Thursday, January 20, 2005
The next trend: rent your firewall?
Usually a "firewall" lets viruses through. It knows what you've asked for but not what's in it. If you ask for a virus a firewall will obliviously let you get it.
A few vendors have started putting antivirus programs into their firewall products. But antivirus programs need frequent updates so they can recognize new viruses. Your firewall turns into a recurring expense.
Sonicwall has announced a cheap comprehensive small business firewall which comes with a $195/yr subscription fee.
Compare that to the cost of Norton Antivirus subscriptions for all the computers in your office (the TZ 150 is designed for maybe 5, up to 10 computers). Seems pretty reasonable, especially since you only have to spend $389 to buy it and it has the features of more expensive firewalls from places like Checkpoint.
A Brendan Sullivan article in Network World about the Sonicwall TZ 150 argues that the subscription fee is high and likely to surprise people. I don't agree: compare it to the service contract on, say, a Cisco firewall.
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A few vendors have started putting antivirus programs into their firewall products. But antivirus programs need frequent updates so they can recognize new viruses. Your firewall turns into a recurring expense.
Sonicwall has announced a cheap comprehensive small business firewall which comes with a $195/yr subscription fee.
Compare that to the cost of Norton Antivirus subscriptions for all the computers in your office (the TZ 150 is designed for maybe 5, up to 10 computers). Seems pretty reasonable, especially since you only have to spend $389 to buy it and it has the features of more expensive firewalls from places like Checkpoint.
A Brendan Sullivan article in Network World about the Sonicwall TZ 150 argues that the subscription fee is high and likely to surprise people. I don't agree: compare it to the service contract on, say, a Cisco firewall.
# posted by Frederick @ 2:08 PM Email to a friend:
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