So over the past few months I have been shopping for a good Internet filtering solution.
My few requirements:
- Must integrate with AD (mainly so I don’t have to recreate every user)
- Must be an appliance, there were a lot of good software solutions or creating our own proxy kind of things but I don’t have time for that since we only have 2 techs for 200+ users in a medical facility.
- Needs to work well with Citrix & Terminal Services
- Good reporting
- Price (this according to our bosses, all 27 doctors, is the most important)
There are actually a few decent options out there but after 3 months of comparing, researching, webinars, live demos, and talks with sales people (who will tell you the appliance cooks your meals & gets you dates, if it will get you to buy) & techs, I narrowed the field to 3.
St. Bernard iPrism, Barracuda Networks Web Filter and the Cymphonix Network Composer.

All three had most of the features I wanted. I was familiar with the iPrism from a previous job, and really liked it best at first but of the 3 it was the most expensive in the long run. I know the expression that “you get what you pay for” but then again sometime you pay more for a reputation and name than a solid product. The price for the yearly updates were more than double than the price updates AND instant replacement of the Barracuda.
When I first started looking the Cuda had virtually no reporting and AD integration was iffy… but I already have a Barracuda Spam Filter on our network…

(sorry, side note here: the Barracuda Spam Filter is a very cool and helpful gadget. I have never found one that blocks 100% of Spam and anyone who says theirs does is a flat out LIAR…however this one gets so close it is scary)

…and being familiar with the interface was a plus. The more detailed reporting and much better AD integration were promised and by the time I was ready to buy, had came up to the standards I wanted.
The Cymphonix was, honestly, the most interesting and comprehensive option of the three. It honestly did too much. The reporting was very detailed and it had some very cool network traffic analysis features. The catch with the Cymphonix was the way it worked with Terminal Services and Citrix I was going to get charged virtually doubled the per seat cost. Simply put, this means that for my 200 concurrent users I would need 400 “seats” (licenses). Then again the sales guy I talked too read off a script pretty much, which is the most annoying thing to someone who actually knows about technology… So, yes, I went with the Barracuda. I will be installing it next week so I’ll post more on this later. Feel free to ask any questions about my decision and I’ll try to reply here. Cheers!