Firewall/VPN/IDS/IPS security appliances - any recommendations?

[David Boyer <David () BVU EDU>]

We're looking at the Fortigate 500A for our environment, and it appears
to be a good fit. Does anyone have any experience with these or similar
alternatives? I'd appreciate not getting any replies from vendors who
might monitor this group.

We currently have a 20Mbit WAN connection and are planning for the
possibility of having 90-100Mbps in 3-5 years, and we'd like the
appliance to have the capacity to handle that increase. We would put the
device at our perimeter.

We're looking primarily for firewall, traffic shaping, HTTP/FTP/IM
virus scanning, blocking of phishing sites, and IDS/IPS. Being able to
function as a router would be a plus.


Your feedback and suggestions are appreciated.

David Boyer
Buena Vista University