Nowadays, having a firewall in a small and medium-sized business environment is essential, with the aim of protecting ourselves from external threats, and also to ensure that the Internet network is being used correctly, since we can block any service that we want, such as browsing through social networks, video streaming and much more. Thanks to its complete software and unified threat management, we will have at our disposal great potential and capabilities to adapt to the needs of any company.
Firewall models and technical characteristics
The new family USG FLEX H from the manufacturer Zyxel Networks is made up of a total of six models, which adapt perfectly to the needs of companies. Depending on the number of clients, the firewall and VPN performance they need, as well as the number of ports, we have the possibility of choosing between several really interesting devices.
USG FLEX 100H
This advanced firewall has a total of 8 Gigabit Ethernet ports for WAN/LAN, since the software will allow us to configure the behavior of each port individually. This model is capable of providing performance in SPI firewall up to 3Gbps of speed, if we use UTM/IPS will provide us up to 750Mbps and in the case of having VPN tunnels we will have a performance of up to 750Mbps.
A very important aspect of this model is that it is completely fanless, we do not have any type of fan, so it is completely silent, perfect for any office. This model is compatible with Nebula which is Zyxel’s cloud management platform.
USG FLEX 100HP
This firewall has a total of 8 Gigabit Ethernet ports for WAN/LAN, as in the previous case, we can individually configure both the Internet WAN and the LAN. one of the ports Gigabit Ethernet incorporates PoE+, so it is capable of providing power of up to 30W using one port. Thanks to this PoE port, we can have Wi-Fi connectivity with a professional AP connected directly to the firewall, without having to buy a PoE injector or a PoE switch, saving a lot of money and also rack space.
As for speed characteristics with SPI firewall, UTM/IPS performance enabled and VPN, we have exactly the same figures as the previous model. The main difference between both models is that this one does have a PoE port to power equipment directly from the firewall. An important feature is that it is also fanless, perfect so that it does not make any noise.
USG FLEX 200H and 200HP
The USG FLEX 200H model is made up of a total of 6 Gigabit Ethernet ports for WAN/LAN and 2 2.5G Multigigabit ports for WAN/LAN. Thanks to Multigigabit speeds, we will be able to provide superior performance and create a trunk with manageable switches much faster than if we used Gigabit ports. The USG FLEX 200H model has exactly the same ports, but one of the Gigabit Ethernet ports has PoE+ up to 30W of powerIn this way, we can have very good versatility by being able to power a professional AP or an IP camera directly from the firewall.
Regarding the speed that we are going to be able to achieve, the performance SPI firewall reaches up to 5Gbps speed, performance UTM/IPS has up to 1.5Gbps of speed, and, finally, the speed of the VPN tunnels is up to 1.2Gbps. As you can see, we have great speed to satisfy the needs of companies. Of course, it has support for Nebula and manage it from the cloud, and it is also fanless.
USG FLEX 500H
This model belongs to the high range of firewalls, we have a total of 8 Gigabit Ethernet ports for WAN/LAN and 4 2.5G Multigigabit ports for WAN/LAN. In this case, we have increased the number of ports, including the Multigigabit ports that are necessary today if you have Internet connections faster than 1Gbps. Besides, two of these 2.5G Multigigabit ports incorporate PoE+ with up to 30W of power, perfect for powering new professional APs with Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E that usually have Multigigabit trunk ports to avoid bottlenecks.
Regarding the speed that we are going to be able to achieve, we will have a performance SPI firewall up to 10Gbps speedperformance UTM/IPS has 2.5Gbps speedand finally, the speed of the VPN tunnels is up to 2Gbps speed. Of course, this model is also fanless and management from the cloud is with Nebula.
USG FLEX 700H
This is the brand’s top-of-the-range model, we have a total of 8 Gigabit Ethernet ports for WAN/LAN, two 2.5G Multigigabit ports for WAN/LAN, 2 10G Multigigabit ports for WAN/LAN and also two SFP+ ports at 10Gbps speed. In total we have a total of 14 Ethernet ports. This USG FLEX 700H also has two Multigigabit ports with PoE+ up to 30W.
This model is the fastest of all, and a good example of this is that we will have a performance of SPI firewall up to 15Gbps speeda yield UTM/IPS up to 4Gbps speedand one VPN tunnel speed up to 3Gbps. This model is also fanless and is managed from the cloud with Nebula, like the rest of the models.
Once you know what this family is like at the hardware level, we are going to explain some of its software features.
Software Features
All members of this new family take advantage of AI-powered cloud intelligence to offer much more efficient multi-layer protection, as this new family enhances and optimizes the protection and performance of network traffic. Some built-in defense systems are sandboxing, built-in antimalware, DNS/IP/URL filtering, it also has a very advanced and configurable intrusion prevention system (IPS). Regarding VPNs, this model supports VPN protocols widely used in companies such as IPsec IKEv2 and SSL VPN. In addition, we have the possibility of having at our disposal the possibility of downloading the Zyxel Networks SecuExtender VPN Client, to greatly facilitate the configuration of the VPN clients that are going to connect to the organization.
All management of this firewall is done centrally through the cloud, using Nebula Cloud from the manufacturer Zyxel. Thanks to this, we will be able to deploy advanced configurations from the cloud, and in different headquarters, to later intercommunicate them without having to do it manually team by team. This new series of firewalls has been designed with the user experience in mind, so it has the new uOS operating system, a system with a simple, modern and intuitive interface, in addition, it improves usability in general and accelerates the response of the system when performing complicated configurations.
The version integrated into these firewalls includes the one-year Gold Security Pack license, which covers services such as sandboxing, reputation filter, web filtering, anti-malware, IPS, SecuReporter, Secure Wi-Fi (available from March 2024) and other functions.
