Network management software vendor Solarwinds has a different take on the situation and dared to ask the question “why can’t network traffic monitoring tools be more useful”? The company answered their own question by developing ORION NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA) to bring simplicity and usefulness to what was once a complex endeavor – monitoring, diagnosing and troubleshooting network traffic problems.

The primary goal of Orion NTA is to help administrators determine exactly how a network is being used. The product works by analyzing Cisco NetFlow, Juniper J-Flow, IPFIX and sFlow data elements to determine how traffic is moving across a network and calculate metrics such as latency, error counts, application traffic, collisions and many other elements that create a picture of how well a network is performing. Orion NTA can also incorporate CBQoS monitoring to evaluate quality of service on the network and identify when traffic falls out of QOS policies.

The current release of Orion NTA features several improvements, many of which are “must haves” for harried administrators, including flow-monitoring support for Cisco Adaptive Security Appliances (ASA), Application Mapping and the ability to build groups based upon IP Addresses. Several performance and usability enhancements bring additional functionality to the product. Administrators will find that the product is now capable of selectively capturing data flows and creating charts that include data rates, interface traffic percentages and data transfer intervals.

Orion NTA is a plugin for Solarwind’s Orion Network Performance Monitor (NPM, please see http://bit.ly/coX9FT for more info) and adds flow analysis capabilities to NPM’s management and monitoring capabilities. Orion NTA launches as a console under NPM and offers several views into traffic flow, as well as the capability to drill down into the various details.

The main console view offers a summary of traffic on the lan/wan, with clear identifiers of what the top used applications, protocols and endpoints are on the network. Administrators can drill down on the top endpoints screen to the nic card level and even launch a DNS lookup to identify the particular machine requesting the traffic. The “Top 5 Applications” view offers an innovative way to determine which applications are requested the most and what applications consume the most bandwidth, that information can be used to validate appropriate use or figure out methods to better segregate traffic to improve performance.

A “Top 5 Conversations” view offers insight into the top endpoint “talkers” on the network. For example, if users are uploading and streaming youtube videos, an administrator can identify that, if that activity consumes significant bandwidth. Administrators can drill down further to identify the impact that traffic has on the various infrastructure elements, such as routers, switches, gateways and NIC cards.

Administrators looking for advice will find the “thwack_” view very useful. With that view, administrators can submit questions, read answers, research problems and analyze what other environments are encountering. “thawack_” proves to be just like having an expert on hand to solve problems or answer questions. The community on the service is very active and quick to answer questions.

Perhaps the most powerful view offered by the product is the “Current Top 10 Lists” view – which offers a list view of the top 10 elements monitored by Orion NTA. That view proves to be very useful for quickly identifying problems – icons clearly identify where errors are happening and are colored red, while normal operations are colored green. Administrators can drill down further into details, access help information and view tips to resolve problems.

Administrators supporting a wireless infrastructure will find the “Wireless Summary View” an excellent resource. That view lists the access-points active on the network and even identifies rogue access points. The list displays a summary view of the AP controllers, as well as information about each AP with a drill down view. Administrators can determine IP addresses, attached clients, signal strength and several other critical elements that help to determine the health of a wireless network.

Administrators looking to “green-up” their enterprises will find the “EnergyWise” summary view a powerful ally. The EnergyWise view shows historical power consumption of devices on the network and can identify savings and well as what is consuming the most electricity. The only catch is that the monitored device has to be energywise capable, luckily many Cisco products support energywise monitoring.

Orion NFA also offers over 50 canned reports that offer a variety of information, ranging from access point reporting to event reporting to inventory reporting. The reports prove very useful for demonstrating ROI and TCO of the deployed infrastructure, especially for power savings and network loads. Reports are customizable and can be generated on demand.

We tested the appliance on a network of eight VM ESXi and ESX hosts during March 2010.

Pricing: Download for free, limited to managing three hosts
Standard edition $1000 per typical host
Enterprise: $1500 per typical host including federation across multiple appliances
Hytrust.com

DataCove is virtually a plug and play email archival appliance. Within a few minutes after logging on to a test unit, I quickly learned how to manage it. In fact, for experienced email administrators, there is no learning curve whatsoever. In short, the DataCove is a mission-critical email archiving solution that solves the serious problem of archiving messages without the usual trappings of an enterprise appliance.

DataCove provides a simple hands off approach to daily usage that solution providers will surely enjoy. What’s more, the technology scales up to enterprise level solutions without the complexity associated with large scale deployments. DataCove’s modular design allows administrators to upgrade storage while keeping the access simple to use. Some DataCove models feature hot swappable drives, which allow a unit to be fixed in minutes if any disks fail.

DataCove rivals products from tough competing vendors such as ArcMail and Mimosa Systems. Administrators will quickly come to that same conclusion once they deploy DataCove on their network. DataCove uses email journaling or SMTP for collecting and archiving messages, and can access messages from POP and IMAP servers.  The unit’s simplicity comes at a price. Typically, in an Exchange shop, administrators turn on journaling to comply with regulatory requirements. However, journaling’s major drawback is that it doubles the workload of an Exchange server. Journaling can further tax a server if mail folders, contacts, calendars and other documents are also archived. Solution providers interested in offering DataCove will have to take that storage and performance hit into account, before sizing a system for deployment and that may increase the pricing and or force an Exchange server upgrade.

Panda Security may have the answer to that dilemma with a new security service aptly named Panda Cloud Office Protection. Panda’s new service offers a unified threat management and security mitigation by managing the delivery of desktop security via the cloud to give small businesses the best of both worlds for combating ever-increasing threats.
With hosted services, cloud based storage, social networking sites, web mail, and Web 2.0 applications (Ajax and .Net), it has become increasingly difficult to differentiate where data is stored and precisely where applications execute. Add to that the increasing use of remote computing and virtual desktops, and security becomes a very complex endeavor indeed.

Panda’s service aims to reduce the administrative burden associated with traditional security layers, which are typically deployed at the PC level, the Server level and at the edge of networks. Those traditional solutions use a HIPs (Host-Based Intrusion Prevention) approach that requires anti-malware and anti-intrusion engines, as well as security suite software, installed on every endpoint and a security/management server installed at the edge of each managed network.

At best, that proves to be an expensive undertaking involving hardware, software and licensing expenses. At worst, that proves to be a management nightmare, which sucks up time and money, while providing less than ideal protection. Any way you look at it, traditional security solutions prove to be lacking when it comes to the small business environment, especially if those small businesses have multiple sites and leverage a mobile work force.

Panda’s goal is to offer businesses increased protection and eschew all of the required elements of the past by eliminating the most of the traditional HIPs components. How is that possible? Panda is turning to the very same environment that creates security problems to build a comprehensive security solution – and that environment is the cloud.

Panda Cloud Office Protection is a security solution for networked PCs – based on the concept of Software as a Service (SaaS), which shifts installation, maintenance and management chores to the cloud. That reduces the need for on-site security components and solutions, which are often hard to maintain and prove to be expensive. The idea here is to let small businesses focus more on their core competencies instead of pushing resources towards the administrative burdens of security.

The net result is increased security, which is simple to use and offers reduced operating costs. The product combines 2 pieces of technology, local software clients for endpoints and a management console that runs in the cloud (on Panda’s servers), which is accessed via a web browser.

Installation proves to be very easy, with all the security software delivered to the local PC or server via an installation agent, manually launched at the PC, or automatically installed using login scripts, active directory policies or other policy tools. The PC install can be silent, in other words, no end user activity is required to install the client portion of the product.

The installation file is smaller than six megabytes, making downloading and installation almost instantaneous. Once installed, the product adds a small “panda bear” icon to the taskbar, which users can click on to execute manual scans, check the basic status of their PCs and so on. Ease of use seems to be the rule of the day, at least with the client portion of the product. All screens are easy to understand and access to online (as well as local) help is just a mouse click away. For the most part, end users can simply ignore the little panda bear on their task bar and let the software take care of security.

Administrators will use the management console to perform a variety of tasks, ranging from managing individual PC’s security settings to generating reports to tracking licenses. The management console also offers real-time network statistics, which can come in handy for tracking security problems and reacting to those problems quickly, before they spread.

The management console requires no installation or setup, as a SaaS product, administrators simply access the console via a web browser using the credentials assigned by Panda. The console is intuitive, which ultimately is a good thing, simply because most security suites have become overly complex. The browser based interface has the various management options divvied up by tabs at the top of the screen. “Status”, which is the default tab, is launched when accessing the console and gives a 10,000 foot view into the security status of the collective endpoints using a couple of informative graphs. The graphs offer a quick assessment of the types of infections and the source of those infections and prove to be a good indicator that the product is working properly.

The “Computers” tab offers a view into the status of each protected endpoint and allows the administrator to drill down further to gather information about registered endpoints, including their statuses and other pertinent details. Administrators can select to “blacklist” PCs, removing PCs from the security database. Adding a computer to the blacklist eliminates managed protection for that system.

An “Installation and Settings” tab provides the functionality needed to deploy the client software, create groups and modify profiles. Administrators will find multiple ways to deploy the client, including a direct download “.MSI” application file, a network deployment tool and an internet URL that when launched in a browser will automatically install the client software on a PC. The profile’s control allows administrators to vary the level of protection, control actions taken by the client software and manage the default settings on each client PC.

Administrators can use profiles to customize end-point pop-up messages and create automated actions, such as automatically cleaning infected files, scheduling updates and enforcing firewall policies. Although Panda Cloud Office Protection offers numerous features and capabilities, there is some room for improvement. For example, the administrative interface could offer a more comprehensive look at individual PCs, allowing administrators to check the scan results and status of an individual PC, without running a report. What’s more, it would be beneficial if an administrator could remotely instigate an immediate security scan on an individual PC and then monitor the results in real-time, without having to define a scheduled event. More comprehensive system activity reports with easy to define filters would be another welcome improvement. The client application also has some room for improvement – for example, if the end user could simply click on the “Panda Bear” icon and determine the security status of their system (ie. Group membership, deployed policies, local reports), that could ease tech support issues and give the end user a better understanding of the security used on their systems.

Panda Cloud Office Protection brings many features to the world of SMB security at an affordable price of $55 per user per year. The company does offer multi-year discounts, further lowing the total cost of ownership. From the security standpoint, the product proves to be a good value by offering all of the needed security functions at a competitive price, while throwing in remote, consolidated endpoint management. Small business operators and their solutions providers will also find additional value in the product’s ease of use and hands off approach to endpoint security – which ultimately makes security more foolproof and guarantees a higher level of protection. Although the product could benefit from some minor administrative and management improvements, users will still find themselves well protected from the vast array of viruses, malware and other security ills found in today’s internet connected world.

Huntsville, Alabama based Adtran is helping businesses increase bandwidth and reduce latency with their newest NetVanta routers, all of which incorporate faster processors and Adtran’s proprietary FastFlow and RapidRoute technologies that increase throughput. What’s more, Adtran is offering their products at price points significantly lower than many of their competitors, including arch-rival Cisco Systems.

Adtran is counting on a one-two punch of lower cost and increased bandwidth, which will entice businesses that are looking to build out the edge of their networks to meet current and future bandwidth needs – a potentially large market segment. Of course, one major obstacle for Adtran is Cisco Systems, which is the industry leader in the router segment.

Adtran is using the age-old marketing ploy of “better, faster, cheaper” to make potential customers notice their product mix and to grind away at some of Cisco’s market share. That proves to be a timely and critical move, which will leverage the pent-up demand for increased network performance. A demand driven by bandwidth-hungry cloud computing technologies and a market that could potentially reach $16.3 Billion according to the DellO’ro group, a market research firm.

I recently had the opportunity to performance test a couple of Adtran’s routers and compare them head to head with Cisco router designed for the same market segment, small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Adtran’s Netvanta 3430, Netvanta 3450 and the Cisco 2811-HSEC/K9 are classified as mid-range class routers for SMEs and small data centers.

Out of the box, all three products offer advanced IP routing capabilities, the Adtran products add an Integrated SPI firewall to the mix, while Cisco offers a SPI firewall as an option on their unit. All of the above routers also offer optional VPN capabilities. Beyond that, there are several options and configuration choices that each manufacturer offers.

Some may argue that is not an apples to apples comparison, since feature wise, the products somewhat differ, but both the Adtran products and the Cisco product are aimed at the same market segment and performance proves to be one of the key dynamics that segment.

My primary goal here was to look at the performance capabilities of the three units and determine if Adtran could indeed meet the goal of “better, faster, cheaper” when compared to a well respected Cisco product. While “better” is a very subjective calculation, “faster and cheaper” proves much easier to analyze, especially when using tools such as Ixia’s IXChariot V7 and Spirient’s TestCenter to measure performance. Calculating value on the other hand, is a simple matter of looking at costs, included features, support and suitability to task.

Products Tested:

Testing:

I used both Chariot V7 from Ixia software and a TestCenter Appliance from Spirent to perform performance tests on the routers. My goal was to look at basic throughput, VPN throughput and transactions per second (please see “how we tested”) to judge if Adtran’s products lived up to the company’s performance claims.

The throughput rate tests showed that both NetVanta routers were able to outperform the Cisco router tested.

A basic throughput test shows that the Netvanta 3430 and 3450 offer roughly 1% higher throughput than the Cisco 2811, a negligible improvement. The performance story starts to change with additional features enabled on the routers. With the firewall enabled, the NetVanta 3430 offers a 7.5% increase in throughput over the Cisco unit, while the NetVanta 3450 scored a 7.9% increase. The performance gap grows once a VPN connection is thrown into the mix. Here, the NetVanta 3430 shows an increase in IP routing throughput performance of 13% over the Cisco 2811, while the NetVanta 3450 upped the performance to a 20% increase over the Cisco 2811.

The performance improvements offered by the Adtran equipment is due to a combination of factors, ranging from the processing power contained within the router, efficient firmware and the incorporation of Adtran’s proprietary FastFlow and RapidRoute technologies. Any way you slice it, Adtran offers a performance boost over a Cisco product, at least when it comes to IP routing.

IP Throughput is only part of the performance equation, for a better understanding of how well a router performs one must look at the number of transactions the router can process. Thanks to Ixia software, determining transaction rates is a relatively straightforward process. Using Ixia’s IXChariot V7.0, I was able to measure transactions per second passed through each router using 20 virtual endpoints and Ixia’s response calculation script for raw routing performance.

-          NetVanta 3430: 18,417 transactions per second.

-          NetVanta 3450: 18,910 transactions per second.

-          Cisco 2811: 5,041 transactions per second.

When it comes to transactions per second, the Adtran NetVanta 3430 showed a 73.6% higher average transaction per second rate than the Cisco 2811, while the NetVanta 3450 posted a 74.3% higher rate.

To validate the general results from the IXChariot V7 tests, I also tested the Adtran NetVanta 3430 and Cisco 2811 on a Spirent TestCenter appliance. The primary test I performed on the two routers was a Frames Per Second (FPS) measurement using iMIX traffic, which gives a good indication of latency due to a router’s processing capabilities.

The IMIX FPS tests showed that Adtran NetVanta 3430 offered a 3% increase in FPS for basic routing over the Cisco 2811. With VPN enabled, the 3430 offered 50% more performance, and with a fixed 66byte packet size, the 3430 showed a 33% higher FPS rate. Once again, Adtran’s FastFlow and RapidRoute technologies can be credited for the performance advantages offered.

To build value, Adtran relies on low cost coupled with support that exceeds industry norms. Adtran’s MSRPs are much lower than many competitors. Few competitors, if any, beat the 5 years of support included with Adtran’s products. The low MSRPs may sound like a negative to channel partners, but Adtran still manages to offer high margins on their products. Reduced training costs, along with ease of deployment, as well as managed services support opportunities, help increase the value for channel partners and their customers as well.

Adtran is on the right track when it comes to meeting the needs of the SME market. The company is providing high quality hardware that performs well and is easy to deploy and manage. The company offers outstanding support, as well as excellent documentation. Solution providers looking to grow their networking business, get involved with data centers, or build managed services should take a good hard look at Adtran’s product base and carefully compare the pros and cons against the better known names in the industry – most solution providers will be surprised with what Adtran has to offer.

Imaging has become one of the preferred methods to backup PCs today. Imaging is able to capture all of the data on a hard drive in a single process, making it a great choice to quickly backup PCs and servers. However, the technology lends itself well to many other capabilities – Including transferring data and applications to a new PC, as well as converting a PC hard drive into a virtual hard drive file to run under a virtual session on a server. Paragon Software has recognized those capabilities and now highlights those abilities in the latest release of their imaging product.

Paragon Software latest product, Paragon Backup and Recovery 10 Suite, was released on 11/17/09 and offers several new features that demonstrates the company’s expertise in the world of disk imaging products. The company has been offering backup and disk management tools since 1994 and has steadily evolved their product matrix to bring new capabilities to the market in a timely fashion. Paragon Backup and Recovery 10 Suite follows that precedent and brings innovative capabilities, such as virtual PC support and online backup to the backup market. The product comes in both 64 bit and 32 bit versions and is available for all flavors of Windows.

I downloaded both 32 bit and 64 bit versions for testing on a Lenovo T61p Notebook system running Windows 7 Ultimate (64Bit), a Toshiba Portege R-600 Notebook running Windows 7 Ultimate (32Bit), and a white box PC with an AMD Phenom CPU, running Windows Vista Home Edition.  All systems featured USB 2.0 ports (for use with an external USB hard drive) and gigabit Ethernet connections to a Network Attached Storage (NAS) device.

I found installation to be straightforward, except for the requirement to input a product key and serial number – a long complex string of characters that could prove easy to transpose or enter incorrectly. Installers should just as copy and paste the key code and serial number from a registration e-mail that the company sends out upon purchase of the product. Installers can always get that information from a customer portal on Paragon’s website – When you purchase a Paragon product, you create an account on Paragon’s site, which then becomes the portal to download products and get license codes and product keys.

Launching the application brings up an attractive interface that is clearly aimed at making the product easy to use. First-time users can quickly identify how to perform backups, restore files or any other basic task, all without having to refer to a manual.  Large descriptive menu buttons make it easy to launch wizards that make backup, restoration, file selection, creating rescue media and building schedules relatively straightforward. A tabbed interface located on the left side allows users to drill down into some of the more advanced features, such as converting images to virtual hard drives or browsing existing images to copy individual files.

Most users will find using the “Smart Backup” option the way to go. It is very easy to use and offers a good level of customization during the definition process. Options let you target e-mails, media files, or documents, or manually select specific files. The product offers multiple options for the location of a backup files, including network drives, burn to DVD and store to any FTP site.

On the other hand, some users may be confused by the product’s virtual mode. Basically, all operations are “stored” and do not occur until you hit an “apply” button to activate the task. It seems unnecessary to make users operate the product in this fashion, but then again, it does protect neophytes from accidently executing operations that can affect their data files. Advanced users can forgo the “virtual mode” by changing the program’s preferences.

One very nifty feature is the product’s ability to convert an image into a virtual hard drive. That way, if you system fails altogether, you can run that image as a virtual hard drive on a system running desktop virtualization. That could prove to be a fast way to retrieve important data or run applications during a system disaster.

The product also offers a backup component that is loaded in the system tray, which handles automating the backup process using a technology the company calls “snapshot” – snapshots are basically use a static look at the current data on the hard drive to compare changes to previous images. When the application detects changes in the data on the hard drive by comparing snapshots, an incremental backup is executed.

Performance was adequate, I was able to back up the 70GB of data in about two hours and 15 minutes. Subsequent backups using the incremental setting only took a few minutes, depending upon how much information was changed on the hard drive.  Where Paragon Backup and Recovery 10 Suite really shines is with features such as the ability to backup, restore and convert virtual hard drives, as well as create WinPE bootable rescue media.

System builders may want to pay additional attention to Paragon Backup and Recovery 10 Suite, since the product could quickly become a sales add-on for new PCs, while traditional solution providers may want to add the product to their array of applications used to maintain PCs. Either way, Paragon Backup and Recovery 10 Suite proves to be a good product to sell to end users, while exposing those end users to the intricacies of backup and plant the seeds for new technologies.

With the explosion in data growth, reliable storage has become more important than ever. But, data storage is under constant threat of hardware failure, accidental erasure, malicious activity or many other problems, driving the need for quality backup and recovery solutions to new heights. Backup is no longer a simple exercise of copying data files to tape or other external storage mediums. Administrators today must have critical capabilities in their backup solutions such as advanced management, unattended operations, open file handling, high speed data transport and a plethora of other features that ensure data is protected and easy to retrieve when trouble strikes. Acronis has jumped headfirst into the needs of the enterprise, both large and small, with Acronis Backup & Recovery 10. The product is available in several editions and with several options, making selecting the right combination of features and garnering the most value a relatively simple process. Purchasers can select from advanced and standard versions of the product as well as versions specifically designed for servers, work stations, virtual servers, Windows operating systems and Linux operating systems.

I took a look at Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Advanced Server with the Universal Restore and Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Deduplication options. The advanced server version of the product is the most robust and offers features that allow administrators to backup several servers and manage the backup process from an advanced, feature rich management console. The deduplication option speeds backups and reduces the size of backed up files by eliminating duplicate files, while the universal restore option adds the ability to restore backup images to hardware that is different from the original server. I recommend both of those options, because reducing backup time and gaining flexibility when recovering from a disaster are two important advantages that administrators can really leverage to improve the backup and recovery process.

Administrators will find most any backup need addressed by the Advanced Server version, starting with advanced centralized management, which is the key differentiator between the advanced version and the standard version of the product. For those managing single server environments, advanced server is probably overkill – that said, it is still nice to have a centralized management console to work from. The management console allows administrators to remotely schedule backups of servers and workstations, monitor the status of backups, check for errors, create backup status reports, manage backup archives (image files), perform restorations and create policies that can control the flow of backup data to and from servers. Using agents, Advanced Server is able to backup virtual servers and workstations, but administrators that work more often with virtual environments instead of traditional iron, may want to consider Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Advanced Server Virtual Edition.

The product uses an agent-based approach – that is where a small piece of software, called an agent, is installed on each server or workstation to be backed up. That agent is responsible for launching the backup process and creating the management hooks back to the administrator’s console. What’s more, the agent is the key enabler for monitoring the system and executing scheduled events. Surprisingly, the agent places very low demands on the hardware and quietly waits in the background for policy triggered events to execute backups.

Those running busy environments will appreciate how well ABR10 works, although the backup process is CPU intensive (due to data compression and encryption processes), the product is smart enough not to hog all of the available CPU cycles. In other words, server functionality is maintained during the backup process. That proves to be quite important, because not all servers offer a “quiet time” when backups can be performed, that is especially true of web servers and database servers.

Administrators are offered a few other options surrounding backup, such as dual destinations (backup to 2 locations concurrently), splitting of backup files, file exclusions, the ability to execute scripts during backup and levels of compression/encryption needed. To speed backups, administrators can choose lower levels of data compression and turn off encryption, although backup files may become larger and a little less secure.

While one can’t dispute the importance of backup, restoration proves to be of equal importance. Recovery is usually required in an emergency situation and has to be done in minutes, not hours or days. Here Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 does an excellent job of restoring the entire HDD contents when needed, including OS, applications, settings, updates, files and folders. First and foremost, the universal restore option proves to be one of the most important features if disaster strikes. With that capability, you are able to restore a backup image to hardware that is dissimilar to the original server. Why is that important? Simply because if a server fails due to a problem other than a hard drive, such as a motherboard failure or other critical component, the replacement hardware may not be the exact same. When this situation occurs, the restored operating system may not recognize the new hardware and fail to load or crash the system (especially true of Windows based OSes). That glitch can be directly attributed to the hardware drivers and other component specific elements of the operating systems. The universal restore option allows the administrator to overcome those problems by creating a restoration environment where drivers and other hardware specific information can be changed to work with the new hardware. This is a great option during emergency situations where the hardware must be replaced. As an added bonus, the universal restore option eases upgrades, a time when an administrator may want to replace a server with newer, faster hardware. The universal restore can eliminate the need to provision the replacement server and instead, simply move all of the data, applications and OS over to that new system.

Another notable restoration features include the ability to create recovery media for bare metal deployments. In other words, administrators can “build” a bootable CD/DVD (or even USB keydrive) that allows a system without an OS to boot up into a recovery environment. That way, an administrator can boot the new hardware, have access to a remote backup image (via the LAN or local storage device) and then can execute a restore. That eliminates multitude of steps for getting a system up and running. With the bare metal capability, it becomes very easy to deploy new systems and administrators no longer have to install an OS on the new system or configure that system to access the LAN. That proves to be a great time saver for both recovery tasks and new system deployments in companies of all sizes.

With Acronis Backup & Recovery 10, the feature list goes on and on and would require something along the lines of a novel to describe. Fortunately, Acronis provides in depth documentation, online help and additional information via the web about deploying and using the product, making it pretty easy to figure out all of the capabilities and features of the product. In addition, they provide a free 15-day trial of all the various Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 products from their website; www.acronis.com

While features are important, deployment and usability are often the determining factors on whether or not an enterprise level backup is suitable for a particular environment. This is especially true in SMB organizations that often do not have technical IT staffs to manage their backup and recovery process. Here, Acronis does not disappoint. I found that installing the product is a pretty straightforward process, which was further eased by some innovative capabilities offered by Acronis Backup & Recovery 10. First off, the management console (and primary product) can be installed to a single server, without requiring a reboot. The installation is wizard based, making it a simple matter of answering a few questions to initially install the product. Once the console is installed, it is a simple matter to deploy agents to other servers on the network, as long as you have the proper credentials to access those servers. Deploying agents to other servers is further eased by the fact that no reboot is required for agent installation and activation. That means a full deployment can be accomplished during normal working hours and does not have to be a disruptive event.

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

AltirisSalesInfo@symantec.com, 888-252-5551

http://www.symantec.com

Requirements: Windows Server 2003 or later. Symantec’s Altiris Notification Server and several other Altiris SDK and developer tools (free)

Price: $25,000 for server and designer, additional designer licenses are $4,000 each
Category: Workflow management
Pros: Sophisticated models can be built with little programming expertise
Cons: There are a lot of moving parts to assemble before you can begin working