ProSafe SRX5308 is a quad WAN gigabit SSL VPN firewall that connects your local area network to the internet through up to four external broadband/WAN ports. This allows you to increase effective data rate to the internet by utilising all WAN ports to carry session traffic or to maintain backup connections in case of failure of your primary internet connection. It works as the firewall/router in a typical network.
The solution supports up to 125 simultaneous IPsec VPN tunnels (site-to-site and client-to-site). It also works with a vast majority of other network devices and the IPsec VPN portion works with many non-Netgear hardware devices and software clients.
The SRX5308 is a plug-and-play device that can easily be installed and configured. We had the device up and running in our lab in less than ten minutes. We utilised/installed the Netgear ProSafe VPN client on our lab test stations.
Authentication is integrated with Active Directory, LDAP and Radius, as well as supported via a local user database. Encryption support is available for DES, 3DES and AES (128, 192, 256-bit) and SHA-1 and MD5 hashing is also supported. Creating gateway or client policies was made easy through the supplied VPN wizard and policy editor.
There are numerous additional features available but we focused specifically on the IPsec VPN capabilities.
The Netgear solution has enterprise capabilities and supports high availability features, including WAN port auto roll-over and load balancing. Certificate downloads are supported from trusted CA authorities and self-signed certificates can be created using the certificate screen. We had no problem working with the user interface and found it to be very user friendly.
Basic support is provided during the 90-day warranty period and additional support options are available for a fee. Although a comprehensive reporting option is not provided, there is a VPN connection status monitor available, giving you the real-time information for each connection. A built-in logging screen is included for monitoring the running log details.
This product will make it easy for any business to create secure connections to employees or partner networks.