This is a user-friendly gateway-style appliance. Installation is made simple by an easy-to-follow setup wizard that sets up the initial port configuration for connecting to the internet and licensing the product. After setup, the intuitive web interface is used for all policy and device management.
The appliance has the look and feel of a basic gateway router, but appearances can be deceiving. It has some special features that add to its flexibility and power – packing a firewall, VPN, IPS and anti-virus into one well-integrated appliance.
It is fairly flexible in policy configuration, but most policies are set from low to high with slider bars. This makes it less flexible than others in its class, but this product is still useful.
Also available are options such as email anti-spam and vulnerability scanning.
We found that the combination of the ease of setup, intuitive interface, simple policy configuration, and integration of several very useful features makes this box perform quite well.
The VPN-1 Edge also includes some excellent logging and reporting features, which add to its performance value.
Documentation comes in the form of one large PDF file. Although the manual is organised sensibly, the table of contents is not hyperlinked, so finding specific information is only achieved by keyword searching the whole 500-page document. Beyond that, the configuration information is clear and well detailed, and comes with diagrams and screenshots.
Both technical and customer service support for this product are offered by phone and email. Other support options can be purchased to meet more focused support needs.
We felt that this product is good value for money. It offers nice functionality for a product in this class and is flexible enough to fit the needs of most networks.
