Firewall Device Recommendations

  • Thread starter Thread starter Sean
  • Start date Start date
S

Sean

I work for a community organisation on a shoe string budget.

I have been asked to look into purchasing a Firewall device to protect
our LAN with 50 PCs. We have an ADSL Internet connection through a
basic NAT router supplied by the ISP.

I would like some info and recommendations on the various brands and
models and the features that they have.
Having one that is not to completed to configure and allows port
blocking, filtering etc is what I'm looking at.

Regards

Sean
 
Many of the firewalls sold at retail outlets like Linksys
or Dlink would handle your traffic and support all the
functionality you requested. They are also very cheap.
Under $100.

But if you think you may need good support, you should go
with a SOHO solution like the lower-end Sonicwalls. They
are sturdy and relatively cheap (under $500).
www.sonicwall.com
 
Hi Sean,

I agree with the last post. We are also on a very limited budget, but we're
using the SonicWalls SOHO series. If you are a registered non profit you
can get some discounts from certain vendors. We get a small discount from
CDW for our hardware and software, let me know if you want my contact at the
company.

Regards,
Roberto
 
You already have basic protection with the nat router. For something more robust that
has SPI firewall and can control outbound access there are a lot of choices. The
Netgear ProSafe line is pretty decent, at as low as $75. I use one at home and it
does a good job however it is limited in the number of outbound rules it can have and
the rules are not that flexible. The SonicWall and Netscreen line are more flexible
and powerful starting at somewhere around $400 I believe. Linksys has a new
affordable device, the RV082, that has a lot of features including SPI, fifty vpn
ipsec endpoint tunnels, lots of logging, bandwidth sharing/redundancy with a second
wan connection, and better firewall rules that can control traffic to and from
specific ip addresses unlike the lower end devices. You can see it at the link below
and download the manual. My son just bought one for his workplace at $270. --- Steve

http://www.linksys.com/products/product.asp?grid=34&scid=29&prid=589
 
Hi Sean,

Since all of your network traffic has to pass through
whatever firewall you choose, a cheap firewall could slow
down internet access to a crawl. Check out the Symantec
VPN100 200 and 200R with VPN. If you need help or pricing -
e-mail me.

good luck '

Cameron
 
I would not recommend the SonicWalls... in my (limited) experience the
have a high failure rate (we've had 3 out of 4 fail in less than
years). The units are expensive, relative to the features and requir
extra-cost licenses for almost everything.

The maintenance is is pricy---and I've found the support to be poor.
(At least the India-based support offered to US customers....user i
Europe report that the support is good).

I just bought a LinkSys RV082 and was impressed with its feature set..
the software is a bit rough... but it does a lot for you $300. Suppor
is ok ... eager to help, and answer the phone quickly

Just my 2 cents... best o' luck.



-
kluba
 
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