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SonicWALL's Content Security Manager
SecurityProNews
Staff Writer
2004-10-18
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SonicWALL a full-featured content filtering solution in an easily-managed appliance that is competitively priced and suitable for organizations of all sizes.
The Content Security Manager 2100 CF enhances network security and employee productivity, optimizes network utilization and manages access to over 55 unique categories of Internet content as well as the use of instant messaging, peer-to-peer and multimedia applications. This functionality enables network administrators to quickly improve productivity by controlling access to sites known to drain both bandwidth and waste employee time.
The Content Security Manager 2100 CF requires minimal configuration, set-up or administrative overhead, while incorporating the most-needed features and reporting capabilities of higher-end solutions. The appliance provides a full range of capabilities at a much more affordable price than comparable offerings and can sit behind a SonicWALL or any third-party firewall, allowing a new class of organization to reap the productivity benefits typically enjoyed by larger enterprises. New features include an onboard dynamic rating engine enables users to obtain real-time ratings for new, unrated URLs. It can implement flexible time-of-day features that allow access to certain categories only, at set times in the day, and policies can be managed centrally using SonicWALL's Global Management System.
"I'm impressed with the capabilities of this new appliance," said Keith Hamon, director of technology, Monroe (GA) County Board of Education. "This solution seems flexible and intelligent. The biggest problem we experienced in the past was imperfect filtering, which meant that teachers needed to be mindful of where the children were going on the Internet. We want the children to stay on task and we don't want them to get into trouble. Teachers can have confidence in the SonicWALL solution."
"SonicWALL's expertise and success in the content filtering arena is well established through the service we integrate on our firewalls," said Matthew Medeiros, president and chief executive officer of SonicWALL. "Now we are introducing a powerful, standalone content filtering appliance that can sit behind other third party gateways, such as Cisco. This means that an organization of any size can afford to deploy robust content filtering without the need for infrastructure change, and can realize enhanced productivity and security benefits previously available only to enterprise users."
Distractions of all kinds are challenging workers for their attention courtesy of the Internet. According to a recently-released study by Challenger, Gray and Christmas, Inc., fantasy football teams alone cost businesses over $35 million per day. Additionally, the use of peer-to-peer (P2P) and instant messenger (IM) applications is a growing concern in schools and businesses, as Internet threats exploit the open exchange of data made possible by these technologies. Nearly 85% of enterprises worldwide use IM applications, but recent studies (Radicati 2003, SonicWALL/Cerberian 2004) indicate that 20% of IT managers are actively seeking ways of blocking the use of IM services at work to reduce exposure to vulnerabilities. The Content Security Manager2100 CF includes the application and protocol filtering capabilities of SonicWALL's deep packet inspection intrusion prevention technology, enabling users to block the downloading of P2P, IM or multimedia applications.
"We believe SonicWALL is entering this market at the right time," said Brian Burke, senior analyst at IDC. "Appliances are a hot commodity because of their ease of use and, while enterprises are well-served in content filtering, there is a huge opportunity in small and medium businesses, especially for a well-known vendor such as SonicWALL."
Mark Schulstad, sales and marketing director at Conjungi Networks, a SonicWALL Gold Medallion partner, observed, "The role of content filtering has evolved to include important elements of security, bandwidth preservation and worker productivity. Our customers understand these benefits and are looking for cost effective solutions that are simple to install and manage. SonicWALL's new content filtering appliance provides the most important URL controls of traditional enterprise filtering products but with a greater range of security features including strong Instant Messaging and Peer-to-Peer controls. Significantly better price points than are common for this class of product, together with maintaining SonicWALL's traditional ease of installation and ongoing management, make this new appliance a winner."
Features of the Content Security Manager 2100 CF include:
-- On board dynamic rating architecture for real time rating of unrated websites and domains
-- Policy control, such as time of day policy setting
-- Comprehensive ratings database of millions of Web sites and domains
-- IM, P2P and multimedia application controls for bandwidth management
-- Smart URL parsing for filtering cached content provided by various search engines
-- Complete Active Directory Integration for single sign-on and transparent user authentication
-- Intelligent transparent bridging for integration into virtually any types of network
-- Comprehensive usage and cost analysis and reporting
Pricing for the Content Security Manager 2100 CF starts at US$2,800 including a one year 25-user subscription to SonicWALL's Premium Edition Content Filtering Service. The appliance will be available during Q4, 2004.
About the Author:
SecurityProNews is a daily online and email publication focusing on internet security issues.
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