Should I stay or should I go now - Smoothwall

[garethEds]

Before we went with the LEA solution (which is Smoothwall - which has broken over the past few weeks) we were with Censornet. We had been with them since early versions and ended our relationship at version 3 which was very good.

 

Tim Lloyd - the guy who runs the company was always very pro-active in dealing with queries we had. I'm not sure what sort of company they are now but based on previous experience I would go there first if our LEA alliance was to fall down.

 

Gareth

[sparkeh]

Yes, Smoothwall does content aware filtering and Sophos doesn't, which could have been a sticking point for us.

 

However, whilst pulling in references from Sophos UTM users I was reassured that, as @localzuk stated, the URL filtering is very good.

 

Sophos dedicates a lot of resources to processing the millions of submissions that they receive every day to keep ahead of emerging threats. They do this 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and new threats are pushed out to the boxes immediately. I feel ok with this.

[localzuk]

There are not very many providers that do on the fly content filtering to be honest. Its quite a processor intensive task!

 

We receive definition updates every few hours from what I can see.

[sparkeh]

There are not very many providers that do on the fly content filtering to be honest. Its quite a processor intensive task!

Could be why our current SW box complains about processor load all the time

[Davit2005]

Are talking about a Sophos UTM or a dedicated Filtering product such as a WS1100 Web Appliance.

 

The WS1100 was good at reporting from my experience, used both in College and School environment and also used BLOXX but that was a few years ago now.

[caffrey]

I got a quote for Sophos last year and the first year was prohibitively expensive (SG330 and total protect plus) and and the following years almost matched what we are paying for Smoothwall.

[localzuk]

I got a quote for Sophos last year and the first year was prohibitively expensive (SG330 and total protect plus) and and the following years almost matched what we are paying for Smoothwall.

We paid less than £4k for the SG330 in one of our schools, including 3 years total protect 24x7.

[FN-GM]

Yes. Contains Firewall, Filtering, Email filtering, reverse proxy, VPN, remote access portal, and can also manage Sophos wireless APs, and provide MDM management and Sophos endpoint protection management.

 

@localzuk can it do Chromebook filtering without the need to login again please? Also do you know if it will do radius authentication.

 

Im seriously considering the switch with out MAT.

 

Thanks

Edited February 24, 2017 by FN-GM

[localzuk]

@localzuk can it do Chromebook filtering without the need to login again please? Also do you know if it will do radius authentication.

Im seriously considering the switch with out MAT.

Radius auth is a yes. https://community.sophos.com/kb/pl-pl/115050

 

Can't say either way with Chromebooks though - not something we've got here.

[FN-GM]

Radius auth is a yes. https://community.sophos.com/kb/pl-pl/115050

 

Can't say either way with Chromebooks though - not something we've got here.

 

Thanks, will check that out. We have just over 300 Chromebooks here with plans for more, so it could be the deal breaker.

[localzuk]

Thanks, will check that out. We have just over 300 Chromebooks here with plans for more, so it could be the deal breaker.

I'd recommend speaking to one of the tech specialists about it. There is a ChromeOS app for the Web Gateway stuff, but I don't know anything about it.

[FN-GM]

I'd recommend speaking to one of the tech specialists about it. There is a ChromeOS app for the Web Gateway stuff, but I don't know anything about it.

 

Thanks, who was your supplier please?

[localzuk]

Thanks, who was your supplier please?

We used Softcat. They were very good organising all the right people to talk to!

[caffrey]

We paid less than £4k for the SG330 in one of our schools, including 3 years total protect 24x7.

 

Who was that through ? I was quoted about 10k for 3 years... (we do have to pay VAT)

[Blue_Cookeh]

Who was that through ? I was quoted about 10k for 3 years... (we do have to pay VAT)

 

Hoooly they're taking you for a ride there, our's was less than half that over 3 years through http://www.pugh.co.uk/

[fiza]

I think you've been misled.

 

I also find the reporting unbelievably unnecessarily complicated - you should have asked to see this in a demo rather than just taking for granted some salesman's flannel....

 

Anyone from Smoothwall wish to comment? @TE_Smoothwall @ibpalle @CSmith

Edited February 24, 2017 by fiza

[FN-GM]

We used Softcat. They were very good organising all the right people to talk to!

 

I also use them, They where my first port of call anyway

[Joanne]

We use lightspeed and I like it. Reporting is good.

[DJ-1701]

We use lightspeed and I like it. Reporting is good.

 

So you made the jump to lightspeed?

 

May the force be with you.

[LemonEntry]

The only thing I've found missing from reporting so far is Safeguarding reports filtered by Group which comes in Kenilworth.

[caffrey]

Hoooly they're taking you for a ride there, our's was less than half that over 3 years through Pugh Computers Ltd

 

I'm getting that impression, I didn't go for it as it wasn't worth swapping out the Smoothwall. Apart from Edugeek I don't know where is good to compare prices without resorting to getting quotes from multiple sources and getting hounded. It would be nice if there was some easy place to tender out for stuff (unless there's something I don't know)

[philipksmith]

The conventions of this forum is that suppliers like Smoothwall should not use them to make sales messages. We respect that and the open discussion of weaknesses (and strengths) of our solution.

 

However, as requested by fiza, I hope you will allow me to respond to some of the posts in this thread from my position as being responsible for the products and technology we deliver to our customers.

 

We are aware that some aspects of creating custom reports are difficult to use and are planning to address this during 2017. Safeguarding was our first step into creating more usable reports and this seems to have been well received. We are aware that there are still refinements needed in Safeguarding and the Inverness and Kenilworth releases achieve a lot in this regard.

 

We are also acutely aware of the slow rollout of the Hearst and Inverness releases. We made some major infrastructure changes in these releases and are being very careful with how rapidly we deploy them. Significant changes have been made to the authentication and the firewall modules - two critical parts of the system. We apologise for the slow rollout but hope you appreciate the rationale for our tardiness.

 

I am sure many of you have joined the Smoothwall Community - this is a forum used for customers to directly speak to my product team and to get early visibility of some of the features we are planning.

 

So, apologies again if I have over-stepped the mark in getting involved in this discussion, but we are listening and value all these opinions. I am more than keen to respond to individual issues - please PM me.

 

Best regards

 

Phil

Edited February 24, 2017 by philipksmith

[2ilent8cho]

We've been with Fortinet for many years now and there is ZERO reporting so steer clear of them.

We run Fortinets Fortigate as our UTM then have Fortianalyzer for reporting, you can use prebuilt ones or write your own reports in SQL. It works great. I have it set to send me daily security reports about what exploits have been attempted on our internet facing services, and senior leaders get a report with what the kids have been searching for, any sites in certain categories like adult, and we also have a long list of keyword searches that are flagged. Takes some setting up initially and you need to be able to do at least basic SQL code but the end result is good.

[kearton]

+1 for Sophos UTM here. Although I do NOT rate the (inbuilt) reporting in the SG appliances very highly.

However, when you pump the syslogs out to FastVue Reporter then the reporting is excellent!

(The inbuilt in the XG appliances may be different but I don't have any familiarity of that product)

[localzuk]

+1 for Sophos UTM here. Although I do NOT rate the (inbuilt) reporting in the SG appliances very highly.

However, when you pump the syslogs out to FastVue Reporter then the reporting is excellent!

(The inbuilt in the XG appliances may be different but I don't have any familiarity of that product)

What don't you like about the inbuilt reporting in the SG UTMs? I've been pretty happy with it - it emails me a list of all "extremism" hits and who did it etc... each week, for example.