What Firewall???

[Scotta98]

I'm a small businessman whose office has grown and now have a combination of 10 Windows workstations and servers which I administer besides other things. Up till now, I have been using a Sonicwall TELE3 SP firewall but I am close to exceeding my 10 nodes.

In doing the math, I'm going to be paying $300 to upgrade to 25 nodes (which I really dont need at the moment but that is the minimum upgrade available), another $95 for the 1 year support and $325 for a 10 user AV license plus I will still need the server AV.

Since I'm no expert, I'm really not sure if I need to keep adding nodes to the current firewall or look for a new one. If I do look for a new one, what are the recommendations? Would anyone like to suggest what protection I really need and what I would not? Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

 

[netmanrick]

Look at it this way. How much will it cost you to reload all your servers and workstations if they are unprotected/minimally protected ?
How much business is conducted via web ? Do you have a website ? Do you import/export your or customer's data ?
There are a lot of variables to consider.

For what it's worth,you can't have enough protection.
Consider a layered defense.

http://WWW.GRC

Labs.com has some info on security.


Rick Harris
SC Dept of Motor Vehicles
Network Operations

 

[Scotta98]

Thanks Rick, I'll look at the site you recommend. It's not that I mind spending money on this type of thing, I just want to be spending it properly. If my TELE3 SP is good enough, then I'll stick with that.

I do conduct business via the web but that is a managed server at a host but I do import and export customer data.

Thanks.