysis. - Collate Report
The Collate report feature enables you to collate existing reports into one overview report. For example, you can create monthly Internet usage reports, and then combine all these reports to create a yearly report. Yearly overviews, and even monthly overviews based on daily reports, can now be generated in much less time.
New Features in Vantage 2.0
- Windows Vista Support
Installs and runs on Microsoft® Windows Vista - 64 Bit support
Vantage can now run as a 64 bit process when installed on 64 bit operating systems. This enables Vantage to utilize more than 2 GB of RAM (a restriction that exists on 32 bit operating systems) - Browsing and Download Cost
Add columns to your report to display the cost of browsing activity and the cost of downloads. Customize the cost per hour and cost per MB in Tools | Options. - Compressed Reports
Compress your reports using zip compression. This makes reports easier to send via email and reduces the disk space necessary to store your reports. - Windows Event Support
Import Windows Event Log information directly from PCs and servers on your network with no intermediate log files involved. - FTP Support
Import logs directly from an FTP site. - LDAP Support
Import user and department information from any LDAP compatible directory server using the ‘Import from LDAP’ wizard (including Microsoft® Active Directory and Novell® eDirectory). - Optimized Report Generation
Reports now generate in less time, especially if your report generates multiple documents. - Improved Template Editor
Copy, paste, and rearrange template nodes easily. - Easily add extra columns to your reports
Select from an extensive range of aggregate columns such as Total Browsing Time, Number of Sessions, Most Expensive Download etc. - Improved IP Addresses Resolution
More IP addresses can now be resolved per second. Filtering functionality has also been added allowing you to specify which IPs to resolve (internal, external, specific subnets etc). - Ease of Use
Previously ‘hard to access’ functionality is now clearly surfaced via task pads, and workflows have been simplified. - Other features:
- Automatic updates will now consume less bandwidth and take less time
- Added % values to Pie chart slices
- Generate multiple report formats in a single pass. For example, generate the same report as a HTML document and a Microsoft® Word document at the same time.
- Send report emails using authenticated SMTP
- Over a year’s worth of miscellaneous improvements and bug fixes
Useful Links:
- WebSpy Product Comparison (available in low and high resolution)
- Extensive Feature Comparison (available in low and high resolution)
- Vantage Range & Vantage Ultimate Datasheet (available in low and high resolution)
