Our business needs a new firewall, the old one broke after 4 years. 
We outsouce our network administration.  The company has quoted us
$7200 for I believe hardware, $2700 for maintenance and $3,000 for antivirus
(400users). The total cost is $13,576.  Is this too expensive?  Is
there a cheaper way? I work for a high school.  We have 300 students
and 60 faculty.

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Request for Question Clarification by denco-ga on 12 Aug 2005 14:11 PDT

Howdy sandler27-ga,

It would help to know your general network configuration.

- the number of computers, and operating systems (OS), Windows, Apple, etc.
- all on one network, one LAN, or multiple networks, ethernet, etc.
- connectivity to the Internet, DSL, T1, dial up, etc.

Any details, especially network, would be appreciated.

At face value, the comment by exileonmain-ga is correct in that this appears
to be lots of money for a firewall.  There might be a solution for you for
as little as $200 for the hardware.  If you have a computer class, this would
be a great classroom project as well.

Looking Forward, denco-ga - Google Answers Researcher

Since this is a comment, just take as that.


That's an insane price for a firewall if you ask me.  Do you have a
copy of what hardware they plan on installing?  You could look it up
to see what they are preparing to install and compare prices. I would
suggest you get anothe quote at the very least.

If it was me?  I would build me own using OpenBSD but that's just me.

Hi sandler27-ga,

I think building your own unix/linux firewall is a good idea as
danco-ga suggested, but if you are not too familiar with unix, I
suggest you use IPCop or SmoothWall or something similar.

Good Luck!

Sorry exileonmain-ga I ment building a unix firewall is a great idea
as you suggested.

My guess from the way the question is posted is that building a unix
firewall is a  little out of the question.  For a pre packaged
solution the person suggesting smoothwall or something simular is
correct.  In general I would be taking bids from other sources as I
think these guys are taking it to you.

Total cost maybe $100:  www.smoothwall.org

A Pentium II computer, with 64 to 128 meg of ram, and a 4 to 6 gig
hardrive, and a pair of PCI NIC's will work very well.  You'll need a
CD for the install.  After it is set up, most users run it "headless".
 Smoothwall is based on open source software that has been hardened
for the purpose.  It will reject anything that you have not
specifically asked for.  As far as anyone knows, it has NEVER been
hacked. It is Linux, but you don't have to know anything about Linux. 
You access your firewall through your browswer for easy
administration.  Be sure to RTFM.  I love my smoothy!