Greetings! Wohoo - and there is a third category, that falls into the middle of both: it's pre-packed hard&software. Not as closed as classical appliances (SonicWall, WatchGuard, NetScreen, ...), they are sometimes not more than pre-packed PC+software (Nokia/CheckPoint, Pyramid/CheckPoint, Pyramid/Astaro, Celestix/Astaro). Not flesh nor fish. For the two other categories - as many before said: the main difference is pre-packed (appliance) vs. pluck-together-yourself. It's the same as with stereo equipment: choose between an integrated all-included boom-box or dedicated pieces wired together. I for myself needed to loop in my mixing desk, recording equipment, PC, etc. - so my music system is composed of dedicated pieces, wired according to my specific needs. No chance to do that with a boom-box (or "integrated hifi system"). The same applies to appliances vs. "software" - if the appliance does not fit your needs you are out of luck. No way to fudge around it as it's all packed and sealed. OTOH you don't need to know how to work into the internals - as it's all packed and sealed. If you need special remote-admin / real-time-log-evaluation / monitoring you probably are better of with a "software". If you (or your customers) are not as tech-savy in the field you're probably safer with a sealed appliance. Bye Volker Tanger IT-Security Consulting -- discon gmbh Wrangelstraße 100 D-10997 Berlin fon +49 30 6104-3307 fax +49 30 6104-3461 volker.tangerat_private http://www.discon.de/ _______________________________________________ firewall-wizards mailing list firewall-wizardsat_private http://honor.icsalabs.com/mailman/listinfo/firewall-wizards
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