Firewall Help

[Stigmata]

Ok ive been assigned the task of purchasing a firewall at work, now the previous one has been an offsite hosted firewall blocking everyport into our system.

Now we are looking into using citrix NFuse for our mobile users to access published applications.

Firstly the only firewall i have ever dealt with before has been a personal software firewall.

Is a software or hardware firewall better ?

I would only be opening 2 ports in order for a maximum of 3 concurrant users at a time connecting into the system.

Can anyone recommend a good quality hardware or software Firewall for a reasonable price

Hopefully someone can help me out.....Jernau, Fenyx etc

Andy

[Lexxuk]

Ideally you will want both, a hardware and a software solution, gives you that little bit extra power.

Usualy for software firewalls, I point people towards sygate, they have professional versions for enterprise needs. There are however open source varieties out there, and quite a lot, its more a case of doing your homework, visiting various security sites, trying to find out which package suits your needs best, and contacting the relevant companies who will try to sell you their product's.

[Stigmata]

thanks lex i will look into sygate, any recommendations on hardware ?

[Lexxuk]

none at all mate, i've never had need to use a hardware based solution, so couldnt give an opinion.

[Patso]

The company I worked for always used Microsoft ISA Server for our customers. It ran on farily cheap hardware, easy to configure and integrated into a Windows network (if thats what you use)

Products from sonicwall, watchguard and checkpoint might have something for you. There are a few hardware firewalls that are relatively inexpensive and offer good protection and have a decent GUI interface for configuration.

Some of our customers used the watchguard firewall, I think it is available in different configurations

But I haven't kept up to date on the technology out there!

[Archeus]

The company I work for had a policy of having hardware firewalls and software for laptops. However after the recent spout of attacks by viruses we have to have all machines with software firewalls as well (Business customized version of Zone Alarm Pro). It helps a lot in a large environment.

[Legoias]

Checkpoint Firewalls (http://www.checkpoint.com/) = teh daddy.

These's arent easy to setup and maintain without the right skills but there are plently of training books and courses availible.