SteelCloud Soars In Security

The days of businesses adopting shrink-wrapped antivirus solutions capable of shielding them from all threats are long gone. Organizations today have no choice but to adopt turnkey solutions capable of protecting infrastructure at both the gateway level and the desktop.

SteelCloud has developed a series of fully integrated all-in-one hardware and software network appliances, available for enterprises and SMBs.

CRN Test Center engineers evaluated the company's enterprise-level unit, the AVG 5000. The one feature of the unit that stood out the most was how well it handled throughput, looking at how many threats the unit could repel without hindering network traffic.

Engineers evaluated the performance of the device by measuring how efficiently it handled all traffic generated through six network clients, each equipped with a NIC, Microsoft Windows Professional 2000/XP and Internet Explorer 6.0. The appliance's 10/1000 NIC was connected to a Compaq Gigabit Ethernet switch so that the server's NIC simultaneously received HTTP requests from three of the clients and FTP requests from the remainder.

An in-house LoadRun program was used to generate file requests according to a script written for each client. The order of the file names inside each client script was unique to prevent two or more clients from requesting the same file simultaneously.

The company ships the AVG 5000 with a hardened version of Windows Server and designed the 2U rack-mountable box around Computer Associates International's eTrust A/V solution, which uses the InnoculatIT and Vet engines. The unit ships with the entire antivirus suite so that customers can run InnoculatIT at the gateway and Vet at the desktop and server, offering two layers of security. The antivirus software offers protection of data in the four main Internet protocols: SMTP, POP3, HTTP and FTP.

The AVG 5000 is tuned for performance, hardened for security, easy to manage and was designed solely to run the eTrust software. The unit is ready to use out of the box and offers a wide range of features, including up to 500-user support for e-mail, backup, security, firewall services and remote administration.

Setup of the unit can be accomplished in a reasonable amount of time as long as careful preinstallation steps are taken. Documentation is extensive and consists of a quick start card that points installers to preinstallation procedures as well as post-installation procedures. Configuring the CA software will take more effort than initial hardware setup for most installers.

SteelCloud unveiled its single-tier channel program last year. The company is leveraging CA's channel organization and approaching its channel partners. CA also sells the product.

SteelCloud provides sales training, customized sales goals and objectives, brochures, presentations, white papers, Web seminars for end customers and marketing assistance. Sales and technical training are provided to each reseller as soon as it is signed up. The company prefers to do live training, but also has training prepared for Web delivery.

The product provides a 90-day base, full hardware and software support with maintenance agreement. The average solution provider margin is 25 percent.

CHANNEL PROGRAM SNAPSHOTS
>AVG 5000

COMPANY: SteelCloud
Dulles, Va. 20166
(703) 450-0400
www.steelcloud.com
DISTRIBUTORS: Arrow MOCA
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CHANNEL RATING:

Note: Vendors can earn up to five stars for technical merit and five for their channel program. If the average of these two scores is four stars or greater, the product earns CRN Test Center Recommended status.