Smoothwall Web Filtering - Re-Purchase or replacement?

[burgemaster]

Hi all,

 

We currently have our broadband provided through the county council. They also manage the schools firewall. Part of the agreement is a serial/licence for a local install of Smoothwall (Not Proxy just web filtering). So, we have Smoothwall installed on a VM purely as an additional layer of web filtering with AD integration etc.

 

We are looking at alternative providers for our broadband next year, in this case it would mean that local SmoothWall install would no longer be licensed. The alternate solution would include a firewall upstream to the web filtering. We have had SmoothWall installed and running for about 7 years and know the product pretty well so would like to keep it.

 

First things first I contacted SmoothWall directly for a cost to licence it ourselves. I nearly fell off my chair, the cost was nearly as much as the broadband supply. Completely out of budget by around 400%

 

So, can i please ask,

 

1. Can anyone please recommend an alternative product that can replace SmoothWall? (It can be open source or paid as there will be a small budget available for this.)

2. I see many schools on EduGeek use SmoothWall, are you SmoothWall licenses included with your BB supply? I cant believe that anyone (especially a school) would be able to afford the prices quoted?

3. Can anyone please let me know how comparable the Open source Smoothwall alternative is? Is it more than the support?

 

I've had a very quick look at.. untangle, pfsense, squid, websense. But im just unsure if these are as fully featured as Smoothwall?

 

Thanks in advance!

Edited December 20, 2016 by burgemaster

[sparkeh]

We have just been through a broadband procurement exercise and our smoothwall renewal made me choke. There's no way we could carry on with them.

 

After looking at a few options we have chosen to go with wave9 for broadband with a Sophos UTM which comes at a sensible price (broadband and utm were less than the SW price alone!)

 

You can get a demo of the Sophos utm from Sophos themselves but wave9 gave me a good, non salesy demo.

@Wave9_Lee was very helpful for us.

Edited December 20, 2016 by sparkeh

[burgemaster]

Thank you, are you using UTM as your firewall as well as your web filtering? Do you have also have a dedicated firewall?

[sparkeh]

Thank you, are you using UTM as your firewall as well as your web filtering? Do you have also have a dedicated firewall?

 

Currently we use the SW as firewall and filtering and will do the same with the Sophos. We have no other firewall

[TechMonkey]

Would it easy the pain to pay in installments? We went through AIT and pay quarterly for a 3 year term, no difference in payments as I asked what the cost would be to pay yearly and they said times by four.

[sparkeh]

Would it easy the pain to pay in installments? We went through AIT and pay quarterly for a 3 year term, no difference in payments as I asked what the cost would be to pay yearly and they said times by four.

Just wondering how that helps? You still need to pay the same amount out of the yearly budget.

[burgemaster]

Would it easy the pain to pay in installments? We went through AIT and pay quarterly for a 3 year term, no difference in payments as I asked what the cost would be to pay yearly and they said times by four.

 

Hi , no wouldn't help at all, it's budgeted for the year. So wouldn't make any difference as the total would be the same. Or am I reading it wrong and your saying the total was 4x less because you paid quarterly?

[Blue_Cookeh]

I had the same experience. Wanted to move to onsite filtering a couple of years ago and Smoothwall's quote made me choke too, I don't understand how they can justify their price.

 

We ended up with Sophos UTM for filtering/firewalling/TMG replacement and have been very happy with it. The cost of the Sophos UTM for 3 years was less than the cost of Smoothwall for 1 year if I remember correctly.

[burgemaster]

Thanks for the suggestions. We were potentially looking at a pair of redundant Cisco firewalls with a lease line and then looking to have the web filtering separately on a VM. This is why we were potentially looking at open source. Would it make sense to instead have one system manage FW and web filtering on the same box?

 

We currently run Sophos AV (also included by county broadband). Is this by any chance included or can be added to the UTM license?

Thanks again

Edited December 21, 2016 by burgemaster

[sparkeh]

Thanks for the suggestions. We were potentially looking at a pair of redundant Cisco firewalls with a lease line and then looking to have the web filtering separately on a VM. This is why we were potentially looking at open source. Would it make sense to instead have one system manage FW and web filtering on the same box?

If you can do what you want on one box then makes sense to me. You won't have the redundancy though.

 

We currently run Sophos AV (also included by county broadband). Is this by any chance included or can be added to the UTM license?

Thanks again

Yes, there is an Endpoint AV option you can add in

[Wave9_Lee]

Hi Burgemaster,

 

We can provide a managed UTM for firewall, AV and webfiltering, so you can replace your Cisco firewalls. We can load balance across dual WAN links if required too. If you want to have a chat about options/prices etc, drop me a PM with your details and we can set something up - I'm available through Christmas or after if it suits.

 

cheers

 

Lee

[Wave9_Lee]

Just a quick note ref redundancy. We offer an 8 hour SLA on hardware replacement and can also provide resilient utm option for a great price if uptime is a priority,

 

Thanks for the kind words sparkeh

[burgemaster]

Thank you Lee, after repeated loss of supply so many times with current setup we really wanted to make sure that it doesn't ever go down if we are managing it ourselves. Redundant firewalls and a backup ADSL+ line etc.

Is this a hardware/rack solution from Sophos or software that we will host?? Can I drop you a PM after Xmas with our spec/details? Thanks again

[Wave9_Lee]

Hi Burgemaster - PM'd you

[TechMonkey]

Hi , no wouldn't help at all, it's budgeted for the year. So wouldn't make any difference as the total would be the same. Or am I reading it wrong and your saying the total was 4x less because you paid quarterly?

 

Ah, sorry. I'd presumed that it was a multi year deal. Ignore me, mince pie overload

[sparkeh]

Of course I didn't ask the most important question of all, can I get a Wave9 and Sophos mug to replace my RM and Smoothwall ones?

[Roberto]

Hi all,

 

We currently have our broadband provided through the county council. They also manage the schools firewall. Part of the agreement is a serial/licence for a local install of Smoothwall (Not Proxy just web filtering). So, we have Smoothwall installed on a VM purely as an additional layer of web filtering with AD integration etc.

 

We are looking at alternative providers for our broadband next year, in this case it would mean that local SmoothWall install would no longer be licensed. The alternate solution would include a firewall upstream to the web filtering. We have had SmoothWall installed and running for about 7 years and know the product pretty well so would like to keep it.

 

First things first I contacted SmoothWall directly for a cost to licence it ourselves. I nearly fell off my chair, the cost was nearly as much as the broadband supply. Completely out of budget by around 400%

 

So, can i please ask,

 

1. Can anyone please recommend an alternative product that can replace SmoothWall? (It can be open source or paid as there will be a small budget available for this.)

2. I see many schools on EduGeek use SmoothWall, are you SmoothWall licenses included with your BB supply? I cant believe that anyone (especially a school) would be able to afford the prices quoted?

3. Can anyone please let me know how comparable the Open source Smoothwall alternative is? Is it more than the support?

 

I've had a very quick look at.. untangle, pfsense, squid, websense. But im just unsure if these are as fully featured as Smoothwall?

 

Thanks in advance!

 

We've recently completed an exercise in renewing or replacing our firewall and filtering solution.

 

We've chosen to renew our Sonicwall solution for another three years; there were several options that "ticked the boxes" for us but renewing the Sonicwall appeared to be the most cost-effective solution for us this time round.

 

I will say that I thought Smoothwall were both very good in terms of the quality of the solution and also very competitive on price. I also found Watchguard and the Sophos UTM to be quite interesting options alongside the Sonic and Smooth walls, and I daresay I'd have been happy with any of those four from a technical perspective as well as price.

 

I do think the solutions can be quite costly overall but this is a cost of functioning as an educational institute in today's online world. I certainly thing the cost of even the most expensive solution we looked at (and I'm talking about ones I've not mentioned here that quickly moved out of the running due to price) are considerably less than the cost of being the victim of data theft or many of the other security or safeguarding pitfalls these things help protect against.

 

I'm astonished that you're looking at Websense while complaining at the cost of Smoothwall; the last time I looked at websense (as a former customer) it was a web filtering solution only. Smoothwall is a firewall and filtering solution (as are the others I mention here) and without wishing to discuss the quotes I've had for either product as I think all the vendors concerned would regard that as confidential, Smoothwall were quoting slightly less for a 3-year licence for Smoothwall running on a S14 box at today's prices than Websense quoted me to renew their software-only web-filtering solution several years ago.

Edited December 21, 2016 by Roberto

[burgemaster]

Thanks for the reply Roberto, but please don't be astonished!!! Or do Websense have their pricing clearly advertised and I've overlooked it? We have yet to be quoted by Websense to make any comparisons.

[tech-man]

We have a managed Fortinet firewall and use McAfee Web Gateway for filtering (very flexible / extensive product). PM me for more info if of interest.

[Wave9_Lee]

Our technician will bring some when he comes : )

 

Of course I didn't ask the most important question of all, can I get a Wave9 and Sophos mug to replace my RM and Smoothwall ones?

[ItsOggy]

Hi, I'm using pfsense for a firewall and Censornet as my filtering, very happy with both, would recommend Censornet, pricing is fairly good as well!

[AlanD]

Well...we have just been through an agonising time to replace our (unsupported) TMG box running websense (now forcepoint).

 

We looked at Forcepoint's offering, Sophos UTM...PFsense (its free)....Fortinet...Bloxx...OPenDNS...Cloud solutions, virtual solutions....we did online webinars...we did on site trials (relatively easy with virtual solutions)...but in the end decided that Smoothwall was the closest to ticking all the boxes when it came to meeting the prevent strategy....providing an on site firewall without a separate box....providing reverse proxy ...acts as a radius server....and a DHCP server...and DNS server.....load balancing...etc

 

Yes - its eyewateringly expensive (to borrow that Robert Peston phrase). Its not brilliant at everything. Its basic web filtering is not great -and probably uses little more than the "free" guardian stuff. I had to add several URLS to get it to handle facebook and instagram correctly (you would have thought they would be all over this kind of stuff)....and I've seen it let through stuff websense blocked. Of course it has no real time web content analysis to speak of. Its user interface is clunky. Its layer 7 visibility really needs a lot more input on their part to get anywhere the visibility you get - say with Meraki's wireless stuff.

 

I quite like its reporting on what was typed into Google searches...Visibility of Instant Messenger....categorisation of "bullying", "Radicalisation", "Adult" etc with Alerts by SMS and emails etc.

 

Whether it turns out to have been a good investment will - I think - depend on how much the product keeps pace with the changing expectations over the next few years. I had some confidence that smoothwall are focussed on addressing the demands of the UK market and the government's prevent strategy which demands monitoring rather than filtering and reporting which some products are limited to.

 

We are still wondering if we need to have something like "Impero" on our desktops and laptops - because if we are to "monitor" we need visibility/triggers when emails are used inappropriately (or any web site which allow chats/comments)...noting that we are being specifically asked not to ban such sites outright but to monitor usage...although when they can do anything they like with 3G/4G enabled mobiles makes me question whether we shouldn't insist parents agree to monitoring on their devices too.

[ridleyrumpus]

Can I ask what sort of amount are we talking about for Smoothwall, ballpark, for a 1500 pupil school?

[kevin_lane]

I know this is a smooth wall topic but I've been quoted over 6K to renew our sophos UTM 430SG (I think) (hardware) we are using FULL GUARD and I'm just a bit unsure about the price am I being quoted right?

[TechMonkey]

@AlanD I'm confused, I thought Smoothwall was the, if not one of the few, systems that did real time Web content. That is why a page can sometimes be filtered but not be in a category.