- How We Tested
- Astaro Security Gateway 110
- Check Point Safe@Office 1000N
- Netgear ProSecure UTM 50
- SonicWall NSA240
- WatchGuard XTM 810
- Testing Results
- Test Analysis
The XTM 810 (XTM 810) is WatchGuard’s entry level UTM device from its XTM 8 Series firewall appliance range. Even so, this big red machine is capable of achieving a claimed maximum firewall throughput of 3Gbps (which is almost mandatory for servicing its medium-sized business market of up to 1000 users).
The unit is a fairly standard size for a 1U rack mountable device, measuring 44mm x 430mm x 407mm. The rack mountable brackets are included as standard.
The XTM 810 is equipped with a 2.66GHz quad core processor, 2GB RAM, and 1GB flash memory. The unit boasts a serial port for a console link and two USB ports for further device connectivity. It features an LCD status display and four buttons for menu navigation. This solution has ten 10/100/1000Mbps network card interfaces, which allows an administrator to perform custom networking for LAN, WAN, and DMZ zones. The XTM 810 can be configured for multi-WAN operations, allowing administrators to specify two or more external lines – a useful feature for adding in multiple failover connections and for load balancing external traffic requests (to maximize networking efficiency and availability).
The device is armed with a ‘Default Packet Handling’ system, which is comprised of DoS protection and SYN/IKE/IPSEC/ICMP/UDP flood attack prevention. It also boasts port probe detection systems that can identify inbound port scanning techniques, making it difficult for potential attackers to conduct full scans from a single source.
Optional security licenses include Application Control, Reputation Enabled Defence, SpamBlocker with Virus Outbreak Detection, Gateway AV/IPS with Virus Quarantine, WebBlocker with HTTPS URL filtering.
Administration of the device is possible in two ways, either by using its bespoke WatchGuard System Manager application or, for ease of use, the ‘Fireware XTM Web UI’. The ‘Fireware XTM Web UI’ dashboard offers an administrator CPU/memory usage statistics as well as an overview of the network configuration.
There is a detailed reporting system available, but administrators will need to set up a separate WatchGuard Reporting Server (based on PostgreSQL database) in order to fully utilise the device’s reporting services (the software is included). Through the reporting server, there are a wide selection of data available, ranging from anti-virus reporting to URL’s filtered. Reports are exportable to either HTML or PDF format, which comes in handy for distribution.
While this unit is not as simple to use as some of other UTMs in this review, its principles of operation are quite similar. A competent network administrator will soon get to grips with this product and, dare we say, learn to love it more and more over time.
RRP: $8177 AUS for the WatchGuard XTM 810 with 1-yr LiveSecurity
Warranty: 1 year
positive
• Highly customisable
• High speed network ports
• URL filtering with added HTTPS filtering
negative
• Quite expensive for smaller organisations
• Extra hardware is required for the reporting server
summary
The WatchGuard XTM 810 is a serious piece of security equipment, it’s not for the faint-hearted. The XTM 810 performed admirably throughout our evaluation, and is well regarded for medium-sized business networks with a large user base.