| Check Point VPN-1
| Cisco 7140 VPN Router
| Lucent Access Point 1000
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3.8 Rating |
Company: Check Point Software Technologies, (800) 429-4391, www.checkpoint.com Price: Starting at $11,000. Pros: Strong VPN and firewall collocation; good inter-operability. Cons: High cost; requires underlying NT or Unix operating systems. | 3.8 Rating |
Company: Cisco, (408) 526-7200, www.cisco.com Price: $18,500. Pros: Many interfaces; broad product line; excellent routing. Cons: High cost; poor management tools; not very flexible IPSec implementation. | 3.8 Rating |
Company: Lucent, (888) 458-2368, www.lucent.com Price: Starting at $20,500. Pros: Excellent perfor-mance; high-end QoS and firewall built in; multiple interface options. Cons: Command line interface better than GUI; high cost; some IPSec weaknesses. | |||
| Nokia CryptoCluster 2500
| Avaya VSU-100
| Cisco PIX 525
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3.8 Rating |
Company: Nokia, (877) 997-9199, www.nokia. com/vpn/nokiavpn.html Price: $10,000. Pros: Excellent VPN manage-ment tools, strong interoperability. Cons: High price/performance in our test. | 3.7 Rating |
Company: Avaya, (908) 953-6000, www.avaya.com Price: $1,400 (hardware) plus $1,000 (VPNmanager 3.1, software). Pros: Strong management tools for companies. Cons: Mediocre performance in our test. | 3.6 Rating |
Company: Cisco, (408) 526-7200, www.cisco.com Price: Starting at $22,000. Pros: Very good NAT/NAPT features, firewall. Cons: High cost; poor management tools; not very flexible IPSec implementation. | |||
| Microsoft Windows 2000 Server
| Nortel Contivity 1600
| Secure Computing Sidewinder Firewall/VPN
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3.4 Rating |
Company: Microsoft, (650) 251-2700, www. microsoft.com Price: $850. Pros: Very good price/ performance; strong interoper-ability. Cons: Disjointed VPN management interface. | 3.4 Rating |
Company: Nortel, (800)466-7835, www. nortelnetworks.com Price: $7,000. Pros: Good GUI for single element; well-thought-out client deployment. Cons: Low performance in this unit; no enter-prise management tool. | 3.1 Rating |
Company: Secure Computing, (800) 379-4944, www.secure computing.com Price: $3,900. Pros: Strong interoper-ability, good price/ performance in our test. Cons: Fairly complex management on compartment-alized Unix operating system. | |||
| HP VPN Server Appliance
| RapidStream 2000
| WatchGuard Firebox III 4500
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3.0 Rating |
Company: Hewlett- Packard, (800) 826-4111, www.hp.com Price: $16,158. Pros: Easy to configure with flexible options; good client deploy-ment tool. Cons: Odd IPSec configuration required. | 2.8 Rating |
Company: RapidStream, (866) 727-4348, www.rapidstream.com Price: $5,000. Pros: Good price/ performance. Cons: Initial implementation not very stable. | 2.7 Rating |
Company: WatchGuard, (206) 521-8340, www. watchguard.com Price: $9,990. Pros: Good fit-for-all Watch-Guard network; excellent VPN monit-oring tools. Cons: Poor security choices in IPSec; limited implementa-tion not very flexible. | |||
| RedCreek Communications Ravlin 7160
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N/A Rating |
Company: RedCreek Communications, (888) 745-3900, www.redcreek.com Price: $8,900. Pros: Simple to install and configure; nice GUI for single element. Cons: No global management tool; hardware reliability issues. | |||||||
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VPN-1 | Cisco 7140 Router | Access Point 1000 | Crypto Cluster 2500 |
VSU-100 | PIX 525 | Windows 2000 Server | Contivity 1600 | Side-winder | VPN Server Appliance | Rapid- Stream 2000 |
Firebox III 4500 | Ravlin 7160 |
| Management 30% | 4 | 3.5 | 3 | 4.5 | 4.5 | 3.5 | 3 | 2.5 | 2 | 2.5 | 2 | 3 | 2 |
| Interoperability 25% | 4 | 4 | 3.5 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 2.5 | 2.5 | 1.5 | 3 |
| Enterprise features 20% | 4 | 4.5 | 4.5 | 3 | 3 | 3.5 | 3 | 4.5 | 3 | 3.5 | 3 | 3 | 2.5 |
| Performance 15% | 3.5 | 2.5 | 4.5 | 3.5 | 2.5 | 3 | 4 | 2.5 | 4 | 3.5 | 3.5 | 3 | N/A |
| Breadth of product line 10% | 3 | 4.4 | 4 | 3.5 | 4 | 3.5 | 3 | 3.5 | 3 | 3.5 | 4 | 3.5 | 3.5 |
| TOTAL SCORE | 3.8 | 3.8 | 3.8 | 3.8 | 3.7 | 3.6 | 3.4 | 3.4 | 3.1 | 3 | 2.8 | 2.7 | N/A |
| Individual category scores are based on a scale of 1 to 5. Percentages are the weight given each category in determining the total score. Scoring Key: 5: Exceptional showing in this category. Defines the standard of excellence; 4: Very good showing. Although there may be room for improvement, this product was much better than the average; 3: Average showing in this category. Product was neither especially good nor exceptionally bad; 2: Below average. Lacked some features or lower performance than other products or than expected; 1: Consistently subpar, or lacking features being reviewed. |