Question

VPN Firewall Recommendations

Asked by: cgillet

Scenario: 2 sites 1 Domain
Main office:
Watchguard Firebox X Edge
MS Small Business Server 2003 w/ Exchange
30-40 windows XP professional clients
T1
192.168.2.x subnet

Remote office:
Fortigate 60
10-20 windows XP professional clients
DSL
192.168.3.x subnet

There is a site-to-site VPN setup between the two firewall devices. Remote office workers access shared folders and e-mail over the VPN tunnel. VPN tunnel has been shutting down every couple weeks. I've been able to solve this by logging into each VPN device and refreshing the IPsec keys and/or resetting the remote office firewall. Once the tunnel is active connectivity returns to normal. The settings are DH5, Sha-1, 3DES-CBC pre-shared key. key exprires every 24 hours.

The Watchguard has been freezing (which requires a reboot) every few weeks for the past 6 months. I put in Symantec Enpoint Protection a couple weeks ago and it's workimg great so far. But I'm not confident malware was overloading the device. Any ideas on this one?

Basically I'm tired of configuring two different devices. Support has run out on the Fortigate60 and I'm ready for something less maintenance intensive. I have been considering a pair of Sonicwall TZ210's. Does anyone have experience with these? Any pros/cons? Recommendations for other products that might be better? I need to make a decision in the next couple days. Help!

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Asked On
2009-10-20 at 21:14:38ID24829379
Tags

VPN

,

Firewall

,

IPsec

Topic

Virtual Private Networking (VPN)

Participating Experts
2
Points
500
Comments
6

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Answers

 

by: travis87Posted on 2009-10-20 at 21:24:11ID: 25620799

PFsense is what I used to ditch Sonicwall, Watchguard, and others.

Top end firewall that is open source.  Don't be afraid, it's easy to configure.  It can be as simple or as hardcore as you want it to be.

It also includes the capabilities of gateway AV, content filtering, SPI, OpenVPN, etc...

It is free, easy, and will run on leftover PC's as it has a very small footprint.  I have built these with thin clients!

 

by: dpk_walPosted on 2009-10-22 at 02:49:34ID: 25632300

You can use any of the products from vendors like:
Juniper [new SRX series], Cisco [ASA series], Watchguard [X Edge and x Core series], Sonicwall, others

Each vendor has UTM feature which are more or less common to other vendor's offering you must consider price vs feature; also UTM feature license renewal costs. If you know any brand give it some weightage over others.

Choose a product/vendor which gives best features at least price and is easy to manage.

Thank you.

 

by: cgilletPosted on 2009-10-22 at 09:44:54ID: 25636208

Thanks for the Input. What would you guys recommend as far as UTM features for my network?Currently the licenses have expired for all the UTM features on my firewalls, so anything will be better than what I have. My company has gotten some quotes on 2 Sonicwall NSA240's. Any experience with this model or similar models?

 

by: travis87Posted on 2009-10-22 at 16:34:33ID: 25640095

pfsense and IPcop are bot software packages that will act as a firewall, with UTM services for free.  They just need to be configured.

http://www.pfsense.com/
http://www.ipcop.org/

 

by: dpk_walPosted on 2009-10-22 at 21:12:38ID: 25641319

Frankly all vendors charge for UTM features and the prices differ with vendors. Sonicwall was rater no 3 firewall some time back; it is a pretty good firewall.

As I said the decision should be based on feature vs price ration and ease of configuration. So, depending on your business needs the ideal solution would vary.

I personally would prefer juniper or watchagurd products over any other vendor any given day as my comfort with both is high; sonicwall would come next followed by other vendors like netgear, linksys, dlink, fortinet, other.

Thank you.

 

by: cgilletPosted on 2009-10-26 at 09:57:33ID: 25664275

Thanks for the feedback guys. Great information!

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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