Something beefier than ZoneAlarmPro

[kerpow]

I know simialar questions have been asked but my circumstances are slighty different. So bear with me...

Our small company currently has about 20 PC's and 4 servers on an ADSL line. All NT4; PDC, Exchange, SQL and Proxy. The Exchange and Proxy are connected to the ADSL line directly with a 2nd NIC as it is a private LAN (192.168.*)I have ZoneAlarmPro on both the Exchange and Proxy. Both servers are out of warranty and getting rather unreliable.I propose to replace them with just 1 Server that will run both applications and figured it would be wise to invest in a slightly more corporate Firewall solution.

Any suggestions? The budget realistically would be about $500. Is there any software like this that has the user-friendliness of Z.A.P. but a little more robust.

Thanks.

 

[iSeriesCodePoet]

Linux... well... minus the user-friendlyness... Mike Wills
RPG Programmer (but learning Java)

"I am bad at math because God forgot to include math.h into my program!"

 

[kerpow]

Yes, I thought the general reply would be Linux. However, until Exchange runs on it it would be a little difficult. there must be some NT based Firewall software. Surely other small businesses can't afford Nokia or Cisco Hardware but do want some kind of security in place.

 

[iSeriesCodePoet]

What sort of business do you run? Do deal with highly confidential information? If you do, spend the money on a good harware firewall, if you loose your information, it would make $1,000+ seem worth it. If not, then you could go with the Linksys router or some other consumer level product for DSL routing, which I believe does firewalling as well.

As far as software goes, Norton, McAffee, Ice (or something along that lines), um Storm, Suse, and Mandrake have a full software set up for a firewall, of course based on Linux. I have no expirience with any of these products though. Maybe send out an email to Steve Gibson, who runs

http://www.grc.com

to see what he thinks.

I checked google, here (

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&q=Software+Firewall+Products)

You can at least get the feel of what is out there. Mike Wills
RPG Programmer (but learning Java)

"I am bad at math because God forgot to include math.h into my program!"

 

[JATaylor1]

I have and will continue to use ZAP, however it is not the end-all to protection. In order to have an effective firewall, it takes multiple levels of protection. I would not recommend bundling these applications together on a single system. However, conduct a Risk Assessment of your organization. See what your willing to spend for adequate protection of your data.

Jeff

 

[rjs]

I would look at a Netscreen, SonicWall or WatchGuard firewalls. These are relatively inexpensive plug & play solutions.