Full Featured Firewall

eSoft's InstaGate firewall has all of the features and security a business could want in a firewall with an intuitive graphical management interface.

Graphical Configuration

The graphical interface allows for firewall policies to be defined with ease. Policies can be created between pre-defined networks (WAN, LAN, DMZ, etc.) or custom networks and VPNs. Policies can accept, reject, redirect, and more.

Graphical Reporting

The reporting on the InstaGate is second to none. ThreatMonitor provides bandwidth usage, amount of bandwidth being used for different protocols (web traffic versus ftp traffic, etc.), inbound and outbound traffic by day, and traffic between interfaces such as LAN to DMZ, DMZ to WAN, etc.

Additionally, full logging support is available so an administrator can log the address of anyone who accesses a particular service or machine.

Stateful Packet Inspection (SPI)

InstaGate's firewall uses Stateful Packet Inspection (SPI), which keeps track of the state of network connections and makes accept and reject decisions based on state, as well as packet information such as source address, protocol, port, etc.

Deep Packet Inspection (DPI)

Together with any ThreatPak, the InstaGate gains Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) capabilities. DPI means that the InstaGate is application aware and scans not just the envelope information, but the data part as well, scanning for dangerous content, viruses, intrusion attempts, and more.

InstaGate 806

Super-fast Throughput

eSoft's firewall is blazingly fast and can sustain connection speeds at nearly 1 Gbps.

Network Address Translation (NAT)

InstaGate provides full NAT services including SNAT and DNAT. The most common form of NAT is a mechanism by which an entire network can share a single public IP address. Requests to the Internet from any computer on the local network appear to come from the same machine, from the perspective of the Internet server. The InstaGate includes a DHCP server for automatically assigning IP addresses to computers that connect to the local network.

In addition to the standard NAT, the InstaGate will map internal IP addresses to different external IP addresses (SNAT policies), will allow incoming traffic to different IP addresses to be mapped back to internal computers, and allows for port redirection so a packet coming to a public IP address and port 80 could be mapped to an internal IP address and port 82, for example.

“The Web-based interface is easy to learn with wizards and a logical layout.”
— Greg Crowe, Government Computer News

As with all of the InstaGate's advanced functionality, the details of the implementation are hidden behind an elegant, award-winning, web-based user interface that makes managing complex features easy for even a non-technical person.

Demilitarized Zone (DMZ)

The InstaGate has full support for a DMZ including a dedicated DMZ port, policies specific to the DMZ with stricter policies for traffic coming from the Internet than traffic coming from the local network. The InstaGate also supports DMZ to WAN and LAN to DMZ network address translation.

Domain Name System (DNS)

The InstaGate automatically caches DNS lookups -- the lookups that turn a domain name like example.com into an IP address -- to reduce bandwidth and accelerate access to the Internet.

Bandwidth management with QoS

InstaGate 404e, 404, 604, and 806 models provide Quality of Service (QoS), allowing IT managers to prioritize traffic and employ bandwidth management according to network, IP, protocol, or port for more control of network resources. Administrators can specify a rate limit in kbps, and a priority of Low, Normal, or High for any service, source address, destination address, or combination of these.

High Availability

eSoft's optional High Availability SoftPak provides automatic failover from your company InstaGate to an online backup InstaGate, also known as a hot standby. The backup InstaGate monitors the health of the primary InstaGate and activates when it detects a failure, ensuring that your network remains connected to the Internet and protected by the firewall. Once activated, the backup InstaGate continues to monitor the health of the primary InstaGate and reverts to backup status when the primary InstaGate becomes available. High Availability requires the purchase of a second InstaGate.

Multiple Public IP Addresses

Multiple public IP addresses are fully supported allowing a company with a block of public IP addresses to use them all while protecting all of their public machines from Internet threats.

Internet Failover/ Dual WAN

The InstaGate optionally comes with the Internet Failover SoftPak, which is insurance that your organization will not be crippled by an interruption in your Internet service. Internet Failover monitors your network for Internet connectivity and automatically switches over to a second provider when an outage is detected. Once regular service is restored, the Instagate automatically switches back to the primary connection. During normal operations when both Internet connections are functioning, traffic is balanced across both WAN interfaces.

VoIP Support

For the increasing number of organizations deploying VoIP solutions, the InstaGate appliances support SIP and H.323 protocols and detect VoIP attacks for more advanced security.

PPPoE Support

Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet (PPPoE) is frequently used by ISPs who provide ADSL connections as a way to get a business to authenticate with the ISP before getting access to the Internet.

Routing

The InstaGate supports statically defined routes for more sophisticated network configurations involving multiple networks and gateway devices.