The Trend Micro Enterprise Security for Gateways is driven by the InterScan Web Security Virtual Appliance. This virtual appliance can be installed on both a bare metal system or inside a VMware virtual machine. The appliance itself features protection against malware, spam and other malicious content at the gateway to keep it from penetrating into the network environment.
The installation and setup of the appliance is quite straightforward and does not take long at all. We installed it using a bare metal server and found the installation of the system itself to be simple and intuitive. After installation is complete, all administration is done via the web-based interface. The appliance does not have very much in the way of pre-configuration, and post-installation configuration is all done manually without the help of setup wizards. However, we did find the web interface to be easy to navigate and we were able to configure the appliance with very little trouble at all.
Flexibility is the key word for this appliance. It can plug into a multitude of existing infrastructures, including Active Directory, LDAP, Cisco Routers and ICAP servers. Policies can be easily created to be as granular as needed, and the Web Security Virtual Appliance can perform URL filtering, HTTP scanning, FTP scanning, access quotas and web access control.
Documentation included installation and administrator guides. The installation guide provides detailed instructions on planning, pre-deployment, integration and installing the software. The administrator's guide picks up from there and provides in-depth configuration of features and policies. Both guides include many screen shots, diagrams and step-by-step instructions.
Trend Micro provides both phone and email technical support Monday through Friday 5 a.m. to 8 p.m. PT as part of a maintenance contract. However, additional 24/7 support may be purchased at an additional fee. The website also features a free support area, which includes a knowledge base and documentation downloads.
At a price of about $35 per user for up to 1,000 users, this product can be pricey given that the purchase of additional hardware may be necessary. Therefore, we find that this product is an average value for the money.
