In praise of SnapGear and Cyberguard. At work, until recently, we employed two SnapGear units to provide connectivity between TJ and SLO. These little boxes have worked wonderfully, and I'm constantly amazed at how well they perform. Recently our ISA server started having trouble, and we were intent on replacing it with a product designed to be a gateway for small/medium businesses called IT-in-a-Box. Now, don't get me wrong. IT-in-a-box serves a function, it's great for people who don't know anything at all. The problem though is if you ever figure something out about anything you're screwed. Case in point our network required that we be able to setup a few custom routes, can't do it with the IT-in-a-box. It's simple hat on the SnapGear unit. Now, this is just bitchiness. I think my real complaint about IT-in-a-box is their GROSS violation of the GPL. I'm not a free software nazi... but when I console in to your unit and it says LINUX on boot up... I expect some source code so I can do what I want with your hardware. THEN when we call tech support, one of the guys had the balls to say a root account didn't exist on the box. SnapGear however has you login as root to change things, they let you ssh into the box, they give you the source code on the CD included with the box for their embedded version of linux. IT doesn't even admin they are running linux....

So BRAVO Cyberguard and SnapGear, you're everything an embedded linux solution should be. IT-in-a-box... you should be ashamed.

Note: The previous post does not reflect the views of my company in any way. This is my own personal opinion, and should be read as such.