RE: VPN Appliance that works with Microsoft?

[Tony Chryseliou <TonyC () bgls com>]

The only reason I'm hesitant to do a non-MS solution at the HQ location is
password authentification. I want the users using one password, and whatever
solution I get needs to authenticate against an NT4 or Active Directory
domain.

Yes, yes, I know, I could get a RADIUS server like MS IAS and that would
enable me to use any third party device that supported RADIUS. But this yet
another link in the chain that could break and go wrong. That also adds
another server license.

The one thing I loved about Checkpoint is that it would authenticate against
the OS user base. But CP is too expensive and the support is less than
stellar for the price you are paying.

Oh well...

-----Original Message-----
From: Jonn Martell [mailto:martell () ucs ubc ca]
Sent: Friday, January 26, 2001 2:44 PM
To: Tony Chryseliou
Cc: firewall-wizards () nfr com
Subject: Re: [fw-wiz] VPN Appliance that works with Microsoft?



You might want to consider running Sonicwall or Watchguard with the VPN
both at your HQ and the remote office.  Nothing works with Microsoft's
proprietary implementation of IPSec (as far as I know). Unfortunately,
Microsoft is continuing the "embrace and enhance" stuff. :-(

Sonicwall has a wide range of products with the remote office versions
costing less than $1K, they have also added "High Availability" for
firewall redundancy and load balancing.  This is fairly recent and we
haven't had a chance to look at it.

We are currently in the process of evaluating Sonicwall (& Watchguard) and
so far, I'm very impressed (especially with the latest code).

Maintaining the remote Sonicwalls is possible via the Global Management
Systems.  I agree, you wouldn't want to support non-appliances at remote
sites, there is much less that can go wrong with the appliances.

If anyone has a complete evaluation of what appears to be the two leaders
(Sonicwall / Watchguard) in this area (firewall appliances for the
Small/Medium size businesses), please let me know. It might save me some
effort :)

My feeling at this point is that Sonicwall has a much better set of
features and products but it seems all the trade mags are concentrating on
Watchguard....

On a somewhat related note: Does anyone have any first hand experience
with Checkpoint's "SmallOffice" based products.  I haven't seen it live
yet but the manuals from intrusion.com don't give a warm feeling, seems to
be a hurried product to fill a gap with Checkpoint products (remote office
protection) but it seems that a LOT of important features are missing (in
comparison with the full Checkpoint product); maybe it's just the
manual...

   Jonn Martell, UBC

 On Thu, 25 Jan 2001, Tony Chryseliou wrote:

> Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 17:25:32 -0500
> From: Tony Chryseliou <TonyC () bgls com>
> To: firewall-wizards () nfr com
> Subject: [fw-wiz] VPN Appliance that works with Microsoft?
>
> We're considering setting up an RRAS server to do VPN work and would like
to
> know if a VPN appliance (Sonic, Watchguard, etc.) out there works with
L2TP
> with IPSec encryption. The idea is to establish SOHO to HQ VPNs, but we
> don't want to have a full blown server in each office to maintain.
>
> Thanks,
> TC
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> firewall-wizards mailing list
> firewall-wizards () nfr com
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