Sixteen vendors claim to support virus scanning and URL blocking, both features that were unheard of in firewalls only two years ago. Some high-end options, such as failover and SNMP management, are still rare. External monitoring is a little more common, with products from ANS, Bay, Check Point, Cisco, OneBOX, Trusted Information Systems, NetGuard and Technologic, Inc. connected to SNMP management agents. Twelve vendors' products intelligently scan logs, while 17 let network managers use time-based access controls. We think creating a single point of failure for highly divergent functions is unwise, but the market will make its own decision in the coming months.
Today there are numerous proposed security standards for VPNs.
Key management is also still up in the air. While you might not want your firewall to take on routing chores, given the complexity of corporate networks, the firewall may have to know how to route in order to fit it in. With so many choices and with standards still to be set, you may be tempted to wait, knowing that prices will drop. Don't give in to that temptation. Design a security policy, then find the firewall that's available today that lets you implement it best.