Re: Firewall Products

[Gary Dobbins <dobbins () ND EDU>]

We've used Sidewinder for over 3 years now, and have been pleased with
their support (the support line is usually answered by a real, live
engineer-type, or one is near at hand, as distinct from reaching a
call-center).  The device inspects layer 7 for many protocols.  Having deep
packet inspection is certainly a source of comfort, but it's also possible
to see traffic from commercial products violating the protocol's RFC/STD,
and thus being blocked as potentially hostile.  De-tuning to permit that
traffic to pass is somewhat coarse-grained (can't say "this webpage is ok,"
have to say "this host doesn't get that level of scrutiny").

Their logging features are very useful, and can help diagnose the syndrome
above, and many other anomalies.


Lee Weers wrote:
> I have a similar situation in that we have a 515 classic that we have
> out grown.  Limited budget (actually no budget until July).  I will be
> looking at pricing of the Sidewinder from Secure computing next week
> with a vendor.  It sounds like a great appliance, but I am nervous about
> the cost.

--

  ------------------------------------------------------------
  Gary Dobbins, CISSP -- Director, Information Security
  University of Notre Dame, Office of Information Technologies