Smoothwall / Sophos XG / Fortigate

[neonetman]

I know there have been a few discussions in the past about which is best, however I am re-visiting the project in school. We currently have a Smoothwall appliance which is due to come to end of it's license period in May next year, so I'm starting to look at replacements.

 

I have plenty of experience with Sophos technology, so am considering the Sophos XG, however I would also like to consider Fortigate as an option.

 

What is everyone's opinion and experience with the different technologies, which would you recommend and why?

 

I have already contacted a number of suppliers to quote on all 3 solutions, so this is now a fact-finding exercise to give me the ammunition to go to SLT alongside the quotes.

[synaesthesia]

Considerable experience with all 3. Fortigate was and still is an excellent firewall, but filtering was very much an afterthought. I don't however know how much that has improved.

Smoothwall seems very overcomplicated for the sake of it and support, despite recent improvements is not doing much to put people's mind at rest.

Sophos XG (we use this currently) has been excellent all round, far easier to get head around than Smoothwall, very capable for filtering, firewalling, routing etc and extremely reliable. Support has been good both from our ISP Wave9 and Sophos directly. Only negative has always been the reporting which isn't particularly education-friendly but with Fastvue bolted on this is far, far better than any other offering I've seen.

[Wave9_Lee]

I know there have been a few discussions in the past about which is best, however I am re-visiting the project in school. We currently have a Smoothwall appliance which is due to come to end of it's license period in May next year, so I'm starting to look at replacements.

 

I have plenty of experience with Sophos technology, so am considering the Sophos XG, however I would also like to consider Fortigate as an option.

 

What is everyone's opinion and experience with the different technologies, which would you recommend and why?

 

I have already contacted a number of suppliers to quote on all 3 solutions, so this is now a fact-finding exercise to give me the ammunition to go to SLT alongside the quotes.

 

I'd be happy to arrange a Sophos XG demo, PM me if interested.

[neonetman]

Thank you Lee. I have used both Sophos SG and XG in different roles for many years (and indeed run the free XG license at home), so I am familiar with the technology.

[supportman]

How do they differ on pricing? I've got to make this decision soon as well.

[Wave9_Lee]

How do they differ on pricing? I've got to make this decision soon as well.

 

I don't generally know Fortigate pricing as we're not a partner, but in terms of size of appliance and functionality, we can undercut most on-prem appliances with Sophos every time (i.e. like for like) You have to be carreful when comparing as you might find that some resellers will underspecify the appliance to fit a budget, rather than size the solution correctly. Happy to send some pricing over if you drop me a PM.

 

cheers

[MYK-IT]

Long way back, we used SmoothWall for many years. Then 3 years ago we moved to SonicWall. This year we were reviewing our options and Fortinet was looking favourable, though their costs in comparison were so much higher. (Circa £8-10k, the $ vs £ exchange rate was not helping either). We hadn't included Sophos' as an option at the time.

 

Then, after speaking with Sophos in relation to renewing our Sophos Central license they mentioned Sophos XG, arranged a comprehensive technical demo (very quickly), advised of recommended specifications and provisional pricing. They then put me in contact with @Wave9_Lee. Surprisingly got a great price (which was lower than if I'd bought the kit outright and setup / supported it ourselves inhouse) and that included 2 on-site engineering days (Lee G - really nice chap) to help us setup, with the advantage of being able to contact Wave9 for help / assistance too, if we unable to do it ourselves. Installation was all done within a tight 2-3 day window swapping rules and configuration over based on our SonicWall NSA appliances minimising downtown (especially remote access).

 

One thing we did continue to use, (like we had with SonicWall) is FastVue Reporter. An amazing reporting tool and their tech support is good too - they certainly know firewall syslog files inside out! Again, Wave9 can also supply / cost that in too!

 

So, yes, Sophos XG & Wave9 has been a good solution for us.

Edited October 16, 2020 by MYK-IT

[supportman]

One thing that interests me is having an SSD based appliance, do all the companies offer this now? I know someone mentioned smoothwall were doing this soon.

[MYK-IT]

One thing that interests me is having an SSD based appliance, do all the companies offer this now? I know someone mentioned smoothwall were doing this soon.

 

Our 2x Sophos XG450 appliances are SSD Raid (with redundant PSUs too) plus have redundant 10Gbit connectivity to our core switch(es).

[SchoolsBroadband]

Hi @neonetman

 

as a Fortinet house we think the Fortigates are the best when it comes to Firewalling and UTM. There filtering is pretty damn good too but for proper reporting purposes we'd suggest adding Fortianalyzer on top of it too.

 

We generally advise customers to use our hosted solution. You still get access to the interface of the firewall just as you would do if you had a box onsite but you also get 2 firewalls in HA mode rather than having one on site.

 

Do send me a PM if you'd like to discuss further.

@synaesthesia, there's been a lot added to the v6 of Fortigates operating system over the old v5 you used to use with us. We've now upgraded everyone to v6.2.x There's a lot more functionality and a much cleaner interface too suggest you take a look with your primary schools if they have their own VDOM.

 

Thanks

 

Dave