Network VPN/Firewall suggestions

[David]

Hi, Not sure if this is the right news group, but I'm going to be setting up
a small network next week and needed a recomendation of a firewall/VPN
solution.

There will be 2 offices both with a DSL connection and static IPs

Site 1 will have a Windows 2000 server with Exchange server installed.
Site 2 needs to connect to site 1 via VPN
Needs security

Which hardware based solution will work with a samll budget. I was thinking
watchguard, netgear etc

Thanks
David

 

[Jake Paris]

Frankly, it depends on how secure your solution needs to be, and how savvy
your IT staff is. For a relatively unsecure network, a Netgear
router/firewall should do just fine... I use one at home in fact. For a
network requiring more in the way of port blocking on a large scale,
intrusion detection, etc. I would recommend something along the lines of a
Cisco PIX firewall... still not as expensive or hard to operate as their
high-end routers, but more provides more security than the Netgear.

 

[Jeff Cochran]

Hi, Not sure if this is the right news group, but I'm going to be setting up
a small network next week and needed a recomendation of a firewall/VPN
solution.

There will be 2 offices both with a DSL connection and static IPs

Site 1 will have a Windows 2000 server with Exchange server installed.
Site 2 needs to connect to site 1 via VPN
Needs security

Which hardware based solution will work with a samll budget. I was thinking
watchguard, netgear etc

Relatively inexpensive and relatively secure would be two Linksys VPN
broadband routers running Zone Alarm Pro doing site to site VPN.
$200-$300.

Jeff

 

[Karanne]

You might want to look into SBS server, which includes both Exchange and ISA
server. However, it has a 50 workstation connection limit, and you'll need
the appropriate number of CAL's.

The newsgroup for them is: microsoft.public.backoffice.smallbiz2000.