can anyone reccomend a hardware firewall?

[DaveW_42]

As per title really. The one that's installed on our router is pretty poor and seems to be causing all sorts of internet related troubles - google image searches being blocked and not returning images (especially on a mac), random websites crawling or just not loading at all on a couple of different PCs and other intermittient problems all of which seem to resolve themselves if I turn the firewall off.
I've been looking at the firebrick 105 but it seems to limiti speeds at 6mb and ours is a 12meg line so not ideal. There's apparently a 205 in production but it's not been built yet. The sonicwall TZ200TS seems OK but they seemed quite rude on the phone when I talked to them and expensive too. Anyone any ideas?

Oh, bit of background - studio based in Camden, 12meg ADSL connection, about 30 people connected through some decent managed switches. Router is plugged into a switch port and distributed that way. Externally non-static IP but assigned IP's inside. Macs and PC network. Router is a phillips one but cant remember the model no. right now


Any help appreciated.
Cheers,
D

[timwilky]

I still believe there is only one choice for a firewall



Checkpoint firewall-1 NG

[collis]

Grab a box with dual LANs,
Setup Smoothwall
Link (http://www.smoothwall.org/)

What is your current firewall solution?

[fizzwheel]

Checkpoint firewall-1 NG

Agreed

[DaveW_42]

good stuff, I'll check them out.

Cheers

[DaveW_42]

ouch - even the lowest option on the Checkpoint came in at over 3 grand!

[timwilky]

I love comments like that, you probably have a small fortune on your network in terms of the data you hold and haven't ever considered the cost of business continuity. Sometimes best in breed might just be worth looking at even if it does cost.

[DaveW_42]

True - but you obviously haven't met the guy who has to say yes here!

[DaveW_42]

found an interim solution. We can evaluate the firebrick until the new version comes out for free and see what impact it actually has on internet speeds. If it's crap we can junk it and go for something more expensive

[hindle8907]

have a look into a program called untangle its open source software and can be booted from a CD or USB on an old pc with dual nic's.

supports load balancing fail over and all sorts . there are optional addons which you can pay for too.

[DaveW_42]

yeah, I'm looking into both that and smoothwall. We've got a few older PCs knocking about so it could easily be a solution. Ideally I'm after something that I don't have to look after - a set it and foget it - I just look after the network because no-one else here does it! I agree with everything Tim was saying and I'd love to go for a bells and whistles one but 3 grand is just way too much.

[DaveW_42]

To be fair to the boss, I did finally convince him to spend a fair wad on the network setup - but it took the old system damn near collapsing before it happenned. We don't skimp on workstations and render nodes but he doesn't really understand what kind of infastructure you need to keep everything running at a fair old lick. We have 10s of gig of stuff flying round the network - frames, textures, etc.

[-Ralph-]

Depends what you need really, but if you just need a more reliable SOHO firewall for t'internet there is cheaper out there than FW1. Look at the Cisco ASA 5505 or 5510, or look at the Juniper SSG5 or SSG20.

[krhall]

Cisco ASA with failover bundle is a nice bit of kit, although Check point is also very good.

[Sudoxe]

I still believe there is only one choice for a firewall



Checkpoint firewall-1 NG

You go to hell, and you stay there! :smt071

[Sudoxe]

To be fair, for desktop and offices Checkpoints work well. I've used them for well over 8 years since 4.1 on Sun and Nokia hardware. However, having worked with them for so long, I've seen so many issues and problems with them I believe there are some better products available nowadays.

Juniper make some nice kit which is well worth looking at.

Dan