The FaceTime product line consists of multiple products--some available separately and all available in some type of bundled offering--that provide Internet usage detection, management, and auditing features for Enterprise environments. Specifically, the products combine to provide the ability to monitor and manage such communications as audio (including Skype), video, Web browsing, and IM. The three key products currently offered in the FaceTime portfolio include the Unified Security Gateway (USG), IMAuditor, and the Greynet Enterprise Manager (GEM). Note that the USG is also often referred to as the Real-Time Guardian, or RTGuardian, in the vendor's literature (the former name for the appliance whose role has now been taken over by the USG). Further, bundled versions of the products are available: FaceTime Enterprise Edition combines the USG with IMAuditor, while FaceTime Internet Security Edition combines the USG with GEM.

IMAuditor is a centralized platform that provides the organization with the ability to monitor and control instant message communications among its employees. The platform provides tools allowing the organization to control certain aspects of IM communications, such as blocking file transfers or limiting their size; as well as provides the ability to log and provide for later review or analysis all IM communication threads. According to the vendor, the product supports multiple enterprise and public instant messaging networks, including Microsoft LCS, IBM Lotus Sametime, Antepo, Jabber, Parlano MindAlign, Reuters, Bloomberg, Communicator Inc., WebEx, MSN, AIM, Yahoo!, GoogleTalk, and more.

For messaging control, the platform allows admins to manage allow/block lists as well as implement content filtering or challenge-response methods in an effort to block unwanted communications such as SpIM. File transfers can be blocked or size-limited; and messages sent between employees of the organization can be automatically routed internally, to avoid sending employee messages via the public IM network at all. Messages themselves can be blocked based on keyword watch lists, patterns, or full regular expressions. Privileges can be managed at the company group, or user level.

For monitoring and compliance auditing, the platform provides automated binary storage of IM use, including logins/offs and multi-party chats; a customizable legal disclaimer is displayed to all parties participating in the IM conversation. Workflow processes allow for the monitoring and reviewing of content, and stored data is protected via checksums of time-stamped messages to avoid external modifications.

The Unified Security Gateway (USG) is an appliance offering that is deployed at the organization's Internet access point and provides the ability to identify and manage multiple types of Internet communications, including Web browsing, IM, P2P, and Skype. The USG leverages the vendor's ACE technology (more below) to identify Web traffic, and can apply administrator-define policy controls to that traffic, including URL-based filtering as well as policies governing the use of other Internet communications (including, for example, the blocking of direct IM client-to-client communications, and targeted IM features such as file or image transfers). The USG is offered in four flavors, depending on the throughput needs of the organization.

The Greynet Enterprise Manager (GEM) is used in conjunction with the USG. It receives alerts from the USG appliance and provides the ability to scan, clean, or inoculate an infected PC to isolate it from reinfection without requiring client components on the PC itself. Additionally, GEM provides aggregated reporting capabilities for multiple, distributed USG appliances; providing real-time traffic monitoring capabilities and data on such metrics as actions taken on spyware infections and/or policy enforcements (access blocking, file transfer blocking, etc.) to the machine and user level, IM network activities, unauthorized port usage, attempted policy breaches, and more. The GEM Management Console further facilitates central device management of multiple USG deployments.

As aforementioned, the USG itself is driven by the vendor's Application Control Engine (ACE), which they state is able to identify/categorize better than 1,400 Web 2.0 applications and better than 50,000 additional application widgets in use with such sites as Facebook, MySpace, etc. regardless of the port or protocol that they are using for communication. The vendor's own research team updates the application definitions and provides them to ACE automatically on a daily basis. In addition to serving as the core technology for the USG, ACE is also now available for licensing by OEMs, to be used in their own network security gear.

All products are available now. Contact FaceTime for further information.