It's a new year and we're kicking it off with the first of TWO major releases for all three of our products. This initial release is just the beginning of the great things to come, offering a few new features and back end improvements. SmarterStats.NEXT, coming later this year, will have a completely new interface and will be the first Web log analytics tool to be fully API-driven. So, let's take a quick look at a few of the new features and improvements in the upcoming version of SmarterStats...
Focus on Security
Log files contain a TON of information about a website, so safe and secure access to that information is important. While using the SmarterStats Service is the best way to process logs, not everyone has the ability to use the Service. Therefore, to ensure the security and integrity of your data transfers when using FTP to get your logs, SmarterStats now supports FTPs and sFTP! Therefore, no matter where your websites are hosted -- whether on Windows, Linux or a combination of both -- you can have peace of mind knowing your file transfers are safe and secure, and access to your data is protected during the file transfer process.
High Trafficked Sites Are No Problem
As sites grow in popularity, moving them from a single site on a single server to a load-balanced architecture makes perfect sense. However, analyzing log files for those sites can be problematic. SmarterStats 11.x adds support for load-balanced headers, which makes log and site analysis for load-balanced sites simple. By adding support for these headers, SmarterStats can accurately detect information from the load-balancer about where traffic is generating and relay this information correctly to site administrators. So now, administrators and site owners can view a load-balanced site's statistics just as they would if it were managed on a single-server platform.
You Want to Save Space, and We Want to Help
Server administrators know that having enough disk space is key: it helps keep a Web server running smoothly and keeps websites from experiencing unexpected faults and errors. One way to preserve disk space is to compress a Web server's log files. SmarterStats 11.x introduces the ability to FTP these compressed and archived log folders, as well as those that are stored under the root FTP location, allowing them to remain in their compressed and easy-to-manage state. This not only helps server administrators preserve disk space, it provides site owners with the analysis they need to optimize and improve their online businesses.
And More is On the Way
There are a variety of other changes throughout this version, including the ability to brand the SmarterStats Help documentation so that users have a way to get in touch with their analytics provider, logging for FTP, Web interface and SMTP actions, an easier way to export logs and more! However, we've restricted many of the planned features that include, or coincide with, any interface changes, as we are concurrently developing SmarterStats 12.x, which will have a completely new interface and an entire architecture that is API-driven.
Getting Started with the BETA
Once you've received your BETA key, simply visit the SmarterStats 11.x BETA Information Community thread! There, you can communicate with other testers (as well as the SmarterTools development team), view release notes for the most recent BETA releases and stay up-to-date with any additional BETA news and announcements.