Open Source Firewall Real Examples
There are many people arguing that it is only possible to go for Enterprise firewall. However, there are non-profit making organization or small businesses not able to afford top-end products like Checkpoint, WatchGuard, etc.
Most of the open source firewall operating systems are developed for more than 1 decade and using by millions of individual and organization. Our professional service team is delivering both Open Source and Enterprise firewall or UTM gateway solutions.
In this article, we would like to share some of the real applications of Open Source firewall with happy users for at least 3 years.
First of all, we would like to introduce a case for a primary school with around 100 devices connecting to the network and the internet. This catholic school is not able to afford an Enterprise class UTM gateway and consequent annual maintenance fee. They are using the IPCOP as a static firewall with additional add-ins to protect their web, email and even student database server. Their solution was deployed in 2014 and there is no single case of failure by virus, malware and ransomware. (Remarks: they are using an Enterprise Anti-virus endpoint in education discount together with the IPCOP firewall)
Another case is the computer lab owned by a Data Science consulting company – Smart Data Institute Limited located in Hong Kong. They are using 2 nodes installed OPNSense as a cluster in front of their own private cloud and their workstations in the lab. However, Sensei is a plugin for firewalls which complement them with features like Application Filtering, Advanced Network Visibility and Cloud Application Control. (Note: their production network is using another Enterprise firewall – contact us for details)
Apart from IPCop and OPNsense, there are still many different open source firewall solutions available in the market. pfSense and OPNsense are those options able to meet Enterprise class demand. IPfire is the one easiest to use and maintain, which is fit for SOHO and small organization without dedicated internal IT resources.
However, there is no perfect security solutions to protect everything. In order to maintain better Information Security, it is important to apply corresponding security policies, such as Computer Security Policy, Data Retention Policy, etc. It is important to review the related policies and the latest technologies in order to balance the productivity and security.
Should you have any question, you can contact us to arrange a free consultation session for seeking the tailored solution for your organization.