Saturday, April 10, 2021

Small office firewall recco

Site currently has an Xfinity Gigabit Internet circuit, but will soon have an independent ISP symmetrical Gigabit circuit without Xfinity's usage restrictions. At that point I want to upgrade the firewall to something more capable, especially in the area of maintaining (nearly?) full gigabit throughput. Current unit is consumer grade. Cost is a consideration.

Few users although there are 2 significant "power" users, One's a data analyst who works remotely and is in web meetings several times daily besides her data crunching. I'm the other, IT pro that donates my time to a couple of charities, remotely supporting their networks, plus a single VM host server that I want to back up off-site and have remote access to.

I really like Fortinet gear, but to get a firewall that can handle gigabit throughput (not VPN throughput) puts me into a four figure cost unit with corresponding annual maintenance cost. I don't feel safe with home market devices because of their history of slow/sloppy patching of vulnerabilities. SOHO or better seems necessary.

My work experience was always at the higher end of the market (Cisco, Fortinet, Juniper) and their offerings are just not workable costwise. The budget here is tight. I would love some recommendations for better quality solutions that can handle packet inspection at gigabit speeds, good history of software maintenance, at a cost under $1,000USD. Under $750 would be ideal (annual maintenance being extra).

Suggestions? Unrealistic? Thanks all!



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