Well, I'm afraid I'll have to step in here and answer some questions. We
purchased the reporting module for FW-1 last year (in April, as I recall). I
bought a nice server to put it on and had high hopes for it. It is a complex
piece of software - especially in an environment where you have Solaris mgmt
console (reporting server was designed for NT) and you have a large number
of firewall modules. I'll answer your questions:
a) Configuration - it is not easy to configure unless you have a small shop.
The design criteria appears to me to be primarily taken from large
outsourcing and managed security providers who use it to derive billing for
customers. The documentation is absruse and difficult to understand. It is
also pretty doggone thick and hence is hard to wade through!
b) Management - it might be easy to manage. We haven't had it up long enough
to tell.
c) Informative - ongoing problems have prevented us from making use of the
information it could provide.
d) Web Trends - I tried the original WebTrends by running the fw logs
through a perl module to export them into standard format. The problem was
the WT then didn't give us anything useful.
General Comments - I hate the HTML produced by the reporting module. It is
big, clunky and doesn't load very well. Some of the reports it produces are
huge compared to the data we require from it. The Support from Checkpoint
(yeah, I shelled out for Gold Support) is nearly useless. No one seems to
know about the software. Fighting through issue after issue (it wouldn't
connect to the firewall manager, it would download logs for a while and then
mysteriously quit, it produces reports with no data because all connections
come from the firewall module address (NAT), loading SP2 causes it to
self-destruct requiring a reload of the software and repeating the download
of all the log files all over again) has left me a little bit cold. I
haven't gotten a single consistent report that I can give my management. Not
a good thing.
Conclusion - if I could get it to work the way it says it works, it would be
ok. I could live with its shortcomings. But if I can't get it to work after
nearly a year, something is wrong. If I can't get the answers from
Checkpoint, then I'm not sure whom I should ask. I hope there is another
"Birds of a Feather" forum at the CP Experience this year, because I want to
find out what other's experiences have been.
Dan
-----Original Message-----
From: SAGI MINI [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Fri, February 16, 2001 1:45 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: FW Reporting Module
I would like to get your opinion on FW Reporting Module. Is this product
easy to configure, implement, manage, provide informative information.
Comparing Reporting Module with Web-trend, many would prefer the latter one,
other than the better features provided by Web-trend, is it wisable to
install FW Reporting Module ??
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