The RadWare DefensePro is an appliance-based product that requiresthe RadWare InSite appliance for configuration and management. Togetherthese two products are feature-rich and offer the most comprehensivefunctionality we’ve found. However, without the two products together,the DefensePro is quite limited in its analysis capability.
We found this product extremely difficult to set up and use. Wefinally were forced to spend well over an hour on the phone with themanufacturer in Israel going through the configuration in detail. Webelieve that once the product is configured it is relatively easy touse, but the configuration is difficult for several reasons.
First, the products both must be set up initially using a consoledevice over an RS232 port. In some cases, we found that making an errormeant starting over from a reboot. Second, the two devices are finickyabout connecting to each other. We had set up the management portsthrough a hub, but the devices did not work correctly until we replacedthe hub with a switch.
However, on the plus side, adding new policies is simple and the choices are comprehensive.
Performance is solid and the product captured almost all our scan,probe and penetration events smoothly and cleanly. Reporting issomewhat limited, consisting of listings or graphs that can be piecharts, bar graphs or line graphs. The screen requires refreshing inorder to see new data. We would have preferred near real-time updatesof the report display.
Documentation is limited, not well organized and not complete. Theuser guides give no examples, making initial configuration difficult.However, there is a separate manual that consists largely of scenariosand that is useful. Had the documentation been stronger, we would havehad much less trouble with deployment.
Support is available at several levels as an extra cost option.However, without a customer password details about the supportofferings — some of which are location dependent — are mostlyunavailable.
This is a relatively expensive product given that the DefenseProstarts at $12,500 and the InSite appliance is an extra cost item($2,000 for software-only version or $10,000 for the appliance).
