Two Companies Release NT-based Firewalls -- Redmondmag.com

Two Companies Release NT-based Firewalls

By Scott Bekker
10/14/1998

Two firewall companies have unleashed both pre-historic and medieval measures to protect Windows NT-based network firewalls. Naming in what appears to be chronological order, Axent Technologies Inc. (Rockville, Md., www.axent.com) announced Raptor Firewall, a tool to manage distributed firewalls from one NT workstation. Raptor Firewall and VPN Server integrates with Microsoft Management Console (MMC) framework to provide distributed scaleable management.

Moving ahead some 65 million years, Network Associates Inc. (Santa Clara, Calif., www.nai.com) announced version 3.0 of Gauntlet Firewall for Windows NT. Boasted as an "Adaptive Proxy" firewall, Gauntlet Firewall is said to improve speed and security with the same product. The new NT version of Gauntlet also features integrated anti-spam protection.

Network Associates says its new Adaptive Proxy architecture has resulted in tenfold performance increases in initial benchmark testing, while Axent, traditionally a security company, has focused more on providing comprehensive security management. Raptor Firewall can be integrated with Axent's security products such as Intruder Alert and Defender.

Other features for Raptor Firewall include enhanced email security for Microsoft Outlook '98, Outlook Express 4.x and Netscape Communicator desktop e-mail clients, and additional application proxies that are fully H.323 compliant. In addition, the Raptor Firewall supports WebNOT and NewsNOT for filtering Web and Usenet groups, and MIMEsweeper for content scanning and anti-virus protection. The Raptor Firewall logs files containing information, which include session duration, byte counts, full URLs, user names, and authentication methods. System Administrators can use this information to generate detailed statistical and session trend reports by exporting this data to the Telemate.Net reporting system.

Network Associates' Gauntlet 3.0 for NT incorporates plug and play proxy support, enabling customers to add and update new proxies on the fly as they become available, rather than waiting for custom patches or new versions of the firewall software. The new Gauntlet also features new pre-configured security policies to help customers install the firewall, and a robust CVP implementation to help integrate third-party applications with the firewall.

Network Associates acquired Gauntlet when they bought Trusted Information Systems in February, just two months after Axent acquired Raptor Systems and its Raptor technology in December 1997. --Brian Ploskina, Assistant Editor

About the Author

Scott Bekker is editor in chief of Redmond Channel Partner magazine.

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