Equiinet's SentryPilot gateway features a comprehensive combination of anti-spam, anti-virus and URL content filtering functionality.
The device, designed for smaller and medium-sized corporates and branch office environments securing between 50 and 300 users, is a small format Intel-based server loaded with a gigabyte of memory and an 80GB hard disk running Linux.
The unit can be set up as a main internet gateway, or alternatively plugged into a networked client, hub or switch.
It comes with well-written and clear set up instructions.
Equiinet has attempted to create a best-of-breed system that will bring together standalone products, including SpamCop's anti-spam offering, Sophos's anti-virus, together with web and content filtering from N2H2.
SpamCop acts as the first line of defense by running checks on all incoming emails against blacklists of known spammers. A second line of attack comes with Spam Assessment, which scans the actual content of mail against a pre-loaded database of 800 known spam characteristics.
The anti-virus module based on technology from Sophos, features both email and a boundary scanning anti-virus options that enable blocking of virus or suspicious file downloads received by email and from the web.
Web filtering, which enables administrators to control which web addresses are accessible to network clients, is achieved using technology from content-filtering firm N2H2. Using this module, it is possible to set up and maintain blacklists of undesirable sites, which are automatically blocked.
Despite having an internal firewall of sorts, the manual recommends being deployed in an environment where a firewall already exists.
