What’s Hot, April 2006

High-Availability Firewall for Small Offices
Stonesoft StoneGate SG-200

Howard Scott of Vienna, Virginia, had many problems before discovering Stonesoft’s StoneGate SG-200 high-availability firewall. Scott explains, “Before purchasing two SG-200 appliances, along with the Stonegate Management Center software, my T1s weren’t configured for automatic failover or redundancy and only one T1 was available at any given time, with the other serving as a backup. In addition, my failover process was completely manual, and setting up Virtual LANs (VLANs) internally required too much coordination between my ISPs. It was clear I needed redundant Internet links, but the only alternatives my vendors or ISPs provided were Border Gateway Protocol 4 (BGP-4) or fat-pipe circuits, both of which required extensive planning and reworking of my internal and external networks.

“Since purchasing the SG-200s and the Management Center module, I’ve achieved redundancy on T1s and firewalls with automatic failover. I also have complete control of the Internet traffic entering my environment and can use the Management Center’s GUI to configure and manage my VLANs.”

A high-availability firewall and VPN appliance for small remote offices, the SG-200 features three built-in 10/100 Ethernet ports and handles up to 20Mbps of throughput. The Management Center module provides a centralized management solution for firewalls, VPNs, and intrusion prevention systems (IPSs) that let you manage security along with systems and data in addition to monitoring your network. Contact Stonesoft for pricing.

Collect Real-Time Data for Your Network
PacketMotion PacketSentry

Roger Blakely of Novato, California, had a major problem on his hands: He didn’t know exactly what his users were doing on the network. Like many other IT professionals, Blakely wanted a solution that would provide detailed information about his entire network and its users. He resolved his problem with PacketMotion’s PacketSentry. “We were consolidating our servers and performing an Active Directory (AD) migration. PacketSentry’s UI let us easily identify which users were using what systems and provided a more seamless migration. In addition, I was able to save days on investigative forensics because I could quickly use the UI to identify users and the applications they were accessing, virus-infected users, and all network usage by any user. PacketSentry provided me with an extra level of insurance and let me address several network items from one solution.”

PacketSentry provides real-time traffic analysis for your organization, giving you detailed and comprehensive information about your network. The PacketSentry solution consists of the PacketSentry Probe 1000 appliance, which uses PacketMotion’s Virtual Proxy Engine to analyze and interpret all information on your network, and the PacketSentry Manager appliance, which stores and views only the pertinent information gathered by the Probe 1000. For more information, contact PacketMotion.

Win the Battle Against Spyware
Sunbelt Software CounterSpy Enterprise

Spyware had become a burden for Dan Jacobs of Owosso, Michigan. Not only was his Help desk spending 10 to 20 hours a week on spyware removal, but users connected to the network were complaining about the slow performance of their PCs. Jacobs needed a solution to eliminate spyware, and he found it in Sunbelt Software CounterSpy Enterprise. Jacobs says, "After initially downloading an evaluation copy of CounterSpy, we quickly realized the benefits. We have configured CounterSpy to delete all spyware except for a few remote-control applications that we use in-house. We have also customized CounterSpy to notify our Help desk via email about any items that CounterSpy flags as moderately crucial, highly critical, or extremely critical. Since purchasing CounterSpy, Help desk requests regarding PCs that contain spyware have dropped to almost zero. The product has been a huge benefactor for clean PCs that consistently perform better."

CounterSpy Enterprise is an enterprise spyware management solution that protects against more than 35 categories of malware. CounterSpy's threat database receives updates from its own CounterSpy research team as well as from Microsoft. CounterSpy starts at $135 for five machines.