subject: Importance Of Having A Proxy Server For Business [print this page] Proxy servers serves as an electronic middlemen or intermediary to handle requests from a client, asking for resources or some other information from another server. A proxy server evaluates the type of request and also checks to see if the request should be granted or not. This type of server
is quite efficient in simplifying and controlling the complexity of a request.
In context of a business or enterprise, a proxy server can be beneficial to an organization for:
Security: Since all the requests are routed through a proxy, the IP address floated over the network will be of the proxy server and not of any machine or any other network node, connected inside the network. This greatly reduces the risk of intrusion of any hacker or attacker because most of the time IP addresses proves to be a soft point for intruders to gain access inside an organization's intranet.
Access management: Requests from inside workforce or internet users to different content can be managed. Requests made by clients can also be managed to provide intranet access. Different policies can be defined for this purpose so that the access to the data is according to the authority of the user.
Performance enhancement: Proxy servers cache the frequently requested resources in their local memory. This means when a client makes a requests for any data or other resource, instead of further requesting the remote server to process the request and provide the information, proxy server itself serves the request. This saves the unnecessary processing at remote server and proxies reply to the client in no time, virtually.
Usage tracking: Logs of each request handled are maintained at proxies. This gives a detailed profile of each user, who accessed a resource or some other server. Any confidential information transfer can also be tracked using proxies, since all the requests first pass through the proxy server and then are served with the information from the remote server.
Load balancing: It usually happens when attackers try to overwhelm the network resources of the organization. In such cases, proxies distribute the traffic to different web-servers to process and serve requests in order to maintain the surfing experience of different clients.
Internet support: For supporting the business needs by allowing the internet users to access the information related to an organization or situations when server is located inside the boundary of organization. Proxy server re-route the extra-net traffic for information while the rest of the infrastructure is secured by the firewalls. This is an optimal solution of using IT infrastructure services for businesses, which host their public and private content at same location.
Geo-Location customization testing: It could be noticed that while visiting a MNC's website, the users are re-directed to a web-page of their location. Proxy servers allows these organizations to test this feature in their application. Proxy server in varied location open their IPs thus allowing the application to read the IP address and redirect the user to the appropriate page.
Usually proxies are deployed or refer at Layer-7 of OSI reference model, however this technique can also be deployed through Layer-3 of OSI reference model. This technique is then known as Network address Translation or NAT. NAT is less resource intensive as compared to Layer-7 techniques because it operates at the low-level of OSI reference model but is also less flexible.
