Corporate Server is the foundation upon which SmoothWall has built a
family of internet security solutions for businesses and organisations of
all sizes. Corporate Server provides the security, facilities and power
expected of a mid-range firewall, yet is simpler to use and more affordable
than any other product in its class.
SmoothWall’s Corporate Server software turns a Pentium™ class PC into a
dedicated hardware firewall. In comparison with most hardware firewalls,
today’s PC’s offer vastly greater power at a fraction of the cost.
SmoothWall allows users to take advantage of this ever improving PC
technology and scale the hardware to cater for anywhere between 10 and 1000
users.
Corporate Server’s modular design puts users in control of both their
security and their security budget. Add-on modules include provision for
virtual private networking (VPN), web content filtering and internet access
control. All the modules integrate into a simple web browser based GUI so
that these powerful facilities are incredibly easy to configure.
Computer Image have been using SmoothWall products for many years,
building inexpensive wide area network for our customers as required.
Often a combination of the SmoothWall Corporate product and SmoothWall GPL
product can be used to support multiple offices, connection to a main head
office.
SmoothWall has the following benefits over traditional firewall
approaches:
- As security vulnerabilities are found, SmoothWall releases software
patches for the product. These patches can be easily applied using
a web-browser. As SmoothWall is software on a normal PC, it is
designed for and can completely accept new software updates.
Hardware devices require complicated "firmware" updates - applying an
incorrect firmware update can reduce a hardware firewall to a rather
expensive paperweight!
- Computer Image will apply these updates for you under our
Server/Firewall maintenance service.
- SmoothWall operates on a non-Microsoft operating system, meaning
that it is targeted far less by hackers and virus writers.
- A SmoothWall is a separate device to the rest of your network
infrastructure, putting it in an ideal place to fend off attacks.
Software, PC and Server-software based firewalls are installed onto
the equipment they are supposed to protect!
- SmoothWall is less complicated than equivalent Cisco and Microsoft
products - this equates to far less chance of accidental mis-configuration.
Our team will often refer to a SmoothWall as a "smoothie"!