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It's been over 2 days, 44 reads, and no response. Perhaps people would need to know more details about what you don't like regarding SurfControl and what features you are seeking (some of which might also be part of SurfControl) before they could offer helpful/meaningful insight.
I guess you're looking for an enterprise solution (though I'm sorry I am not familiar with such from an IT administrator's perspective).
Besides Barracuda (spelled with two r's BTW), here's another possible solution.
Since it appears you can currently obtain a "free evaluation unit" from Barracuda, maybe you can use that promotion to convince St. Bernard to competitively do the same for you so you can compare.
Thanks for the reply. Surf Control is no longer supported and was dicontinued. I am just looking for insight from anyone that uses Barracuda or a like product. i am in a high school enviroment so I need something that I can really lock down for the students but not so much for the teachers
Below is a run down of my recent evaluation of most filters including many in the roundup above. They recommend the iBoss Enterprise which I found to be a fantastic web filter with robust features. Below is my breakdown of the notes I took during my evaluation. Hope this helps:
I previously ran a surf control and was in the same predicament as you are when websense wanted to jack up my rate. Anyhow, I have evaluated 6 filters earlier this year including the Barracuda.
Barracuda Web Filter was very archaic in my eyes. Not terrible but when if you are going from a surf control, you will not be happy. Very basic, many of the features they claim to have when I was shown the interface on the sales call turned out not available or worse yet they had to control them form me. For example, something simple like a block page I was not able to do but they would do it for me. I like having control. Also, during my evaluation, the unit started to slow down and the interface was almost un navigable. I found they are basically caching everything which explained the issue. Not good if you have a decent connection. It was not good at application blocking, reports were too basic and only stored for about 16 hours before disappearing
Not a layer 7 filter only a layer 3 filter so semi dated as most applications are smarter and seemed to bypass this filter easily. I my eyes buying a 10/100 based appliance today when 10/100/1000 is the standard. A bit dated.
Cost was low but inadequate filter.
8e6 was ok but ran as a tap. I had problems with proxies like Ultrasurf and the 8e6 could not really block this application (or the Barracuda for that matter) so not a good fit.
iPrism was a good filter and had most options. Interface was ok. Could not filter Ultrasurf.
Cymphonix simply kept crashing and dropping my network. That was pulled quickly.
iBoss Enterprise 2550 I found to have all the features included with no add ons. Provides Layer 7 filter including all P2P, and Web 2.0 applications. It actually has a network activity archive which stores all network activity down to individual users for about a year. I have not had it that long but that is what they est. So far its been a couple of months and I am able to access all reports from the iBoss on any day and find what each users activity was by directory name, IP, mac address. You can schedule reports including a daily run down of all network activity as a CSV, PDF, or HTML file which is really handy. It allows to create groups outside of AD and then create different schedules within them. They push firmware out and just updated to add QOS at no additional cost to my unit which was fantastic as it allows me to throttle by category, user, IP, group or even by domain which is priceless. Support is US based and very helpful. I highly recommend the iBoss Enterprise if you are looking to replace. BTW, they gave me a significant discount when I told them I was a current surf control customer which was fantastic.
It was very smooth. They have US Based support at no additional cost which was very good. It can deploy in many ways but I have it as an inline transparent bridge. You can also run as a tap/span or as an inline proxy but they recommend the bridge.
Also, I am integrating with AD but will work hybrid so I am able to filter/identify/control other computers (i.e. macs, linux) by MAC address identification. Its actually quite flexible.
Its an appliance so no need to run on the directory server like the standard websense which also offloads some weight on my AD server.
I just wanted to clarify that iPrism does dynamic proxy detection, including blocking UltraSurf and blocks spoofed SSL and anonymizers. We can help you configure the settings to make sure that Ultrasurf is blocked.
Boss - We would be happy to set you up with an evaluation unit so you can give iPrism a try or answer any questions you may have.
