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Finjan Vital Security Appliance NG-5100

Finjan realized that not every large enterprise needs huge amounts of throughput, so built its Vital Security Appliance Series with scalability in mind.

The NG-5100 can be installed as a standalone unit, which would suit the smaller enterprise or perhaps branch office, but it really comes into its own when installed as part of a cluster.

Finjan has designed the unit so that four appliances can be used together – one acting as a policy server – to suit the needs of the largest, most demanding sites. A maximum of ten devices can be clustered together.

Each device is then used for one aspect of the security arsenal – from content filtering and virus scanning to behavior inspection – effectively spreading the load for maximum performance.

The unit is built around a 2.8GHz Intel processor, with a 160GB hard drive and 1GB of memory. Each device can handle a maximum of 5,000 users. It uses Finjan’s Behavior Blocking technology, which operates at the application level to hunt down malicious content.

It is a comprehensive offering, and Finjan has sensibly not tried to reinvent the wheel. Anti-virus technology from McAfee and Sophos and content filtering from SurfControl and Secure Computing offer the benefits of some of the best security software around.

The company’s Anti.Dote also tackles one of the biggest causes of security problems – Windows Updates. It frees administrators from having to worry about urgent patch updates by using a database of recent vulnerabilities to block unwanted traffic, making the distribution of critical updates slightly less urgent.

Management is carried out through a secure web browser, which is intuitive and easy to use. A few basic steps are all it takes to get the unit functioning properly.

But policies can then be established to customize the box. These are an extremely powerful part of the NG-5100, with almost every conceivable circumstance being catered for. These can be applied to both individual users and groups.

Overall, the performance and features offered by the NG-5100 puts it up with the best of the products tested, and with the company’s “Zero-Virus” infection guarantee, you could certainly do a lot worse.

Product title
Finjan Vital Security Appliance NG-5100
Product info
Name: Finjan Vital Security Appliance NG-5100 Description: Price: $14,136 for 1,000 users for one year inc. Silver Support
Strength
Excellent policy-based management and great scalability and performance.
Weakness
Relatively expensive.
Verdict
A very impressive all-in-one security appliance. One to consider.

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