Tests of three market-leading firewall/virtual private networking devices by the engineer calibre testing outfit The Tolly Group puts Check Point Technologies Ltd's VPN-1 Pro ahead of rival systems from Cisco Systems Inc and NetScreen Technologies Inc.

The tests rated the performance of the $16,000 Check Point product as five times better in a supposedly 'real/world' mix of Layer 7 application traffic tests than the rival $65,000 and $35,000 product lines. UDP firewall benchmark tests and UDP VPN performance tests were also carried out by Tolly.

On the firewall side the VPN-1 Pro showed a 15% edge on the other products in 64-byte tests. In VPN tests using 3DES with firewall enabled, the product managed five times the throughput of the others, and in VPN tests using the Advanced Encryption Standard with firewall enabled VPN-1 Pro also set the pace. Tolly ranked the price-performance of the system as at least three times better than the others.

The assessment, perhaps unsurprisingly, was sponsored by Redwood City, California-based Check Point.

In related announcements, at the high-end of the firewall/VPN market, Richardson, Texas-based Intrusion Inc has added a VPN/security appliance built around Check Point's VPN-1/FireWall-1 NG software, in the shape of the $16,500 Intrusion PDS 7330 - a dual processor, dual bus system with six PCI slots for up to 20 Ethernet ports that is being targeted for use in enterprise and carrier grade data centers.

Meanwhile, WatchGuard Technologies Inc has announced plans to broaden the availability of its $499 firewall, VPN and broadband appliance for small office/home office product.

Already sold in the US, the Firebox SOHO 6, a 75 Mbps throughput firewall and 20 Mbps VPN can network up to ten computers to exchange e-mail and files, and to share a broadband Internet connection, printers and other peripherals. It will be sold worldwide with a mobile user VPN option that includes a personal firewall to protect laptops.

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