With the available software and advancements in technology today, something as simple as choosing the right Firewall for your computer might become a more complicated task than you had expected. A little confusion is justified-there are, after all, a lot of firewalls in the market today. A quick rundown of the best things to consider when shopping for a firewall should help clear things up. Increase your website traffic
1-What are the reasons for implementing a firewall?
"Because I need it for my computer security" is one of the top answers that would strike your mind after reading this question. But, there is also need to think about the technical objectives that you have in your mind about the implementation of the firewall. Such introspection is desired in driving the selection process. There is no need to pick the expensive or rich in features of the firewall, which is also too complicated for your technical requirements and can be met through simpler products.
2 - How will the firewall fit into your network topology?
Consider also the following:
- Whether a firewall will accommodate the perimeter of the network or will be directly connected to the Internet, or will be serving to divide a sensitive LAN from the remainder of the organization?
- What will be the amount of traffic that will be processed?
- How many interfaces are desired to segment the traffic?
All the above aspects have a great part to play in the total cost in the implementation of the firewall, which saves you from under or over purchase of the computer security software.
3 - An appliance or a software solution - Which will better suit your organization's network?
If you wish to ensure easy installation, then appliances are quite easier to install. One normally has to plug in the correct Ethernet cables and then has to carry on with the basic network configuration, which makes you ready to configure the rules. When it's about the software firewalls, then things can get a bit tricky at the time of installation and also require fine-tuning. Moreover, there's also miss in the security, which is many times constructed into the hardened OS of the firewall appliances.
4 - Which operating system is best matched with your requirements?
You might know this, but yes even appliances run on an OS and, probably you might have to work with at some point in the firewall administration career. In case, if you're a Linux jockey, then you don't have to opt for a Windows-based firewall. Also, if you don't have an idea about the ⁄dev⁄null from ⁄var/log, then probably you want to stay away of the Unix-based solutions.
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