Just Smoothwall?

[ITGuyNW]

Hi all

 

Wanting to move from LA for our internet to our own supplier. The LA filters the line with netsweeper, which we will obviously lose when we move. This will leave us with only Smoothwall.

 

For those of you that have Smoothwall, do you just have Smoothwall or do you pair it with another device/firewall for peace of mind?

[Mr.Ben]

We were just using Smooth wall until recently.

 

I don't think/feel that the firewall aspect isn't good enough for complex environments, and as a result we have moved firewalling to another product.

 

That approach reduces risk as well - we can move firewall, broadband and filtering providers as separate projects, making them less disruptive.

Edited Thursday at 16:27 by Mr.Ben

[tom_newton]

We don't aim for complex environments - but the firewall is solid, and if it serves your needs it will serve you well! Many thousands of schools around the world have it at the edge.

[ITGuyNW]

14 hours ago, Mr.Ben said:

We were just using Smooth wall until recently.

 

I don't think/feel that the firewall aspect isn't good enough for complex environments, and as a result we have moved firewalling to another product.

 

That approach reduces risk as well - we can move firewall, broadband and filtering providers as separate projects, making them less disruptive.

 

We are only a simple operation really however who did you go with?

 

We're also up for Smoothwall renewal next year so just getting an idea of the bigger picture.

[Rob_D]

We've got just smoothwall at the edge and it works fine. I wouldn't have said we have a particularly complex environment, but the techs keep telling us we have too many firewall rules.

We thought about splitting it and having a separate firewall, but were stopped by costs. If we did split it, we'd probably go with Fortigate or Sophos for the firewall.

[TechMonkey]

Have run just Smoothwall in a few places. At current place looking to move to Fortinet (or something else) to allow easier management across multiple sites, centralised reporting and better identification of issues, threats and troubleshooting, and dynamic threat updates.

But on a single site, it is solid and useable.

[ITGuyNW]

That's put my mind at ease, thanks all 👍

[drutt]

We use Sophos for our firewall, filtering and endpoint. Have been since early 2020 and can't complain.

 

It's far better than what our LEA was providing us with lightspeed and mcafee, was so glad to take full ownership of the lease line and security aspect, I actually have confidence it's doing the job its meant to now.

[Aprice]

Yeah Smoothwall is pretty good if you're asking me, It's not an awesome firewall but it has all the basics.

I'm of the opinion that it's still the best filtering option for edu.

Used it as the edge device in many schools, can't think of many reasons where It's needed something more sophisticated, but in those situations I'd just use it as a filter only paired with something else.

[Wave9_Lee]

My advice would be that if taking Smoothwall Cloud Filter (we are a partner) that the Firewall be split to a different Enterprise class solution - no shade, but Cyber Security is becoming an increasingly complex arena (even in uncomplicated environments) and it's worth investing appropriately in this area.  We're a Sophos Platinum partner, so would obviously recommend that as the firewall option.  Incidentally, the Standard protect licence includes compliant web-filtering, so if Smoothwall Cloud filter is your primary filtering solution, having a baseline Network based web-filter as a gateway to capyure unmanaged devices, BYOD, misconfiguratons as a safety net is a good idea.  Combined with Sophos Endpoint, this combination is a good 'belt and braces' option.  As a co-managed service, this also gives a broader support profile when taking connectivity from us, as we manage/support for all connectivity elements, including failover, load-balancing, patching, with no passing faults between telcos and firewall etc.  Some useful detail on architecture approaches here if anyone interested 

[Jawloms]

If you do go down the route of a separate firewall, speak to @Net-Ctrl. They're brilliant, and won't oversell you a device you don't need.