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Should I use Checkpoint Firewall-1 or Sonicwall?

My office is about to get a 128K leased line, so we'll be permanently
connected.  And I'm the one stuck with choosing a firewall.  We're a small
company approx. 20 ppl.  They'll be using the connection to surf the web,
view email/calendar/contacts and other stuff while within the office.  In
addition, employees at home or on the road will need to check
email/calendar/contacts from our office server and also view our intranet as
well.  We're using MS Small Business Server 4.5 to do all this.  Okay, now
that you know the situation, my question is: What firewall product would be
best for me?  It has been suggested that I should consider Checkpoint
FireWall-1 or Sonicwall.  To be honest I know nothing about firewalls
whatsoever, and therefore I'm at a loss at what to choose.  Which one of the
two would you suggest?  Or is there something more suitable?

Hi There,

It depends what your current skills and future business needs look like.
Installing a Sonic is a simple and "blackbox" solution. As far as I know the
Sonic doesn't support any type of VPN. This means that your remote/home
users will browse their email and stuff in clear text over the Internet. If
you select Firewall-1 ver 4.1, you have two choices, installing it on UNIX
(preferably Solaris 2.6 or 2.7) or installing it on Windows NT 4.0 SP4...yes
it works, but you need to implement about 25 different adjustments to the NT
O/S and Registry to make it "secure".

With FW-1 you can setup remote clients with a VPN using their SecuRemote
client s/w. My general feeling is that if you want a simple, easy to
maintain and cheap solution with limited functionality/(security) buy a
Sonic. If you on the other hand can foresee some business needs using VPNs
to remote clients or other offices and a scalable/more secure State
inspection Firewall, select FW-1, although this choice requires you to do
some training both on FW-1 and preferably SUN Solaris to be able to maintain
it.

Regards,

Peter Englund
CNE, CCSA, Senior Systems Engineer

Quote:> Should I use Checkpoint Firewall-1 or Sonicwall?

> My office is about to get a 128K leased line, so we'll be permanently
> connected.  And I'm the one stuck with choosing a firewall.  We're a small
> company approx. 20 ppl.  They'll be using the connection to surf the web,
> view email/calendar/contacts and other stuff while within the office.  In
> addition, employees at home or on the road will need to check
> email/calendar/contacts from our office server and also view our intranet
as
> well.  We're using MS Small Business Server 4.5 to do all this.  Okay, now
> that you know the situation, my question is: What firewall product would
be
> best for me?  It has been suggested that I should consider Checkpoint
> FireWall-1 or Sonicwall.  To be honest I know nothing about firewalls
> whatsoever, and therefore I'm at a loss at what to choose.  Which one of
the
> two would you suggest?  Or is there something more suitable?

Not so.  SonicWall does in fact support VPN, although depending on which
model you get you may have to enable it as an upgrade.  I haven't used it
personally (VPN), but I have talked to others that are happy with it.

Greg