selfhosted-education/network/firewalls.md

layout	parent	nav_order	title
default	Network Solutions	1	Firewalls

Firewalls, Bandwidth Management and Link Aggregation and Failover

Overview

A firewall is a hardware + software solution that connects and shares Internet bandwidth with your local network. It isolates and protects the local network from the Internet and also allows you to securely expose specific applications, services and servers on the local network.

A bandwidth management solution helps you monitor your bandwidth usage and then allows you to define bandwidth and Internet usage priorities and policies.

A link aggregation and failover solution lets you connect multiple Internet links to your firewall so that you can have more bandwidth available to users on the local network. This also means that you don’t rely on a single Internet link or ISP for your Internet connectivity needs.

Common Problems

• You have a firewall but you need to repeatedly call a service provider or vendor to manage the rules for you.

• You have a lot of Internet bandwidth but your Internet usage and experience is slow.

• When large or bulk files are repeatedly downloaded, it causes a slowdown for other users.

• It is impossible to account for your bandwidth utilisation.

• When your main Internet link goes down, or is slow, it cuts off the entire network from the Internet

• You are having to depend on third-party ISPs to provide high- speed and unrestricted access to the Internet

• Even when you have multiple links to the Internet, you might not be able to use them all at the same time. Or specify policies on who can use which one at what time.

Benefits

• No dependency on 3rd party for firewall management.

• No risk of usage data being sent to a firewall vendor's cloud setup for analysis – thereby, ensuring better privacy for users

• Optimal utilisation of all the available Internet links simultaneously and automatic failover

• Fair sharing of bandwidth amongst users so that prioritised traffic and users always get the required bandwidth

• Actionable Internet utilisation reports

• Caching of frequently accessed content from the Internet saves bandwidth and improves user experience

• Extended caching of bulk content like OS updates, Anti-Virus updates etc

• Granular Web Access controls depending on user, time of day, day of week, content-type, request-type etc

• Logs can be retained for as long as required for data and trend analysis

• User identity and authentication is mapped from a singular, campus-wide service that is used for all other applications as well