Astaro Linux Firewall

:) Just landed a new job as the Astaro Product Speciliast for a large distributor here in the uk.

Can anyone help me out here? Has anyone had any exposure to Astaro Software or Hardware (appliance) firewalls??

Its got Snort doing the Intrusion Protection
A Cobion Web Filtering Database
And Gateway-Antivirus not sure what vendor

Looks like fantastic kit to me and very reasonable in terms of pricing.
Very soon it will be ICSA certified and going for EAL4+ common criteria badge in Europe.

Apparently Novell Security Manager is actually re-badged Astaro kit, so if any of you guys have had experience with that then you've had experience with Astaro.

Look forward to loads of replies!! Seriously anything you could tell me whether it be commercial or technical or just opinions would be greatly received.

Thanks Guys n Gals

VICE

We eval'ed astaro, and discovered it was free for personal use...kinda kewl.
It looks like a supped up ipcop to be honest.

Yeah thats what im a bit concerned about, they've got Kaspersky for AV, Cobion for Web Filtering and Snort for the Intrusion Prevention, Bit of a mish mash.

Anyone else with anything to say about Astaro? All replies will be loved and cared for......



$VICE$

I tried it out briefly. I will not use it. It seems too cumbersome. Much easier to make changes on a *nix box editing with VI and restarting services in CLI.

why are you the product specialist for astro? why did your employer choose astaro? is astaro the only one you peddle?

Its a bit of a funny one to be honest, I've been selling security for 10 years now.. I've worked for and or sold a lot of stuff: Checkpoint, Websense, NetScreen, SonicWall, Nokia IP, Trend Micro. St. Bernard, SurfControl, Pix, WatchGuard, Symantec, Barracuda, F5, StoneGate, Fortinet...the list goes on!!

We have a nice channel running with WatchGuard and Symantec but we wanted to get a couple of new Firewall / UTM (hate that word) offerings that we could a) make some margin out of and b) Offer some our services on top for extra margin (HW replacement, Accredited training etc).

Its just that i'm finding Astaro a fairly difficult one; I get the impression that no-one likes the Astaro software kit, And they've got these new appliance based solutions which sound great but I havent found anyone who can give me an honest appraisal.

Anyone! Help! :(

ASTARO FIREWALLS