> -----Original Message----- > From: Michelle Marcicki [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: Friday, 8 December 2000 12:05 > To: firewalls_list > Cc: Paul D. Robertson > Subject: Mid-range Firewalls? (And books :) > > > Hi there, > > I'm wondering what FW products are out there that fall into the > "mid-sized" business range?? By mid-sized I mean, not > SOHO/personal and > not huge enterprise, gov't, etc. > > There seems to be a real lack in the "in-the-middle" range?! > Say you have a business that needs a firewall and it falls > into the 10-100 > (or even <200) users range, it seems that they are out of luck. > B/c they likely can't afford was seems to be a minimum $4000 > touch for the > low end big boys and a $29.95 SOHO/personal FW isn't going to > meet their > needs by a long shot? > > So.. input, suggestions, reviews, links etc are welcome. The one good thing I found about dealing with smaller businesses is that their needs also tend to be fairly simple. If they're not hosting internal WWW / DNS / Mail etc then you can do things cheaply and effectively by just using decent filtering and NAT on the edge router. Cisco reflexive ACLs or IOS/FW provide "good enough" security for low-threat networks. If they're a little more paranoid a custom-rolled IPFilter box behind the router is not very expensive. Although enterprises tend to worry about the supportability issues, many small businesses will be happy enough to have a supplier with whom they have a relationship to look after such a box. That's assuming that they don't have anyone in-house (and getting up towards the 100-user level they often do). Personally, I'd rather use the tools I trust for paranoid networks in a lower security posture than branch out to tools I don't know at all. Back this up with a risk assessment and there's no need to start dredging the bottom for all the products that never made prime time. Failing to be popular / well examined is no guarantee that the product sucks - but the time for a clueful person to examine it will often cost more than a well-known solution. Oh - and on a product note, there's a new cheap PIX out (but I have no idea about $USD pricing). > > TIA. > > On another quick note.. I noticed that you had (??) a book > out Paul (as in > Paul Robertson), if it is the same person?? Paul? Is this true? I wanna see this book! "Firewalls" By Paul Robertson (or Protocol Designers I Have Eaten... (or Here Comes The Clue Stick... (or 80 - The Port Of Doom) ;) > Michelle Marcicki > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Technology Solutions (TSI) Inc. > > (Dolphin) > http://www.members.home.net/jazzdolphin/ > (And TSI's website is under development!) Cheers, -- Ben "Aquaboy" Nagy Marconi Services Network Integration Specialist Mb: +61 414 411 520 PGP Key ID: 0x1A86E304 - [To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe firewalls" in the body of the message.]
