Switching businesses to a UTM - where to start?

[cstech]

I am starting up with a model that is geared towards small business management. So far what I have been working with is the very small business that has maybe 3 computers and a couple of printers. I am starting to get contacts at larger offices with more systems and some BYOD things. I am going to be helping them develop their disaster recovery plan as well as BYOD policies among other things. These businesses need some sort of UTM I know but I have not worked with them before. I have read many good reviews of Untangle and am very interested in using this as part of my solution. I am already setting up a server with active directory and some other services in my home office to learn about that. At this point I am looking for not just a "getting started" guide that shows you how to do stuff, but more of a why to do stuff. Thanks for any advice.

ps. I am saving up to get one of the small untangle appliances as well as some other devices to use for trials just right now don't have the capital. Still in bootstrap startup mode.

 

[nesrinamb]

You said you haven't played with them so I suggest you download the free version of untangle and start messing with it. You can build your own box or you can download the iso and mess with it in a VM environment.

Why you would do it is because computers in general get less viruses plus you can keep people from going to websites you don't want them on. Theirs also the intrusion prevention part of it.

 

[TAPtech]

all you need is an old desktop box with a second NIC to start playing with untangle. It's a lot like building a pfSense box if you've done that before.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

As for the "why use a UTM"....just go read the information at UTM websites such as Untangle. Go read up on it!

As for needing money to start learning it...nah...just grab an old dual core Pentium machine with a couple of gigs of RAM, and a 2nd NIC ...install it..and start playing with it. To REALLY learn more about it throw in several NICs...so you can really see how powerful Untangle is when you unleash it's power such as having multiple racks multiple policies, active directory connector, etc.

 

[Encrypted Existence]

I just went over to Untangle's website. "Introducing Untangle 10.0...know more about your network traffic than the NSA." That piece of advertisement alone makes me the company. Thanks for the info in this thread. I am at a point where I need to learn how to manage AD as well as other things like Untangle.