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Smoothwall UTM

Score9 out of 10

5 Reviews and Ratings

What is Smoothwall UTM?

Smoothwall UTM is a firewall security suite for educational environments. It includes the standard firewall services, as well as load balancing, and has hardware and software deployment options.

Categories & Use Cases

Top Performing Features

  • Visualization Tools

    Visualization tools present administrators with data on applications traversing the network, who is using them, and the potential security impact.

    Category average: 8.1

  • Active Directory and LDAP

    Integration with Active Directory and LDAP directories

    Category average: 8.4

  • Firewall Management Console

    Either command-line or web-based interface for centralized control and management

    Category average: 8.1

Areas for Improvement

  • Stateful Inspection

    Stateful inspection analyzes packet headers and contents of packets

    Category average: 8.8

  • Proxy Server

    A proxy server changes your IP address and masks the origin of your network traffic

    Category average: 8.5

  • High Availability

    Built-in capacity to prevent exposure if primary firewall stops working

    Category average: 9.2

Smoothwall UTM delivers good features for a good price

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Smoothwall UTM brought reliability to some of our branches where the main objective was to protect the network from external intruders, DDoS attacks, malware and allow the use of VPN remote to connect remote workers. The great advantage of this solution is a bundle containing all the necessary features to protect the network and at a much more affordable price. Among other essential features that we use is the control of URL browsing by proxy and filtering of prohibited and bandwidth consuming applications. The solution arrived to solve the problems of branches that needed security and features to offer remote work at affordable prices.

Pros

  • URL Filter and Proxy server.
  • Visibility of user traffic and blocking of specific applications.
  • Anti-Malware Solution.
  • Load balancing and links.
  • Excellent license price.

Cons

  • Rare problems have been noticed when there are many connections at the same time.

Return on Investment

  • Internal network security and intruder protection for a cost-effective solution.
  • The solution contributed and greatly reduced malware attacks and ddos ​​attacks.
  • Reports allowed more accurate analysis.

Other Software Used

Juniper BT Series Access Points, ExtremeWireless, Slack, BlueJeans Meetings

Simple and practical firewall

Pros

  • easy to manage by its web platform that allows quick access to system functions
  • allows the administration of the company's network by creating IP navigation permissions to prevent access to unprotected pages
  • this system can be installed on computers with very few resources and even with old equipment just by adapting an additional network card. This is helpful for companies that are starting and do not have much capital to invest but need to protect their systems

Cons

  • The way to be installed is still a bit difficult and should be more graphic as you are doing all the distributions of linux to make it easier to understand new users

Return on Investment

  • this system has had a positive impact on my company, saving resources, good functioning of the system, a stable application that allows me to control what users see so that they can perform more in the work and prevent them from entering pages that are undeveloped and that will take time away from their job

Alternatives Considered

simplewall

Other Software Used

pfSense