Looking for a new system

[Sam3773]

Hi Guys,

 

Having been conned a little, we've cancelled a renewal for our Web filtering and Email filtering software and are now looking for alternatives. So far I've been tasked with looking at Smoothwall and a Sothos UTM for web filtering. No idea in terms of email filtering.

 

Really, what does everyone else use? We have simple needs! BYOD, transparent proxying, AD integration and a boat load of features?

 

Cheers,

 

Sam.

[Oaktech]

iBoss? Fortigate?

 

I assume your budget won't stretch to a Palo Alto?

[Sam3773]

Thanks Oaktech, I'll take a look at those.

 

Not sure on budget. The renewal we binned was £20k for 3 years support. If we can get something that'll replace our now very aged firewall, even better.

[Oaktech]

That kind of budget is very much in Palo Alto territory... Speak to Exclusive Networks about Palo.

 

For comparison, speak to Schools broadband about your Fortigate options as these will probably do all you need as well.

[MatthewL]

I wouldn't recommend Sophos, would go for Smoothwall out the two, but look at Watchguard and their offerings.

[Sam3773]

Cheers guys. Dropped a few emails and calls out and am talking to Smoothwall tomorrow. I know a lot of you use Smoothwall so.. Thoughts? Easy to use? Good bit of kit?

[SchoolsBroadband]

Hi @Sam3773 pm'd

[Kbrown]

Hi Sam,

 

I see there was a comment from Schools Broadband regarding Fortinet.

 

I wanted to let you know that in addition they can provide web filtering, MDM and a VLE.

 

They just recently won Best Business use of Cloud:

Schools Broadband wins Best Business Use of Cloud at the 2014 ISPA Awards | Motor E magazine

 

Thanks

 

Ken

[rob_coles]

We're using exa & smoothwall both work well

[EXA_Mark]

We're using exa & smoothwall both work well

 

Thanks Rob, we do our best

[TechieWils]

I've used Smoothwall at my old place and have Palo Alto in my new place and absolutely miss Smoothwall. If I could get my own way I'd be straight back on Smoothwall

[Sam3773]

Thanks everyone for the replies and the messages!

 

I've been demo'd some kit already and am looking to contact a few more people from the Firewall/web filter point of view. I have to say, I'm impressed with Smoothwall at the moment, but by no means fixated on it.

 

Finding it hard to find a good Email Filter though. Not sure how good SmoothWall's is. Had a quote from EPA (Fusemail now) and they seem a little on the steep side. Anyone have any ideas?

 

Cheers,

 

Sam.

[Baerf]

Firstly - Hello everyone, this is my first post but i've been a regular reader of the forums.

 

I'm posting to ask why there is such a degree of approval regarding Smoothwall? I've just moved into a new school and immediately got shot of the device and replaced it with a SOPHOS UTM for the firewall and Lightspeed for web filtering and email filtering. Our pupils and staff saw the change in the responsiveness of the internet immediately. I simply couldn't stand the reporting features of the Smoothwall - it took ages to produce a report and the reports were so limited compared to the Lightspeed device.

 

I'm not saying that the Smoothwall is a bad solution, but in the 6 months of trying to get my head around it, i just couldn't see anything positive about it. When i arrived we saw that we had a massive VPN problem (near 80% of our pupils were using VPN's to get around the filtering provided by Smoothwall now all gone with SOPHOS and Lightspeed), Skype connectivity was hit and miss (we are a boarding school) and this was noted in the inspection report as well. And Smoothwall support couldn't offer any solutions.

 

As mentioned, i had 6 months with Smoothwall and was expecting good things from it, but in the end i was sorely disappointed.

 

So i ask as an honest question, what does it do which makes it so recommended here at Edugeek?

 

Cheers

 

B

[elsiegee40]

Mostly because it does the job that it says on the tin better than any other other product. The biggest recommendation has to be that the kids hate it for all the right reasons... they can only use the internet for the purposes that the school intends. If you had such huge performance issues with it, it would suggest that there was a setup issue.

[synaesthesia]

Indeed, it's one of the most highly regarded products on the web. The two biggest players IMO currently are smoothwall and lightspeed.

 

For the email, do you have any licensing agreements in place with Microsoft? If so, how about using their EOP (Exchange Online Protection). You don't need to be running Exchange to make use of it, and if you're running EES you likely won't have to pay a thing.

[truebluesteve]

I've been using Smoothwall for 3 years now and I have to say it's a really good product. However it is sophisticated and as such can take quite a while to get it working as you want it and also get used to its ways. I think this probably took me the best part of a year!

 

My only gripe was with support at one point which became very slow and quite frankly not acceptable. However that has changed now, and it's pretty much at the level it was when I first got the product.

 

Heard lots of good things about lightspeed too

[TheScarfedOne]

Heard good things about the sophos utm as well

[Asgard]

We have just replaced two Microsoft TMG boxes with two Sophos UTM 625's.

 

At the same time removing Sophos Puremessage off our mail server and using the AV/AS feature on the UTM.

[aking99]

Up until recently we've done proxying through squid and filtering through squidguard. It has worked well, we're switching over to Exa though and so far so good

[EXA_Mark]

Glad to here aking99, if there is anything you need any assistance with though you know where we are.

[Backup]

Hi, we have just changed Web Filter to Barracuda - A guy called Joe Burke is our account manager and he showed us demos for sonicwall and iboss but we went with Barracuda because their is no per user fees. PM me for his details don't want to just give them out. p.s we used Smoothwall before and had some issues with support

[Baerf]

Thanks for the replies, and i apologise for not replying sooner (holiday).

 

I'm still not convinced that the Smoothwall does what it says on the tin. Everyone within the school was frustrated with it - as it was blocking websites which had references to drugs and sex (and these were ordinary sites (news sites for example). It even was stopping myself from reading articles about hacking and security issues. It could of been a setup issue, as it was in place when i arrived - but we had a good relationship with Smoothwall support and after numerous calls nothing really changed.

 

I found the Lightspeed device so simple, that we have handed over the unblocking requests to our pastoral team. As in, they login to the device management console and manually unblock sites requested by the pupils and staff and we (IT) have zero involvement anymore. The reporting features are way ahead of Smoothwalls (and i know i sound like an advertisment of Lightspeed, and i do apologise for that), that it was instrumental in stopping a pupil taking their own life (search query reporting). I read the comment about taking a while to get the Smoothwall setup for use, but i have to compare to the Lightspeed installation, which took just over a day. When we had the Smoothwall, i had one of my team spend a good day per week on it dealing with all the unblock requests etc.. and now we hardly ever login to the filtering device.

 

The Sophos UTM is just fantastic - it really does do exactly what it's supposed to - and again so so easy to use.

 

As said i'm struggling to understand what it does that makes it so favourable here, as in my area we hold monthly ICT forums with a good number of schools within my area and every ICT manager who has one wishes they didn't, but can't move due to budgets etc..

 

Again and i repeat, i'm not a poster child for Lightspeed, but after reading these forums for a good number of years i'm just shocked at the approval of Smoothwall.

 

B.

 

Quick Edit: @elsiegee40 Our pupils hated it, because it stopped them from researching legal websites when it came to drugs, sex or guns. They simply installed VPN's on their laptops and got around the filtering completely and were able to access any sites they wanted to. They also wanted to use Skype and Facetime (on all of their devices) to talk to family and friends and after numerous calls to Smoothwall we were unable to get a resolution. However our pupils really do hate lightspeed, with many requests coming from the Student council asking for it to be removed.

Edited August 5, 2014 by Baerf