Netgear Launches Sub-$500 Gigabit Firewall for Cost-Conscious Businesses

Netgear, a provider of networking solutions, announced the ProSafe Quad WAN Gigabit SSL VPN Firewall (SRX5308), a business-focused firewall that provides in excess of 1G bps performance for under $500, which translates to $0.50 per M bps. As the speed of WAN connections rise, and users turn to virtualization and cloud computing services, Netgear said businesses need line-rate security devices that meet corporate governance requirements but also fall within budgetary requirements.

The ProSafe Quad WAN Gigabit SSL VPN Firewall features a hardware-accelerated data flow architecture that enables 1G bps LAN-to-WAN of stateful firewall throughput. Further, the SRX5308 affords remote users the ability to build VPN tunnels to the corporate office to access centralized data using the IP Security (IPsec) standard or software clientless SSL (Secure Socket Layers). With four Gigabit WAN ports that provide session-based load balancing, Netgear said the appliance gives customers a secure, "no compromises" network that can support sophisticated multimedia and the higher throughput applications they need to grow their businesses.

"Finally, an affordable, professional firewall with multiWAN failover, IPsec and SSL VPN," said Larry Strauch, IT manager for Floor Craft, a floor-covering company. "The SRX5308 firewall comes with an intuitive administration interface, which we've come to expect from Netgear ProSafe products. With a line rate of up to 1 Gigabit per second, the SRX5308 is easily able to handle the throughput of our large data pipe-50M bps. This router impressed the entire IT department by doing so much, and doing it faster than other solutions we previously tested. The Netgear ProSafe SRX5308 has found a permanent home on our rack."

The SRX5308 firewall supports up to 125 IPsec VPN tunnels and 50 SSL VPN tunnels simultaneously, for enhanced protection from network security threats. IPsec VPN tunnels deliver secure site-to-site tunnels connecting multiple offices together, as well as legacy, client-based remote access. SSL VPN tunnels enable clientless, individual remote access to corporate data, anytime, without needing to install a software client. In addition, the SSL VPNs support industry-strength encryption algorithms and features such as automatic cache cleanup after session termination to help ensure protection and privacy of sensitive data.

"As businesses increasingly rely on Internet bandwidth-intensive applications such as cloud computing, Web 2.0 and social media, and outsourced applications, they require a high-performance network that doesn't leave them exposed or vulnerable," said Jason Leung, Netgear senior product line manager for SMB Security. "With four Gigabit WAN ports, session-based load balancing and a multitude of configuration options, our SRX5308 ProSafe Firewall is able to achieve ultra-fast performance between networks."

The Netgear ProSafe SRX5308 is compatible with Windows, Unix, Macintosh and Linux OS and comes with 24/7 technical support. All Netgear ProSafe products, including the SRX5308, are backed by a lifetime warranty and optional ProSupport Maintenance Packages. The SRX5308 is available from direct marketers, e-commerce sites, and value-added resellers at an estimated price starting at $499.

"The combination of the SRX5308 with our industry-leading ProSecure STM Content Security appliances is a great enabler for businesses looking to virtualize their IT infrastructure or deploy cloud services for their organizations," Leung said. "The two appliances work hand-in-hand to mitigate modern network-level and application-level security concerns that preclude these initiatives."