The Nortel Threat Protection
System runs on a
Sourcefire platform,
something that surprised us. The
product is a flexible system
composed of multiple sensors and
a management console.
This system is customised with
specific policies built by an
administrator. While the system is
completely customisable, its lack
of solid documentation and its
complexity could open the door
for implementation error.
As with the Sourcefire product
(p59), this product is really meant
to be deployed as a full suite, and
tackling specific IPS functions
was tricky.
We found the administrator’s
web interface to be confusing and
unorganised, and configuring the
system became an in-depth
exercise of creating policies from
the ground up.
The Nortel system also seems to
be somewhat unstable under
attack. After building policies and
configuring the system, we found
that is was not very effective at
stopping our scans or intrusions.
It was one of about half the
products we tested that was
unable to protect its network
against certain types of attack.
The Nortel Threat Protection
System comes with multiple
printed manuals, each one for a
specific part of the configuration
or specific device in the system.
While extensive, we found that on
certain points the manuals did not
match up with what we were
seeing on the screen, and some of
it seemed wordy and unclear.
Nortel offers a support website,
but we did find it unorganised. A
user must first have an account to
access many areas of the site. If
the user does not have an
account, access is restricted to
viewing product documentation
and overviews. Nortel also offers
free email support, but for all
other support a user is required to
pay for a service contract.
Priced at £14,250 for the
configuration we tested, this
system sits right between some of
the more expensive systems and
some of the less costly ones. We
find that, if set up and configured
correctly (particularly if deployed
as a full suite), this system can be
a fairly good investment for larger
networks, but given its complexity
it might not be as useful for small
to medium-size companies.