Architecture

The L3WS WebFlow Adapter allows you to intercept and modify Web traffic on the fly. WebFlow Adapter can accommodate to most of your needs, with several possible deployments: as an extension to an existing Proxy or Security Gateway in a corporate environment; as a transparent gateway acting as an access-point; as a reverse-proxy for your servers.

Filtering Proxy

WebFlow Adapter provides a standardized interface to communicate with existing Web Proxies and Security Gateways called ICAP (Internet Content Adaptation Protocol). This lightweight network API is dedicated to content analysis and adaptation, and is provided by most commercial products (Bluecoat, Cisco, F5,...) and open source softwares (Squid, Shweby,...).

Through this interface, WebFlow Adapter integrates seamlessly with your existing network in a corporate or private environment, with performances suitable for large networks. The extensible capabilities of WebFlow Adapter provides you therefore a unique mean to build up dedicated solutions, which would be impossible or extremely expensive using only existing gateways.

ICAP architecture is based on following concept:

1. Users' traffic is intercepted by a web proxy (proxy-cache, firewall, security gateway). This web proxy acts as an ICAP client and forward web messages (either users' requests or servers' responses) to one or several L3WS WebFlow Adapter(s).
2. WebFlow Adapter acts as a white-box, allowing you to analyze and modify web traffic to provide value added services (content enrichment, parental/employers' control, antivirus, etc).

WebFlow Adapter architecture provides numerous advantages:

• Performance, by using specialized components for each task
• Scalability, with the possibility to scale ICAP clients (Web Security Gateways, Proxies) and WebFlow Adapter independently
• Extensibility, by creating/removing/updating value-added services without service interruption
• Openness, with the possibility to choice your Security Gateway based on your context requirements

Access Point

Willing to build up custom services on WI-FI access points ? With WebFlow Adapter, you can build up your own Access Point device and create custom services for your customers and clients. Using small Linux devices like NetTop servers, you can create specialized services for people connecting on your access point: display local promotions and advertisements, create custom access control and filtering, promote your own products, etc.