A firewall is a part of a computer system or network that is designed to block unauthorized access while permitting authorized communications. It is a device or set of devices configured to permit, deny, encrypt, decrypt, or proxy all (in and out) computer traffic between different security domains based upon a set of rules and other criteria.
- Filter unwanted traffic coming into your network, like viruses and worms.
- Filter unwanted traffic leaving the network like p2p traffic that utilizes a lot of bandwidth
- High availability firewalls with automatic fail over between Internet links
- QoS (Quality of service) ensuring high packet priority such as VoIP
Proxy Server
In computer networks, a proxy server is a server (a computer system or an application program) that acts as an intermediary for requests from clients seeking resources from other servers. A client connects to the proxy server, requesting some service, such as a file, connection, web page, or other resource, available from a different server.
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Cache Internet content locally saving on Internet bandwidth.
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Dynamic web content filtering. Keep your employees off sites that degrade productivity, like Facebook, youtube and twitter.
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Only permit certain web sites during certain hours of the day.
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Block bad web content, like pornography using regular expressions and keywords.
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Speed up web browsing for all employees by caching content being accessed by multiple LAN nodes.
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Advanced reporting on exactly who in your ogranisation accessed which web sites.