For the sake of disclosure, I am a Watchguard Reseller. I will say that neither I or my customers have never had a problem with a Watchguard that I couldn't resolve, but then I have direct access to the Watchguard Level 2 support, and from there to the engineers and developers themselves. They are not without their issues, but then I could say the same about Checkpoint, and I used be Certified on that product back in the day as well.
I've worked with Watchguard, Checkpoint, and ISA. I can honestly say that they all have their quirks. I've never worked with a firewall that always worked exactly the way I wanted it to right out of the box, and I would have to say that would be because my brain doesn't work the same way the team that developed the firewall does. Once I've understood how they think, I understand how to make their products do what I want them to do. I personally like Watchguard. I've gotten very personal support, and the only thing I can really complain about is that whoever is writing their documentation needs to go back to school. It seems every time there is a new update, the documentation that gets released with it is missing at least one step. I get around it because I do it so often I can tell what they forgot. I would suggest that you consider Watchguard. If you don't want to work with a local reseller, there are support packages available from Watchguard that will give you directly the same level of support I use. It will pay for itself the first time you use it. From: Jim S. Walters [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, October 31, 2008 2:51 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Firewall Recommendation Hello, we have a Checkpoint firewall that is coming up for maintenance renewal and the price is going up and up and finding qualified consultants to assist with upgrades is getting harder and harder. I'm very satisfied with the firewall itself, but feel it's time to review what other people are using. Our needs are simple, we have one office with 160 users now but expect to open other offices in the future. We have a dozen or so remote users who VPN in. We have a half dozen machines in the DMZ for various uses and use RSA for authentication. What firewall systems are you using and which would you buy if you had the opportunity to start fresh? Thanks Jim Walters ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
