Barracuda CloudGen Firewall Review

In the time we were using it:

• Intrusion Prevention System/Intrusion Detection System (IPS/IDS)
• Layer 7 filtering
• DDoS prevention
• HA
• Traffic management, among others.

During the testing time, the improvement was prominent as we stop unwanted outgoing traffic and were able to get real-time logs. This provided us with better bandwidth administration and usage.

If I compare it to other firewalls like Kerio Control, I would say that, probably, the GUI/Configuration Menu is something that could be more user friendly.

We used it for almost two months while we were researching firewall solutions and this was one option.

Not much, the problem was on our side because it was the first time with this kind of firewall (and brand), but the installation of the virtual appliance was really easy.

None, from the first day to the last, the firewall ran with no issues at all.

None at all as long as you have the money to pay for the licenses to scale the system.

Nil, here in Argentina, the distributor was limited to providing the price of the product. We had to resolve issues by doing our own research.

We didn´t use the technical support, however we watched, many times, the webinars that Barracuda gave.

At that time we were using pfSense, which is not bad at all, but we needed something more enterprise-class like, and Barracuda Networks gave that to us. The monitoring tools are great.

Compared with other Firewalls, yes, it was complex but that´s for two reasons,

1. The firewall has plenty of options to configure
2. Because we were not trained or used to this kind of firewall, the initial set-up was long

We installed this application on our own, and we didn't receive any advice on it. I can say that the Latin America team at Barracuda took some time to reply to our questions through email.

We were evaluating a lot of appliances/firewalls/UTM like,

• Sonicwall
• Checkpoint
• Bluecoat
• Kerio Control
• Cisco ASA
• Sophos Gateway (formerly Astaro Gateway)

There were also many others that I don´t remember now as well. We were looking for simplicity and effectiveness.

Try it before you buy. Barracuda gives the chance to try the hardware and the software before buying it so you can test all the things that you will need and use day-to-day. And if you can, take a seminar to get the most out of the devices. However we found the product a little harder to configure than others, and so it´s not a product for unskilled/inexperienced administrators. You will need training to get the best of this product.