Comprehensive evaluation of USG gateway for small and medium sized escort enterprises

For small and medium-sized LAN, because the network structure is relatively simple, the number of hosts is less, often ignoring the security of the network construction, resulting in hackers and malicious elements can easily invade. Recently, international well-known network equipment manufacturers combined with the technology launched a few suitable for small and medium-sized network security equipment, today we will introduce its unified security Gateway Zywall USG100.

Fig. 1, integrated Technology Unified Security Gateway: Zywall USG100

Test Product Introduction

Product Name: ZyXEL Unified Security Gateway (USG100)

Product Summary: Multi-function Network unified Threat Management (UTM) equipment

Product Advantages:

• Support for multiple routing networks

• Detailed and comprehensive firewall control

• Gigabit Ports

• Support for 3G WWAN

• Enable VLAN functionality

Product Disadvantage:

Poor coordination of VPN

• No SSL VPN Vista client

• Mega Frames not supported (Jumbo frame)

• Longer restart time

VPN throughput capacity is relatively low

At the same time, USG100 launched a unified security gateway products, as well as USG200, USG300 and USG1000. According to the technology, the security product family is the most complete security platform for small and medium sized enterprises, which can provide enterprise-class security for small and medium sized networks with 10 computers to 300 computers.

In this article, I'll introduce the USG100 Unified security Gateway, which has 10 to 25 users for the enterprise network. It supports dual-WAN port connections, supports 3G wireless connections, supports multiple VPN technologies, has high availability failover capabilities, supports intrusion detection and protection, supports anti-spam, virus and content filtering, and also has a wealth of network management tools, It is a device designed to provide complete network protection through a single security device.

Fig. 2 schematic diagram of USG100 working principle

Given that it has so many features, I'll split the review article into two parts. In this review article, I will evaluate the USG100 network and VPN capabilities. In a subsequent review article, I continued to evaluate its security and unified threat management capabilities.

Exterior and interior design

First, let's look at the design of USG100, which is 242 (wide) x175 (long) x35.5 (high) mm, on the silver-gray metal front panel with two USB ports and 7 Gigabit Ethernet ports, the two sides are bright red decorative areas. It is worth reminding you that these two USB ports are not used to plug the flash memory or other storage devices, but to connect the 3G card.

Figure 3 is its back panel, with an auxiliary modem port, a terminal console configuration port, a PCMCIA 3G Wwan card slot, and a power socket.

Figure 3, USG100 rear panel