Better backups, faster restores with SEPATON DeltaStor deduplication technology

SEPATON’s S2100 is a virtual tape library backup appliance that can work to significantly reduce backup completion and restore times and cut down on storage requirements. It has a flexible capacity to hold from 10TB to over 1 PB and a wide collection of policies that can be crafted to particular applications and circumstances.

We tested a unit on a live network with actual production data with Firefox running on Windows XP in March 2010.

Price: starts at $110,500.
Backup products supported include Symantec’s NetBackup, IBM Tivoli
Storage Manager, EMC NetWorker and HP Data Protector.

SEPATON S2100-ES2 v5
400 Nickerson Road
Marlborough, MA 01752
Sepaton.com
508 490 7900

Outbound content compliance using Global Velocity

Looking to do a better job monitoring all of your network’s applications portfolio? The GV-2010 is a unit designed to give you very granular control over how your end users use particular applications, and inspect all of your content leaving your network.

We tested the appliance on a small network in February 2010.

Global Velocity GV-2010
Globalvelocity.com
St. Louis MO
314 880 2900

Managing your firewalls with McAfee Firewall Enterprise Profiler

Profiler makes it easier to troubleshoot and manage up to five McAfee Enterprise firewalls from one central console and help you keep up with changes to your network and applications. You can examine the implications to real-time changes in your network before you commit them and also quickly do ad hoc analysis on rule sets.

Version 1.5.1
Price: $19,500 for appliance model
http://www.mcafee.com/us/local_content/datasheets/ds_fw_profiler.pdf

Windows 7 networking controls

This week I begin a new series of video screencasts for Dell’s IT Expert Voice Web site. The site has all sorts of useful information for corporate IT folks that are interested in migrating and using Windows 7, and my humble part will be to produce a regular series of videos similar to what I have been doing on my own here. Do check out this video which talks about the differences between Windows 7 and earlier versions when it comes to networking controls.

Painless offsite online backups using 3X Backup

The 3X Systems Backup appliance is a great way to automatically backup a collection of PCs and servers across the Internet at reasonable cost.

We tested version 2.1.6 in August 2009 on a small network of Windows clients and servers.
Windows agents available for 2000 and later versions, including both servers and 64-bit OS’s.

Pros:
• Easy to setup and operate
• Simple and effective offsite backups
• Can scale up storage as disk requirements grow

Cons:
• Only Windows agents supported
• Require recent browser versions such as IE v7 and Firefox v2
• Restoring full domain controller or specific email messages could be easier

Price: base system starts at $2,495.00

3X Systems
1275 Kinnear Road,
Columbus Ohio 43212
614.372.6868
http://www.trustyd.com/

Understanding Application Visibility with Blue Coat PacketShaper

PacketShaper 900
Blue Coat Systems
410 N. Mary Ave.
Sunnyvale, CA 94085
(408) 220-2200
http://bluecoat.com


Price: $2,500 base price

We tested a PacketShaper 900 on a small test network showing how it can discover, classify and prioritize application traffic. We address four different questions that IT managers have about understanding how bandwidth-consuming applications interact over their networks, and how individual applications can be controlled for particular use cases.

Managing your VMware ESX infrastructure with the HyTrust Appliance

HyTrust offers managers and administrators of VMware’s ESX virtual infrastructure a centralized, single point of control for hypervisor configuration, compliance, and access management that is both secure and easy to use through ordinary Web browsers.


We tested the RC version of the product in March 2009 by making a remote connection to HyTrust’s own test lab.

Supports:

  • ESX version 3.5 only (not ESXi)
  • Works with Internet Explorer and Firefox, most current versions.
  • Both Windows Server 2003/2008 domain controllers

Price: $7,500 for the appliance ($3,000 for software only) plus $500 per CPU ESX socket protected plus 25% for maintenance and support per year. Free version available to protect up to three ESX hosts but without any support contract.

Pros:

  • A solid collection of tools to secure your VMware ESX infrastructure
  • Integrates with Active Directory and VMware vCenter policies
  • Fully functional freeware version allows for experimenting and learning before purchase

Cons:

  • Limited to ESX currently
  • Log viewer could be better integrated into the product

HyTrust Appliance 1975 W. El Camino Real, Suite 203 Mountain View, CA 94040 650-681-8100

hytrust.com

Symantec Backup Exec for Windows Servers

An online backup server that covers a wide range of servers and services, this latest version includes the ability to protect Microsoft SharePoint and Exchange servers, VMware Infrastructure, and other sophisticated environments.

We tested Version 12.5 on a small test network with Windows Server 2008 and Mac and Windows clients.

Requirements: Windows 2000/2003/2008 Servers,
Price: $995 for one license, additional agents varies in price from $395 to $3195, depending on what you need to backup.

Symantec Corp.
http://symantec.com/backupexec
20330 Stevens Creek Blvd.
Cupertino, CA 95014

Pros:

  • Easy to setup and operate
  • Free 60 day trial helps you test out the service and become familiar with its operation
  • Granular Recovery Technology allows easy restoration of accidentally deleted files, emails, or documents.
  • VMware and Microsoft Hyper-V virtual server data protection that is easy to manage
  • Integrated online backup for flexible off-site data protection

Cons:

  • Some of the menus are a bit densely packed, such as the Job Setup screens
  • This is not a product for single server environments (there is a separate version for Microsoft’s Small Business Server that is more appropriate)

Deploying applications using Symantec’s Endpoint Virtualization Suite

The suite covers three separate products that have been acquired over the years by Symantec for applications delivery via streaming or virtual layers and a connection broker technology that allows enterprises to manage the way their applications are packaged and delivered to users’ desktops.


We tested Version 6.1 on various test machines in February 2009.

Requirements: Windows XP SP 1 or better with Java J2SE Runtime 5.0 update 6, Windows Server 2003/2008, Windows 2000, Windows Vista

Price: $360 (concurrent license), $270 (per node) for entire suite, Streaming + Virtualization $68, Virtualization only $44. Substantial volume license discounts.

Pros:
• Powerful software management for multiple use cases so that enterprises can configure and deliver a wide variety of applications and situations
• Granular virtualization layer technology
• Competitive price for the features that are included
Cons:
• Complex setup with multiple moving parts
• No common policy management across the various software modules
• Multiple management consoles for each software module

Symantec Endpoint Virtualization Suite
Symantec Corp.
http://symantec.com/
20330 Stevens Creek Blvd.
Cupertino, CA 95014

The six minute firewall from McAfee/Secure Computing

In this short video review, I will show you the most important features of Secure Firewall (form. known as Sidewinder) from McAfee/Secure Computing.


As enterprises depend more on Internet-based applications, it becomes harder to defend your network against blended exploits and attacks that target your specific applications. You need something like this product which is more than a standard firewall that typically relies on intrusion prevention and signature based defenses. Secure Firewall is a network and application security device with numerous protective features built-in that are especially useful for protecting your critical applications and data. Secure Firewall has a great track record in the industry when it comes to emergency security patches and CERT advisories, and comes with solid reporting and analysis features as well as the ability to create rules to defend Web applications.

We tested version 70007 on a small network in October 2008.

Pros:
• Combines inbound and outbound network & application protection for both known and unknown attack vectors
• Simple configuration of the TrustedSource global intelligence, and Geo-Location provide unique protections to reduce your organizations exposure to attack
• SSL & SSH inspection (decryption and filtering) protects against these holes in most deep inspection firewalls today
• Rules can be customized for particular defenses and very granular controls over applications

Cons:
• Uses a variety of management tools, some Windows-based, some browser-based
• Setting up different administrative roles is fairly complex

Info: www.securecomputing.com 55 Almaden Boulevard, Suite 500, San Jose, CA 95113
Product category: Email security appliance
Pricing: Least expensive unit $1,900 up to $70,000 for the largest networks