Watchguard Firebox X Peak X8500

Firebox X Peak X8500e
Price: £8,710 including 1-Year LiveSecurity
Type: Security device plus VPN
Ports: 8 Gigabit 1 Serial and 1 expansion slot.
Size: 36.2x4.5x42.6cm 1U rack mountable
Weight: 6.25kg

The WatchGuard Core and Peak range of devices provides Unified Threat Management (UTM) for the medium to large network. The X Core series is suitable for up to 500 users and the Peak for 1000 users. The Firebox X Peak series devices offer a higher performance, up to two gigabit per second firewall throughput. Devices in this range come with eight gigabit network ports and a single serial console port. We examined the X8500e which is the top of the range of three devices. The main difference between them is the number of concurrent sessions (1000,000 for the X8500e falling to 750,000 and 500,000 for the other two models in the range).

Standard features include a state examining Firewall, an automatic attack detection system, VPN support and a range of network management features. In addition you can subscribe to optional services that offer Web Filtering, Spam blocking and virus spyware blocker. The unit is packaged as a 1U bright red device with eight Gigabyte network sockets on the front.

Setting up the unit is a matter of downloading two items of software and downloading and installing a licence key. After initial configuration using a setup Wizard all administration and management is performed via a special system manager application.

You can configure any of the eight network ports as either external (i.e. internet connection), Trusted (i.e. the local network) or Optional mixed Trust (i.e. DMZ). Using the management software you can basically configure the network partitioning as you like including setting up VLANs and routing. You set up multiple external ports, up to four, and configure each to use a different ISP to provide redundancy and load balancing. Similarly you can apply policy-based dynamic routing and server load balancing. A range of NAT options are also available for traffic routed between Trusted and External ports.

VPN support extends to IPSec, SSL and PPTP clients with single sign-on. VPNs can be network-to-network, BOVPN (Branch Office VPN in WatchGuard jargon), or mobile point-to-network tunnels suitable for use as remote access connections. The central management software also provides logging, reporting and alerts.

The management software is very easy to use with plenty of graphical displays and step-by-step configuration options. The documentation is also very good, especially on VPN choices, but lacks initial guidance in getting started and could do with a more detailed view of possible total system architectures.

The Firebox X Peak range is suitable for medium to large networks that need an easy to manage solution to a wide range of network threats. 






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Read more about Unified Threat Management in Labs