The Best Products Of 2008

Security Appliance WINNER: Sophos WS1000 So many security devices, so many promises. But Sophos' WS1000 really delivers. From initial setup to testing, this security appliance did not disappoint. When setting up the device for the first time, in a less-than-20-minute time frame, the device ran a configuration test, registered itself with Sophos' network and updated to the latest software downloaded from the vendor's software repository. The dashboard is resplendent with information on virus updates, Web traffic, bandwidth consumption and traffic patterns. Web traffic is represented in a gauge-type format—kind of like an odometer with a throughput reading that goes from 1 to 1,000 kbps. Latency is also represented this way on a scale from 1 to 1,000 ms. It is a quick and easy way to get an overview of bandwidth details and a nice deviation from standard pie charts and graphs. Reviewers were impressed with the URL testing capability in which a systems administrator inputs a URL into a field and the WS1000 reports back, giving the category of site it falls under (for example, Gambling or Adult). It also will report the security risk for that site. Sophos Labs scans every day for high-risk sites and updates its product based on this. Finding the latest threats is what this vendor is all about, and these folks take that very seriously. The WS1000's scanning capability differs from other scanning technologies, such as reputation scanning. Instead, the vendor uses behavioral genotype scanning, which catches unknown and zero-day threats by analyzing content pre-execution and analyzing the behavior of the code—sort of like picking up on the intent of the code rather than what the code does.

Storage WINNER: Netgear ReadyNAS Pro There was a time when a company that sought out 6TB of storage for its data management needs either ran a major international finance operation, was involved in deep scientific research, or had billions of dollars of revenue at stake. Today, that amount of data storage is obtainable for even mom-and-pop operations—and one product scales down better than others the Test Center has seen. Netgear ReadyNAS Pro is available in three Business Edition configurations—1.5TB, 3TB and 6TB. Our evaluation unit came loaded with three 500GB hard drives. There is also a Pioneer Edition that is diskless. All the drives are hot-swappable and, with current drive capacities reaching 1.5GB, it can support up to 9TB total. List prices on the device, depending on configuration, range from $2,000 to $4,100, putting massive amounts of storage within reach of even small IT budgets. Given the reliance of even the smallest businesses on data and storage, Netgear's product can put significant value into the hands of just about any business or workgroup.

Smartphone WINNER: iPhone 3G There's no ignoring the iPhone in the enterprise any more. With its iPhone 2.0 software launch earlier this year, Apple delivered tight integration between its handheld platform and Microsoft Exchange. Not only is Apple's iPhone now the fastest-selling smartphone in the market today, the device provides seamless integration across the firewall to corporate e-mail, calendaring and contacts. This was a critical functionality that was lacking in 2007 when the company initially launched the device. In addition, Apple's iTunes App Store provides offerings from hundreds of ISVs including Salesforce.com, and the device itself provides new GPS functionality. There has never been greater competition in the smartphone space, and with the T-Mobile G1 Android device as well as the BlackBerry Storm from Research In Motion, the iPhone wasn't a slam-dunk for the product of the year in this category for 2008. But even though the Apple iPhone isn't sold through the solution provider channel, the potential for it to lead to solution provider-directed rollouts, upgrades and continued maintenance largely on Exchange integration is a major development.

Antispam WINNER: MX Logic Email Defense Service With a simple, yet comprehensive management interface, excellent accuracy and distinctive features, the MX Logic Email Defense Service impressed us. It uses various, aggregated techniques to fight spam. It looks at different parts of the message, including the Sender ID record and contents, and applies a slew of analysis against it. Whitelists, blacklists and multilanguage filtering are just a few of the tools in its arsenal. In addition, by using a statistical Bayesian algorithm, MX Logic estimates the likelihood that a particular e-mail is spam by comparing how often its contents have previously appeared in spam e-mails. Confirmed spam is blocked, while legitimate messages are delivered. E-mails that may or may not be spam are stored in user-specific quarantines accessible online. Through the MX Control Console, a Web-based management interface, attachment and HTML filters can be selected. By default, MX Logic rejects messages flagged as high spam and quarantines medium messages. Since the service depends on the DNS entry having an updated MX record (redirected to MX Logic's servers), it took a few days before we were able to see results. Once everything was in place, though, our test account had only one message every few days in quarantine that was fit to release and whitelist, and only one spam message that squeaked through each day. MX Logic also offers a Message Continuity feature, where mail is queued if the mail server is down. Users can log in and read and reply to their messages even during an outage. Some solution providers use this feature as part of a planned migration when moving one mail server to another.

Product Of The Year WINNER: Intel Modular Server 2008 began with a bombshell from Intel: It unveiled the Intel Modular Server, a powerful, data-center-class system that integrated support for as many as six dual- or quad-core servers; enterprise-class storage and Layer 2 switching into a neat, easy-to-deploy box. The Intel Modular Server is the chip giant's response to solution providers for small or midmarket customers who need blade-server-level performance but can't afford blade-server-level complexity. From a design, performance and pricing perspective, the Test Center found the Intel Modular Server to be an intelligent, unique and market-leading approach to delivering significant performance to the channel. Let us know what you think about our choices, and your own favorite products this year, in our forum.