So many people talk about it being a simple box
with an Intel processor. Why should anyone pay as little as $1500 to as
much as $18000 for a Nokia appliance? (Note: the 110, which will be available
in October is quite inexpensive)
Full support of multiple routing protocols: IGRP,
OSPF... (Tried to do that with NT lately)
Built in High availability. How much is
Stonebeat? Check Point's solution? ($12000 - $20000)
Replaces not only the firewall but the exterior
router as well. That saves me a good $2000 - $15000
dollars.
Pre-armored OS. IPSO is a stripped down
FBSD OS. Instead of having to go out and read Lance Spitzer's armoring
OS docs and implementing those solutions correctly, it comes pre-armored
to a great degree.
These are just some reasons to use Nokia.
No one is telling you it is the best solution for every environment.
Current lack of gigabit support may be an issue. One to be resolved soon
however. But these little things may cause you to buy another
solution. Many reports specify that 70%+ of all firewall solutions will
be integrated by 2003. Sun just bought a company so they can sell their
own appliance solution because they know about this.
The OS wars will always continue and now we
have hardware wars to worry about too. Simply learn the true
capabilities of each and know your own capabilities and go from there. I
run CP FW-1 on all 4 OSes: Solaris, NT, Linux, and Nokia IPSO and they all
work great. Some need a little more love and care than the
others.(Linux) But they are all fine choices. If money is the
issue. Nokia CAN be a great savings.
