manick Posted March 3, 2017 Posted March 3, 2017 Hi all, We currently use SWGFL UBF, which is basic to say the least. We are now in the position to look into getting some proper filtering in place. Has anybody got any recommendations? At my last place we used Lightspeed, which was brilliant and I am considering going down the same route if price isn't too bad. What would you recommend and why, and what would you avoid like the plague? Cheers Nick
inewman Posted March 3, 2017 Posted March 3, 2017 Iceni from Opendium, good product and saves me a fortune.
mrwoberts Posted March 3, 2017 Posted March 3, 2017 Had a demo of iBoss today. Wow! This is a feature rich product if ever I've seen one. The basic package has all the web filtering, reporting and 'monitoring' that we need. There are add-ons, should you wish, such as Advanced Threat Detection, and Anti-Malware... I'm also looking at Iceni and will be requesting a demo next week. Smoothwall et al just seem 'out of it' in terms of pricing for Primary schools. They may well be all-singing-all-dancing, but seeing iBoss today I can't imagine anything better than that.
Jehanzeb Posted March 4, 2017 Posted March 4, 2017 We use Smoothwall here and have no issues, dynamic filtering is their big plus however I'd say if you know what you're doing (technically) then you can go for Smoothwall. Two issues I have found with SW are, their support is a bit clunky and reporting is not that great even though they promised to improve it in their next release (Inverness), only time will tell. I'd also go for S8 upwards appliance. Nevertheless, Lightspeed could be a good contender when it comes to all in one package as they have their web filter (Rocket) at the same time have MDM, this could be highly useful if you ever go to mobile device management route. With SW you will have to either go Meraki MDM, Apple Profile manager and School manager or something else which would mean managing multiple systems with multiple companies. Never used iBoss or others so cannot say much about them. Regards J.
sparkeh Posted March 4, 2017 Posted March 4, 2017 We have used smoothwall for years but renewal was way too much, support is hit and miss and promised reporting improvements have not materialised yet. Am moving to Sophos UTM next week and although I can't comment yet on our experience, the demo was good and the feedback I pulled in was all good. Plus the price was a lot more sensible.
nicholab Posted March 4, 2017 Posted March 4, 2017 As a current Bloxx user I am unsure about migrating to Sophos. As Smoothwall offers dynamic contented classification this could be a help in not having stuff blocked that does not need to be? Also Smoothwall reporting is looks better than Sophos which is a report on a schedule. If broken out into yearly cost the Smoothwall solution is £1000 more expensive per year. Or are people going with a cheaper web filter and using some thing like Impero or Netsupport DNA to bridge the gap.
Net-Ctrl Posted March 6, 2017 Posted March 6, 2017 If you would any information on iboss, please do let me know. We're a top tier partner and can assist with demos/pricing etc. We've had a lot of great feedback about the product and feature set.
mikeprice Posted March 6, 2017 Posted March 6, 2017 I am in the same positon current favourite seems to be Censornet - any views from anyone?
gpjt Posted March 6, 2017 Posted March 6, 2017 Sorry to jump on the thread too. Been waiting far too long for an Entrust swap! Almost 12 months now!!! I also have read and think that the filtering solution they are offering is below par. I mean I've heard that we don't have access to the filtering at the moment. Looking at alternatives and if someone would be kind enough to add costs to some of the filtering solutions available that would be great!
Net-Ctrl Posted March 6, 2017 Posted March 6, 2017 On the iboss front they released some EDU bundles as described below. There is more info on an alternative thread: http://www.edugeek.net/forums/our-advertisers/179159-iboss-launch-special-bundles-edu.html Bundle 1 - 2160-AM appliance (3 year maintenance incl.) 300 x 3-Year SWG licenses & Maintenance. Max Users: 300. Max Bandwidth: 100MB £5,000.00 Bundle 2 - 4560-AM appliance (3 year maintenance incl.) 1000 x 3-Year SWG licenses & Maintenance. Max Users: 1000. Max Bandwidth: 300MB £8,500.00 Bundle 3 - 14600-AM appliance (3 year maintenance incl.) 2000 x 3-Year SWG licenses & Maintenance. Max Users: 10000. Max Bandwidth: 1GB £9,500.00 Bundle 4 – 2160 AM Cybersecurity Bundle (3 years maintenance incl.) 300 Users -2160-AM appliance -IWR 3960 reporter -SWG & ATP Licenses Included. Max Users: 300. Max Bandwidth: 100MB £10,000.00 Bundle 5 - 14600 AM Cybersecurity Bundle - (3 years maintenance incl.) 2000 Users -14600-AM appliance -IWR 5960 reporter -SWG & ATP Licenses Included. Max User: 10000. Max Bandwidth: 1GB £15,000.00
hyb80 Posted March 6, 2017 Posted March 6, 2017 I would like to see a demo of iBoss if possible. Do they include firewalling? Is the support UK based?
manc_techie Posted March 6, 2017 Posted March 6, 2017 Hi @hyb80, iBoss will give you a 30 day unit to trial. Firewall might be available as an odd on, but I had mine sat behind a Firewall. We had support in the UK from our reseller and overseas from the US I never had to log a high-priority call but never waited more than 4-5 hours for a URL to be re-categorised.
owen1978 Posted March 6, 2017 Posted March 6, 2017 Going to jump in here too... Looking at couple of options ourselves... regarding Sophos UTM, it says its coming to end of life next year! What's replacing it? Don't want to be stung again like when we migrated to VDIAB to find out its come to EOL?
sparkeh Posted March 6, 2017 Posted March 6, 2017 (edited) Going to jump in here too... Looking at couple of options ourselves... regarding Sophos UTM, it says its coming to end of life next year! What's replacing it? Don't want to be stung again like when we migrated to VDIAB to find out its come to EOL? @owen1978 Where are you getting that from? I can see the roadmap that says that previous generation of the UTM hardware are going EOL next year but no announcement for the current generation of UTM hardware. They appear to be still very much supported. https://community.sophos.com/kb/hu-hu/121502 Edited March 6, 2017 by sparkeh
owen1978 Posted March 6, 2017 Posted March 6, 2017 @owen1978 Where are you getting that from? I can see the roadmap that says that previous generation of the UTM hardware are going EOL next year but no announcement for the current generation of UTM hardware. They appear to be still very much supported. https://community.sophos.com/kb/hu-hu/121502 Ahh makes sense now... ignore my post lol
Wave9_Lee Posted March 6, 2017 Posted March 6, 2017 Sophos have stated that their preferred UTM platform will be XG in the future, but won't stop developing and supporting UTM 9 for a long while. XG platform isn't 'fully polished' yet, so we're still recommending users go/stay with UTM for now. 1
Wave9_Lee Posted March 6, 2017 Posted March 6, 2017 @gpjy We'd be pleased to provide you with an alternative too Entrust. We're based in Staffordshire and have many local references. If you PM me your details, I can get a quote and some info over to you this afternoon, cheers Lee
MikeGreen Posted March 6, 2017 Posted March 6, 2017 We use Lightspeed here, this is our 4th year and it to put it simply it just works! We have just moved to a hosted lightspeed with with schools broadband. I would recommend lightspeed. 2
Roberto Posted March 7, 2017 Posted March 7, 2017 We've done a big exercise here on web filtering/firewall and the two finalists were Sonicwall and Smoothwall for us. We went for Sonicwall as there were a number of reasons why that edged it for us which wouldn't necessarily apply to others, but I'd say both of them are good products.
sparkeh Posted March 7, 2017 Posted March 7, 2017 We've done a big exercise here on web filtering/firewall and the two finalists were Sonicwall and Smoothwall for us. We went for Sonicwall as there were a number of reasons why that edged it for us which wouldn't necessarily apply to others, but I'd say both of them are good products. Be useful if you could share your reasoning?
AlanD Posted March 7, 2017 Posted March 7, 2017 Keep in mind that "filtering" is not the main requirement of the prevent strategy....but monitoring is. So I would be looking carefully for a "filter" that reports on the categories mentioned in the prevent strategy - such as self harm, radicalisation, etc - and you need reports on searches and sites visited matching these - without necessarily blocking - otherwise you never get a chance to monitor if there is cause for concern. At one time the philosophy was to "block" all sites which might have safeguarding issues - even if there might be a good educational reason for using them (use of drugs ...for example)...but that has now changed.
nicholab Posted March 7, 2017 Posted March 7, 2017 I a bit worried that a Sophos UTM is not going to be as good as a Smoothwall UTM for filtering. As it does not go the dynamic content analysis.
sparkeh Posted March 7, 2017 Posted March 7, 2017 I a bit worried that a Sophos UTM is not going to be as good as a Smoothwall UTM for filtering. As it does not go the dynamic content analysis. Discussed a bit here: http://www.edugeek.net/forums/internet-related-filtering-firewall/180612-should-i-stay-should-i-go-now-smoothwall-2.html#post1549831 Did worry me but I am reassured by the Sophos approach and existing user's testimony about how good the URL filtering is in practice.
paulhowes Posted March 31, 2017 Posted March 31, 2017 I have been asked to investigate Lightspeed to see if it offers a better web filtering system and monitoring/reporting than what the school currently have. Brief background: The school currently have their Internet connectivity through Link2ICT via a Virgin Media 100MB line. They are just coming to the end of year 1 in a 3 year contract so changing provider is not an option at this point in time. Firewall & Web Filtering is provided via Link2ICT & monitoring/reporting is via separate software called Policy Central. One of the main problems with the monitoring software is that it doesn’t work with mobile devices (iPads in our case) unless you are using the Policy Central browser. From what i have seen of the functionality of this browser we won’t be using it, especially given the cost per device! I have been researching and trying to find an answer to the following question (but so far been unable to) Can the Lightspeed system perform web filtering & monitoring for mobile iPads without having these devices enrolled in the Lightspeed MDM? Basically can it work independently from Lightspeed MDM or do we need both web filtering & Mobile Manager MDM?? I ask this as we don’t really want to be tied to the MDM side of things as we may be looking at other options Or if if anybody else could recommend how they are monitoring content on iPads without using a 3rd party browser app we would be more than grateful!! cheers Paul
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