Firewall Reccomendations

[dastrix]

Hi Guys and Gals

 

Looking for advise into firewalls, correct if im looking at the wrong things but i believe we should be looking at Layer 7, and with application filtering. We used to use pfsense however its probably more basic than whats im looking for.

 

Cheers

[Gaz]

I would say that pfsense is as basic as you need it to be, meaning it can be a lot more too. I've never taken a good look at it but I don't believe it does Layer 7 app filtering out of the box. The market is saturated with firewalls that do however.

Sophos, Palo Alto, Checkpoint, Fortinet etc etc

[Geoff]

pfSense filters on Layer 7...

 

https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Layer_7

 

Can you be more specific? What is it your pfSense box is missing?

[dastrix]

we dont have pfsense at the moment we did have was removed as i joined the school. Not to sure why

[SchoolsBroadband]

Personally I'd highly recommend Fortinet with V5 FortiOS on it. Great layer 7 app control and so easy to use.

 

If you want a quote or just one specing up then do let me know.

 

Thanks

 

Dave

[dastrix]

That's the second person that's recommended that to me, how would you compare that to smoothwall with its layer 7 options

[SchoolsBroadband]

That's the second person that's recommended that to me, how would you compare that to smoothwall with its layer 7 options

 

I'm afraid I haven't used the layer 7 app control on a Smoothwall UTM. My answer is also likely to be slightly biased as we are a Fortinet house. However we are a Fortinet house for a reason. I do believe they are the best and most powerful UTM devices on the market and you get the most "bang for your buck" than with any other vendor. If we didn't then we wouldn't use them.

 

App control and many functions are delivered using the ASIC processors which specifically speed up these type of functions instead of going through a standard x86 CPU. This means they can go very fast and intensive packet inspection which is great when doing things like layer 7 app control and inline anti-virus scanning which in my opinion all businesses and schools should have to help keep out "internet nasties".

 

Fortinet have been doing layer 7 app control for years and its built into the core of the product. it's not just a Linux box with a bespoke kernel and bits bolted on.

 

If you'd like me to spec you one up or take a trial one do send me a PM.

 

Thanks

 

Dave

[Steve21]

If you'd like me to spec you one up or take a trial one do send me a PM.

 

Thanks

 

Dave

 

Is there a rough price for the boxes at all? Been looking at replacements recently, but gets tiring asking all the specs only to be told two weeks later yeah that's 20k

 

Steve

[SchoolsBroadband]

if you're a standard secondary school using a 100Mbit leased line then the RRP for a Fortigate 100D with 1 year of UTM bundle and Forticare then the price is £2,845. +VAT However we can apply a decent discount to that.

 

However we also have carrier grade hosted Fortigate firewalls we virtualise. So if you wanted to move your Internet connection and take a hosted firewall from us that has no one off costs then we can do a bundle which comes out very cost effect. Send me a PM if its of interest.

 

Thanks

 

Dave

[dastrix]

Ok so it looks like we may be priced out of the market for a firewall so may have to look at pfsense, can anyone confirm to me that we can set port rules etc for ad users? As there is always app ie Google drive that needs other ports to be available and i would like to be able to let certain users use have access to certain applications etc?

[RichCowell]

I've used the Sophos UTM / Security Gateway for several years now and have been extremely happy with the features and reliability of it...

 

Happy to put you in touch with someone at Sophos for more information or someone for a quote if you're interested...