Web filter solutions - replacing a LS Rocket for a High School

[samlcfc16]

Hi All,

 

I'm after some web filter recommendations to what you and your schools are currently using for web filter solutions, or any ones to stay well clear of!

 

We currently have a lightspeed rocket in place that has been great and love, and does everything we want it to do, then only concern I have is with this now being out of warranty if this was to suddenly go pop!

 

I have looked and had a play around with the new relay/lightspeed filter from lightspeed and I haven't been too overly convinced by this, and seems to have lost a lot of features that we currently use on our rocket.

 

Our current setup is all our networked PCs have the user agent installed which authenticates the user against AD, then get the appropriate filtering based on rule sets we set. BYOD devices we manage whereby a student joins the WiFi, they authenticate against the Captive Portal, then this will then let them browse for one day before needing to be re-authenticated. Our class set iPads students also authenticate using the captive portal and log in and out of the WiFi that way.

 

I'm keen to stick to being able to set policies easy based on users/groups from AD along with being able to adjust filtering based on IP too.

 

We are looking over the summer to refresh our WiFi APs etc and have been recommended the Fortinet route with the Fortigate controller that can also act as a web filter and wondered if anyone has had experience with this? We are due to have a demo of this shortly.

 

recommendations muchly appreciated,

 

Cheers,

Sam

 

Network Manager at a High School

[Wave9_Lee]

Hi Samlcfc16

 

I'd be happy to arrange a demo of Sophos XGS, which can do all of the above. No obligation, let me know if this is of interest

[SchoolsBroadband]

Hi All,

 

I'm after some web filter recommendations to what you and your schools are currently using for web filter solutions, or any ones to stay well clear of!

 

We currently have a lightspeed rocket in place that has been great and love, and does everything we want it to do, then only concern I have is with this now being out of warranty if this was to suddenly go pop!

 

I have looked and had a play around with the new relay/lightspeed filter from lightspeed and I haven't been too overly convinced by this, and seems to have lost a lot of features that we currently use on our rocket.

 

Our current setup is all our networked PCs have the user agent installed which authenticates the user against AD, then get the appropriate filtering based on rule sets we set. BYOD devices we manage whereby a student joins the WiFi, they authenticate against the Captive Portal, then this will then let them browse for one day before needing to be re-authenticated. Our class set iPads students also authenticate using the captive portal and log in and out of the WiFi that way.

 

I'm keen to stick to being able to set policies easy based on users/groups from AD along with being able to adjust filtering based on IP too.

 

We are looking over the summer to refresh our WiFi APs etc and have been recommended the Fortinet route with the Fortigate controller that can also act as a web filter and wondered if anyone has had experience with this? We are due to have a demo of this shortly.

 

recommendations muchly appreciated,

 

Cheers,

Sam

 

Network Manager at a High School

 

 

 

Fortinet Firewalls are awesome

 

Although we normally provide Netsweeper as our content filtering solution due to cost, some customers do have our hosted Fortinet firewall and filtering solution combined. It's on pairs of resilient high availability carrier grade Fortinets so much better than having a single box on site, so long as you have dual routers and resilient Internet connection of course.

 

As the solution is hosted there's no capital costs and you can expand to much faster line speeds without having to put your old firewalls in the bin and upgrade to new ones because the ones we use are so powerful.

 

When using Fortinet firewalls I'd also recommend the additional FortiAnalyzer service which gives you more reporting power and is excellent. Again we have a hosted version of this you can use with dedicated storage so no need to buy your own physical box.

 

Do send me a PM if its of interest.

 

Thanks and good luck.

 

Dave

[PaddyNewman]

Just from my personal usage of FortiGate filtering, I don't feel its education focused, not enough to be in a production education environment. Its probably a more personal opinion than anything else, but I've been in web filtering for 10 years and it just doesn't hit the mark for me.

 

Big names like Netsweeper/Smoothwall/Sophos XG will be good contenders and have various £ points, you can also use the firewalling of FortiGate with the filtering of Netsweeper without double filtering by offloading the queries only to Netsweeper which is a good middle ground if you ended up wanting more than one appliance (unlikely but cool nonetheless)

[tom_newton]

If you have any questions you'd like to ask at Smoothwall feel free to have a chat with me. Always open to hearing folks' experience with filtering - email in the signature

[TechMonkey]

Just from my personal usage of FortiGate filtering, I don't feel its education focused, not enough to be in a production education environment. Its probably a more personal opinion than anything else, but I've been in web filtering for 10 years and it just doesn't hit the mark for me.

 

Big names like Netsweeper/Smoothwall/Sophos XG will be good contenders and have various £ points, you can also use the firewalling of FortiGate with the filtering of Netsweeper without double filtering by offloading the queries only to Netsweeper which is a good middle ground if you ended up wanting more than one appliance (unlikely but cool nonetheless)

 

I'd agree with this and in fact a couple of reps have stated as much, they are a firewall company that happens to do a bit of filtering. I'd also say, if UK based, make sure you look at the UKSIC guidelines, as some filtering solutions, that are more corporate minded, do not cover all the areas schools should be looking at.

[samlcfc16]

Thanks for the replies and advice all.

 

I've had a demo of the Fortigate solution and felt it seemed very much cobbled together and as you say, didn't feel particuarly education focused with that in mind. As we are looking to replace our WiFi too I thought it may be nice under one roof, but I didn't think it suited our needs. Our firewall is currently externally managed via our ISP.

 

Will pop you an email/PM Lee,Tom, Dave.

 

Cheers

[Wave9_Lee]

Thanks for the replies and advice all.

 

I've had a demo of the Fortigate solution and felt it seemed very much cobbled together and as you say, didn't feel particuarly education focused with that in mind. As we are looking to replace our WiFi too I thought it may be nice under one roof, but I didn't think it suited our needs. Our firewall is currently externally managed via our ISP.

 

Will pop you an email/PM Lee,Tom, Dave.

 

Cheers

 

FYI - Sophos are launching LAN hardware this quarter and we'll be evaluating as part of early access. Managed from the Sophos Central with added security features and synchronisation, might be a nice addition if we can get the pricing right. In addition, advanced reporting has been launched too. They have ZTNA coming (Zero Trust Network Access) so a good portfolio of products lining up, all managed from the same dashboard.

[5tu]

Hi @Wave9_Lee

 

We currently have Smoothwall for our filtering / firewall. I love the filtering side but the firewall and network security side is lacking. Can you recommend a Sophos firewall / network security product we could put in front of our Smoothie? We already have Sophos Endpoint deployed across our estate.

 

Thanks

[nicholab]

I would use PFsense if I just wanted firewall or Paloalto for firewall.

[Griff]

Yeah Rocket is so awesome. Relay...not so much. We are still using Rocket here for all of our devices apart from Chromebooks they are going through Relay. I will hold out as long as I can before moving them all to Relay...

 

I had a small sniff around for a change a few years ago but nothing impressed me as much as Rocket...maybe Smoothwall came close. I just emailed my account manager at Lightspeed to try and get a handle on what the future is with them..I have a feeling its Relay or nothing

[Wave9_Lee]

Hi @Wave9_Lee

 

We currently have Smoothwall for our filtering / firewall. I love the filtering side but the firewall and network security side is lacking. Can you recommend a Sophos firewall / network security product we could put in front of our Smoothie? We already have Sophos Endpoint deployed across our estate.

 

Thanks

 

Yes, no problem - the hardware, as with most firewalls is dependent on school size/device count/internet etc. You would ideally route LAN traffic through it too so all traffic, including non-internet bound gets inspected which adds a bit of load. In terms of licencing, there's a standard bundle which covers most requirements. It's called Standard Protect funnily enough. Having endpoint is a bonus as you can link the firewall to the endpoint clients so the firewall is aware of the status of your machines and can block them from joining the network if infected, or even unpatched. Managed on the same dashboard

 

If you PM or mail me your details I can send over some info and pricing - arrange a demo if you like. Or give me a call anytime.