Charge for Internet traffic.

InGOT is an application for a Microsoft NT/2000 or Novell Netware network that operates in conjunction with Microsoft Proxy Server v2.0 or Novell BorderManager 3. InGOT allows you to monitor and report on Internet usage through the proxy server, charge users for this usage as it is consumed on a pre-paid basis, and block further access when a user's account becomes empty.

Recover costs for Internet access at a highly configurable level.
Apply usage charges on a peak/non-peak hour basis.
Apply a discount for non peak-hour traffic.
Construct a detailed charging structure.

InGOT will allow organisations to recover costs from users for Internet traffic through a proxy server. The charging structure is configurable to offer flexible charging schemes and does not provide performance loss or instability to your Internet access. InGOT allows you to create a separate charge rate for different types of users. Then, by assigning users to different user types, you can easily adjust your charging structure for groups of users. You can apply a different discount for each user type that uses the proxy server outside of peak-hour times, and peak-hour times can be set for each day of the week. The charge-rate can simply represent Mbytes in or out for each user or be a more detailed breakdown, itemising costs for national and international traffic, and whether the request was delivered from the proxy cache or fetched from the Internet.

Slots in easily with your present system.
Simple and easy to use.
Minimal performance impact.

InGOT is able to quickly report on your Internet traffic use and can be easily integrated into most Proxy Server and BorderManager installations.

InGOT offers a simple interface with little maintenance requirements and has minimal impact on the machine on which it runs.

Automatically update user account balances.
Automatically enable and deny Internet access.

InGOT updates your user's balance with every scan of the proxy server log. When a user's account drops below zero inGOT can remove the user from the Internet access group, denying them access. Upon having funds added to a user's account and making its balance positive, the user will be reinstated back into the proxy server access group and Internet access will again be granted.

The facility to automatically deny users Internet access is an optional feature which allows inGOT to be used for reporting and analysis only. This may be useful for organisations that only wish to monitor traffic usage or to charge for usage without automatic denial of access.

InGOT displays the most recent ten highest traffic users.

InGOT performs a scan on a time interval that you may configure, and displays the most recent ten highest traffic users of the proxy server in the main window of the application. Each user type may be configured to one of five colours to more easily indicate the type of user.

Automatically provide new users with an inGOT account and balance.

InGOT will automatically create an inGOT account for users who have authorised access through the proxy server but have not yet had an inGOT account created.
New users will be assigned a default user type and will be charged at the charge rate for that user type.

Automatically allocate users to business units based on network groups.

When creating new inGOT user accounts, inGOT can search a list of network groups in either an NT/2000 Domain or a Netware NDS tree. If the user exists in a specified network group then a user type, business unit name, and associated initial balance can be allocated to that user. Users not in any matching network groups are given a default user type, business unit, and initial balance. This eliminates the administrative overhead of setting up new user account and allows easy reporting of user traffic by business unit or department.

Assign a URL to a different user account.

InGOT offers you the ability to assign all traffic (and therefore cost) to and from a specific URL to a specific user. For example, all traffic to and from your own web site could be assigned to a "HomeSite" user account. Individual users would therefore not incur any cost for visiting your web site. Intranet sites accessed through the proxy server can similarly be excluded from charging. Wildcard specifications can be used to identify groups of hosts, e.g. *.mydomain.com

Assign a user account to different machines.

InGOT also offers you the ability to set up a list of IP addresses of machines that you want assigned to special accounts. This allows you to have a public machine such as in a library that can support multiple logons while only charging Internet access to a single account. You could assign an account to that machine with a specified allocation of funds or make access from that machine 'free'.

Identify national traffic.

A country code suffix such as '.nz' or '.au' can be specified to distinguish 'national' Internet traffic from 'international' traffic. During scanning of the logs, inGOT examines the domain names of sites being visited and can apply different charge rates on national and international traffic.

Configure level of logging detail.
Store URL log records in a separate database file.

InGOT can capture differing levels of detail on sites visited by users, depending on your particular requirements. This can range from storing the full URLs of every browser request to storing only a summary of bytes transferred for each user. Large sites with a high level of Internet usage can choose to capture less detail to avoid the logging database growing in size too rapidly. A 'threshold' download size can be configured over which more detail can be captured.

During scanning, inGOT transfers records from the proxy server log files to its own database table. This table may either be included in the same database file as the main inGOT user account tables or separated out into its own database file. The latter option allows for better management of file archiving at year end.

Run additional copies of inGOT for administrative staff.

While only one copy of inGOT is run as the 'master' - scanning the log files and carrying out the automated charging and authentication processes - other copies can be run elsewhere in a special 'administrative', non-scanning mode. This allows designated staff to administer inGOT user accounts by adding funds or changing user details.

Set of default standard reports available.
Customise standard reports or write new reports.

InGOT accounting and Internet log records are stored in standard Microsoft Access 97/2000 database files. Reports can be run from any workstation with MS Access installed and with access to the inGOT database files. These reports can be used 'as is' or customised for a particular site's needs. New reports can be written as required by anyone with a moderate level of MS Access report writing skills.

Query user balances on intranet.

Web pages can be set up to allow users to query their own account balances, recent transactions, and traffic statistics on an intranet web page. InGOT administrators can query anyone's account information through the same facility.

This feature currently works only in an NT/2000 Domain network and requires a Microsoft IIS 4 web server running on the network with sufficient access to the inGOT database files. Typically, the IIS server will be running on the same machine as Proxy Server and inGOT.

Users on a Netware network can query their current user balance via a record written to their user object in the NDS tree (currently stored in the user's 'Postal Code' field).

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