Blog

Introducing Proton, the First Web Application Inventory and Analytics Solution for Enterprise

Today’s a big day. We are pleased to announce our latest product, Browsium Proton, a comprehensive web application inventory and analytics solution for the enterprise. It’s the first of its kind – designed specifically to deliver insights into your increasingly complex web application environment.

What is Proton?

Proton offers IT teams an in depth understanding of browser-based enterprise environments. It provides comprehensive, granular, real-time data via a graphical dashboard, detailing the critical correlations between web applications, browsers, and add-ons. This gives IT teams the actionable insights they need to quickly make informed decisions and head off issues before they become serious problems.

Before going any further: If you missed the on Proton webinar on December 16th, you can
watch it on-demand today.

Why did we develop Proton?

Organizations today use a combination of native and web-based applications to deliver business tools for employees. IT is tasked with managing these various tools, but traditional desktop management solutions lack the ability to view, track, and understand browser-based applications.

Unlike traditional native applications, browser-based applications use an assortment of run-time components, assembled via data delivered from a combination of remote endpoints. This ‘just in time’ nature makes web-based applications hard enough to define, but nearly impossible to identify with existing application management solutions that are designed to work with the standalone, installed executable software model. There is more on this topic in our recent blog post.

While talking with our customers over the years, we’ve heard so many say: “We don’t have a baseline understanding of what web applications and browsers are being used across our organization.” Combine this with business unit management’s ability to easily provision SaaS applications directly, and IT is more vulnerable than ever before of being ‘out of the loop’ – all while being tasked with supporting their end users with the business applications they need.

Clearly, IT needs a way to gain a deep understanding of enterprise browser environments. In addition, they need to understand the dependencies between applications, browsers, and add-ons. Without this insight, they’re open to security risks, blocked or stalled migrations, compatibility issues, and under/over-utilizing web application software licenses.

That’s why we’ve developed Proton. It provides deep insights into the complexities of browser-based application environments so IT teams can make better informed decisions.

Why is Proton unique?

You may be familiar with Microsoft Site Discovery Toolkit – it’s designed around single, one-off end points as a data sampling tool for pre-migration efforts It is not an enterprise-ready management and reporting tool. Finding a way to make the information from Site Discovery Toolkit meaningful and usable can take weeks, if not months, of programming to manipulate the data into a usable, digestible format – and by then the data is most likely out of date.

Proton presents up-to-date data in a convenient, easy-to-consume dashboard format, along with the ability to dive into details using customized reports, which help IT teams make faster, better decisions.

Proton goes beyond simply providing raw usage data, delivering comprehensive inventory and analytics presented in easy-to-understand tables and charts. This allows IT teams to discover the critical correlations in their browser-based application environment.

With Proton, you’ll discover:

• Which web applications are actively accessed, by whom and how often.
• Which browsers and versions are being used for upgrade and compatibility considerations.
• The Java and ActiveX instances and version details for improved security.
• The dependencies between applications, browsers, and add-ons to understand the ramifications of upgrades or migrations.
• Unused applications or browser add-ons that can be disabled or uninstalled to reduce the attack surface in your environment.
• Which applications are used by various lines of business, like Customer Service or Finance, to gain perspective on value or priority.

Read more about Proton features here.

How can Proton help you?

The great thing about Proton is that it delivers real, tangible business value across many scenarios, including:

• Migrating Browsers and Applications – Proton inventories all web applications, along with client browser environment data, and presents it in a graphical dashboard. Granular-level data, with line-item detail, helps identify and unblock web application compatibility issues.
• Maintaining and Optimizing Client Systems – With Proton, IT teams make better business decisions because they have a near real-time view of their web application environment, ensuring their mission critical web applications run smoothly during frequent OS, browser, and Java patching cycles.
• Proactively Heading Off Security Risks – Proton reduces attack surfaces by enabling IT to correlate and manage applications, browser settings, and add-ons. It identifies unused applications and browser add-ons, such as older versions of Java and ActiveX controls, reducing the potential for security exposure.
• Improving Employee Productivity – Proton provides business management with the knowledge and insights to drive productive behavior and reduce web distractions among employees. It helps identify and correct hotspots before they affect the company’s bottom line.
• Cloud Migration – Proton’s comprehensive web application inventory can be used to identify workloads already running in the cloud outside of IT’s control – a concept known as shadow IT. In addition, Proton helps IT identify and prioritize applications ready for cloud migration – accelerating efforts to comply with cloud migration mandates.

Pricing & Availability

Proton pricing is based on the number of employees in an organization; for a quote or to schedule an online product orientation, you can contact [email protected].

If you’d like a closer look, download a free Proton Evaluation Kit. You can also give the Proton TestDrive a run. It’s a live site that you can log into to experience Proton’s reporting and analytics. If you prefer to read more about this topic, we have check out our whitepaper that further explains why having an inventory and analytics solution for browser-based applications is critical for your organization.

I welcome your thoughts and feedback.

Matt Heller, Browsium Founder