Home Office Firewalls page 4
Whether you prefer software or hardware firewalls for home offices, it’s fairly clear to me that you will need to begin providing or recommending firewall solutions to your end users (just like you’ve been providing or recommending antivirus solutions).
If you haven’t been thinking about home office firewalls, now is the time to do so. I can’t really sit here in my office and tell you what makes the most sense for your company, you will need to make that evaluation, but you should attempt to determine what makes your life easiest and will provide you with a secure and supportable product over the long term.
For single Windows computers on the Internet I have found the BlackICE Defender product to be an inexpensive, easy to setup and easy to manage solution, Just run the installer and you’re done. At $39.95 it is certainly less costly than the other solutions; however it only protects the computer it is installed on. You may want to consider this for your laptops and in cases where only one Windows computer needs to be protected. For networks with more computers, that need additional features and with an extra computer to act as the firewall system, you can’t go wrong with WinProxy for $42.95 from buy.com. This is especially true when you consider it includes all the features of the hardware based Linksys plus virus scanning software for $100 less.
Macintosh networks with an extra PowerMac can certainly use the Asante FriendlyShare software solution. It is inexpensive and can certainly do the job. Alternatively, the hardware solutions will work with Mac networks just fine right out of the box.
For home offices where more than one computer is connected to the network, the Linksys EtherFast Cable/DSL Router solution impresses me. There is no licensing model that locks you into 5 or 10 computers on your network (this device supports up to 253 computers), the 4 port 10/100 switch and inexpensive cost make it a candidate for making it the standard low-cost firewall solution for many home offices. For added security, you could even use BlackICE Defender on your individual computers for a second layer of defense behind the EtherFast Router and have BlackICE Defender as the primary layer of defense for a notebook when traveling.
If you need a solution that includes VPN and additional security, then you should step up to either the SonicWALL SOHO or WebRamp 700s. Unless your firewall needs fall between 6-10 computers on your network, the WebRamp 700s at $352.95 gets the nod from me (the 25 user WebRamp 700s is $580.95 from buy.com while the 10 user SonicWALL SOHO costs $402). The WebRamp 700s is less costly per user and the VPN upgrade includes the ability to have VPN clients connect to the home office network. This added flexibility may not be important today, but in six months or a year your end users might be demanding just such functionality. Having to move to the SonicWALL PRO for $2470 to get that piece of functionality seems a little steep for a small home office, however, it is a superb, full featured solution for a small to medium sized business. If you are planning to use a SonicWALL PRO for your business site, it then could become a no-brainer to use the SonicWALL SOHO for home offices and leverage your experience with the product and the interoperability of VPN.
The ball is now in your court, take a little time to research your needs and determine what might work best for you. If you have any questions, feel free to drop me an e-mail (letters@IThell.com) and I’ll do my best to give you a helping hand...from one IThellion to another.
I plan on following up this article with more in depth reviews of specific products over the coming months. Stay tuned...