This is part four of Cbiz's Web Servers
and Firewalls:
Revisited series by Tim Parker (tparker@tpci.com), an Ottawa-based reseller and
integrator whose company specializes in consulting, testing and training. www.cbizmag.com
October 23, 2000
I'm still looking at turnkey firewall-gateway-server solutions
and am not jaded yet. A recent arrival from Net Integration
Technologies Inc. caused a few eyebrows to go up in my
testing labs, not only because of the well-designed package,
but also because of the rather amazing benchmark figures
we recorded. But I'm jumping ahead of myself. Essentially,
the Net Integrator unit is a fairly standard PC hosting
a 600-MHz Pentium III processor, a large hard drive bearing
the Linux operating system, two preconfigured Ethernet
cards, a V.90 modem card and an OnStream tape backup unit.
There's nothing really remarkable about the box and assembly
other than the fact that it's well put together with everything
a business could want. By using a standard PC architecture
instead of a proprietary chassis like some of the other
plug-and-play servers we've looked at, it offers an attractive
expansion capability.
The front panel of the Net Integrator
has a unique LCD panel with a few simple surface push
buttons for manipulating the display. After booting
up, it guesses at an available IP address on my subnet
(something few other plug-and-play devices bother doing.
They force you to input one.) This discovery routine
takes a few minutes but may make installing by non-network
people even easier. I wanted to change the proposed
IP address, which was a trivial process using the front
panel switches. The system dynamically adjusts to the
new IP address and then any web browser on the network
can log in.
You can configure e-mail systems using
POP, SMTP and IMAP and enable FTP/anonymous FTP service,
as well as web-server and Windows/Apple file server
setups. Except for support for the Apple File Server,
this is all normal. Virtual private networks (VPNs)
are a cinch to configure and can be running in about
three minutes. Another neat feature is a Soft Update
capability, which allows Net Integrator to check for
software updates automatically (presumably on the manufacturer's
web site.) A Fast Forward feature is essentially a port
forwarding service or proxy service. This allows specific
packets arriving at Net Integrator to be forwarded to
any other IP address for processing.
The menu-driven interface provides for
backup and restore from the OnStream device, holding
30 GB of compressed date (15 GB native.) The backup
can be launched from the front panel as well, making
it easy to get into a routine. All you need do is insert
a tape and the rest is automatic unless you abort the
backup. I was impressed with the simplicity of the design
and the user interface. The documentation is good with
lots of advice for installers on securing the configuration
properly. The firewall software is sufficient for all
but the most demanding locations, and while it is not
as flexible and configurable as much more expensive
firewall packages, it is more than suitable for e-business.
All of this sounds good so far. Then the
load testing began. I installed Net Integrator on a
small network with five clients, all running scripts
designed to emulate the load of 100 people. This included
automated scripting for web and file requests, bogus
and malformed IP packets (to test the firewall), and
telnet and X sessions (where applicable.) I also had
on the same network the Rebel NetWinder and Phoenix
Adaptive Firewall systems loaded on a Cobalt Networks
Qube (all have appeared in earlier columns.) I started
the load scripts aiming at each of the three devices
and watched the responses. Net Integrator astounded
me with its load capability, although to be fair it
has more horsepower and memory than the other two devices.
The 600-MHz CPU and 133-MHz FSB (front side bus) surely
helped the performance. It handled roughly eight times
the number of requests. Network throughput was higher,
as was disk storage and retrieval times (by about four
or five times.)
Is Net Integrator the best of the turnkey
solutions I've tested so far? Yup. Check it out for
yourself and see. It's not as inexpensive as some of
the alternatives, but the price-performance, clean interface
and configurability make this a no-brainer.
