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Novell BorderManager Enterprise Edition 3.5

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PCQ Bureau
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Novell BorderManager Enterprise Edition 3.5



This security suite running in NetWare has a range of components that cover all aspects of network protection

Novell BorderManager 



Enterprise Edition 3.5

Network security software suite.



Price: Rs158,200 (50 users); Rs 237,402 (100 users); Rs 475,002 (250 users)

Features: VPN services; firewall; proxy with caching; remote access.

Pros: Very good access control; efficient caching services.

Cons: Requires sound NetWare skills for configuration at all stages. 

Source: Onward Novell India



 62 MIDC, 13th Street


Andheri (East)


Mumbai 400093. 


Tel: 22-8342244 


Fax: 8342223 


E-mail: apanjwani@novell.com  Website:
www.novell.com  





As the name suggests, this

network security suite from Novell protects the border between your company’s

intranet and the Internet. It can also be used to implement security between

intranets. BorderManager has a wide range of components that cover various

aspects of network protection. It has a firewall service that allows

packet-level filtering for all popular protocols. It has proxy services with

access-level control. There’s a VPN service for secure access to your

server over the Internet. It also has some remote access features.

If you don’t need all the

services of BorderManager, you can choose the components you want. For

example, you can purchase the proxy services if you want to share Web access

among users. Larger organizations can go for VPN services if they have

intranets in multiple locations, and want to connect them over the Internet.

Firewall services can be used to prevent unauthorized access to your company’s

network.

Though the product can also

be installed on a NetWare 4.x server, we checked it out on NetWare 5.

Interestingly, the installation is no longer done using the erstwhile dull

command line interface. It’s done through the graphical user interface of

NetWare 5, and is completely wizard-driven. The wizard allows a customized

installation, where you can click on the components to install, and

configure various other parameters as well. The server must be rebooted

after installation.Installation is quite

straightforward, but the setup and configuration is typical of Novell, and

requires sound NetWare skills. Most of the configuration information is

stored in the NDS (Novell Directory Services) database. Configuration can be

done through the NetWare Administrator utility or a server-based utility

called BRDCFG. Components have their own server-side utilities that have to

be configured. You’ll also need some of the native NetWare utilities like

INETCFG for configuration.

Like other Novell products,

this one too has extensive documentation that covers everything—planning,

installation, configuration, advanced setup options, etc. The documentation

is also available at Novell’s Website—www.novell.com/documentation/lg/bmee3.5/docui/index.html.

There’s separate documentation for each BorderManager component.

BorderManager’s caching

capabilities are pretty good. It requires about 500 MB of free hard drive

space for caching, and works very efficiently. You can define rights as to

who’ll be able to use the BorderManager services—right down to the user

level. Proxy services don’t require the BorderManager server to be

directly connected to an ISP. If you already have another Internet gateway,

an ISDN router for example, it can route all the client requests it receives

to that gateway.

VPN services can be

configured for site to site or client to site. For the former, you’ll need

BorderManager VPN services installed at both the locations you want to

connect. For example, if you have offices in Bangalore and Mumbai, you’ll

need to set up VPN services at both ends. This can then be used for

transferring sensitive information safely over the Internet. It encrypts and

encapsulates information before transmitting it. You’ll need a permanent

connection to the Internet for this service to work properly. For the client

to site setup, BorderManager comes with a separate client software that can

be used to connect to the BorderManager VPN server.

Firewall services can be used

to filter out traffic at packet level. So, you can deny access to specific

protocols like TCP/IP, NetBIOS, and IPX. The default configuration for this

disables all flow of traffic. We found this to be a little troublesome,

because all the clients using the server were denied access.

The software has extensive

logging capabilities. You can view the users who access the Internet through

BorderManager, as well as the sites being visited. You can also see which

service is being accessed at which port number.

Overall, the software is very

powerful and useful, but requires a lot of advanced planning and sound

NetWare skills, as configuration needs to be done in various places.

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