TechMonkey Posted October 14, 2011 Posted October 14, 2011 Has anyone got an experience with the Sophos Web Appliance? We are looking at options, one is of course SmoothWall but we also want some other options. ta
MatthewL Posted October 14, 2011 Posted October 14, 2011 I am currently working with the local council to try and get a site unblocked which is using Sophos Web appliance, having a right issue with it.
DT2 Posted October 14, 2011 Posted October 14, 2011 I do have experience with Sophos appliances, but I also work for Smoothwall..... They are very good, the filtering system is different and relies/relied upon URL filtering. In the associations I used to support they were very well received, and easy to configure. I did note that they required a lot of admin due to incorrectly categorised URLs, but other than that - an appliance is definitely an improvement on their software.... Naturally it wouldn't be sporting of me to omit a Smoothwall plug....... Multiple authentication methods for a start, not to mention dynamic content filtering, granular reporting, and many many methods of deployment, including VM systems, it really does speak for itself. And the above associations.... soon to be using smoothwall I'm sure the rest of the guys will provide yet more options for you to consider, so good luck and may the best filter win Have a nice weekend DT
m25man Posted October 15, 2011 Posted October 15, 2011 After 3 Years of the WS1000 at one site we dumped it in favour of a Sonicwall. It was good and the reporting features are extensive but it was quite a beast to wrestle with, and boy is it noisy you don't want it sitting next to you. We had a reliability issue with the hardware though, in three years Sophos swapped it out four times when they couldnt fix it remotely. The support is first class though. To sum it up, as far as filtering/reporting solutions goes it wasn't bad but I wouldn't buy another one myself.
dwhyte85 Posted October 15, 2011 Posted October 15, 2011 It is pretty basic, the reporting isn't very... helpful, you are a bit limited. It is noisy, it doesn't like power loss and takes a while to boot. Does the job though.
john Posted October 16, 2011 Posted October 16, 2011 I know that @Soulfish was going to be getting a Sophos appliance in his new place but managed to get a Smoothwall one when he evaluated and checked the I and T's as it were on the Sophos and found it quite lacking in functionality.
gshaw Posted October 17, 2011 Posted October 17, 2011 Don't think it does application-level filtering, which I see as a must-have now. Have been looking at quite a few appliances recently and Sonicwall \ Palo Alto \ Watchguard are the ones that have impressed me so far.
m25man Posted October 17, 2011 Posted October 17, 2011 Don't think it does application-level filtering, which I see as a must-have now. Have been looking at quite a few appliances recently and Sonicwall \ Palo Alto \ Watchguard are the ones that have impressed me so far. Which is exactly why we went down the Sonicwall Route, admittedly the URL filtering mechanism is nowhere near as simple as some and certainly nowhere near as education friendly as Smoothwall and Websense (and possibly the WS1000) but the Application controls available within these Firewall Appliances was of more interest than an over populated category list.
tom_newton Posted October 17, 2011 Posted October 17, 2011 application control is more a firewall feature - need to be on the gateway really. Might I ask which applications you're looking to control, and if you are wanting to block or monitor?
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