San Francisco-based startup Andromedia has a new system to ease the pain of extracting useful visitor information from large Web sites with lots of traffic.

Aria is designed to obtain real-time data about individual and overall activity. Rather than throwing a log file into a relational database, the Aria system captures the data as it comes in. Its monitor component sits alongside the Web server, capturing all the information that passes between it and the browser. The system issues cookies to track individual users. The recorder processes the data into an object database, and a reporter module delivers customizable reports. You can also access the six main objects (visitor, visitor aggregate, content, content aggregate, server and content category), via an API for specialized applications.

Aria runs on Solaris and works with Netscape servers. A Windows NT version, which works with the Apache server and Microsoft's IIS server, is in the works, and a Java-based reporter module is scheduled for early 1997. Pricing runs from $1,800 to $35,000, based on the scale of your Web operation.