Timothy
Parker Consulting Incorporated
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Net Integrator In the last few columns we’ve looked at turnkey
firewall-gateway-server solutions, mostly Linux-based, and all designed for
essentially plug-and-play operation in small to medium business environments.
A recent arrival from Net Integration Technologies Inc. has caused a few
eyebrows to go up in my testing labs, not only because of the well-designed
package but also because of the rather amazing benchmark figures we recorded.
But I’m jumping ahead of myself. Net Integration Technologies Inc is a Toronto-region
manufacturer of the Net Integrator. Essentially,
the Net Integrator is a fairly standard PC hosting a 600MHz Pentium III
processor, a large hard drive bearing the Linux operating system, two
preconfigured Ethernet cards, a V.90 modem card, and an OnStream tape backup
unit. There’s nothing really
remarkable about the box and assembly other than it’s well put together with
everything a business could want. By
using a standard PC architecture instead of a proprietary chassis like some of
the other plug-and-play servers we’ve looked at, there’s a future expansion
capability that is attractive. After unpacking, we plugged the Net Integrator into my
usual network, connected the Ethernet card to the LAN, plugged the power in (you
can ignore the keyboard, mouse and monitor ports completely) and turned the unit
on. The front panel of the Net
Integrator has a unique LCD panel with a few simple surface push buttons for
manipulating the display. The front
panel shows the boot process as the unit powers up. A few minutes later, the Net
Integrator returned a guess at an available IP address on my subnet (something
many other plug-and-play devices don’t bother doing: they force you to input
an IP address). This discovery
routine takes a few minutes but may make installing by non-network people even
easier. As it happens, I wanted to
change the proposed IP address, which was a trivial process using the front
panel switches. The system
dynamically adjusts to the new IP address, and then any Web browser on the
network can log into the Net Integrator. After setting a login and password, the Net Integrator main
menu is displayed in a Web page. The
default page is a summary of the system and shows loads on all the components
(memory, CPU, hard drive, and Ethernet ports; very handy!) and how many sessions
are active. The page refreshed
automatically providing a constant view of the system.
Other pages easily accessed from the menu allow you to configure the
different aspects of the Net Integrator. All the usual features are available: DNS server, DHCP
server, and SNMP server. You can configure e-mail systems using POP, SMTP, and
IMAP. You can allow FTP and
anonymous FTP service, Web server (using Apache), as well as Apple and Windows
File Server setups. Except for
support for the Apple File Server, this is all normal.
Then we get to the VPN setup. Virtual
Private Networks are a cinch to configure with Net Integrator, and can be
running in about three minutes. Another neat feature is a Soft Update capability
which allows the Net Integrator to check for software updates automatically
(presumably on the manufacturer’s Web site).
The Net Integrator has a Fast Forward feature which is essentially a port
forwarding service or proxy service. This
allows specific packets arriving at the Net Integrator to be forwarded to any
other IP address for processing. The menu-driven interface provides for backup and restore
from the OnStream device, holding 30GB of compressed data (15GB native). The
backup can be launched from the front panel as well, making it easy to get into
a routine. All you need do is
insert a tape and the rest is automatic unless you abort the backup. In the time I tested the Net Integrator is worked
flawlessly and I was impressed with the simplicity of the design and the user
interface. The documentation is
very good, with lots of advice for installers on securing the configuration
properly. The firewall software
built into the Net Integrator will be sufficient for all but the most demanding
locations, and while it is not as flexible and configurable as much more
expensive firewall packages, it is more than suitable for e-business. So all of this sounds good so far. Then the load testing began.
To load test the Net Integrator I installed it on a small network with
five clients, all running scripts designed to emulate the load of 100 people.
This includes automated scripting for Web and file requests, bogus and malformed
IP packets (to test the firewall), and telnet and X sessions (where applicable).
I also had on the same network the Rebel NetWinder and Phoenix Adaptive
Firewall system loaded on a Cobalt Networks Qube (both of which have appeared in
earlier columns). I started the
load scripts aiming at each of the three devices, and watched responses. The Net Integrator astounded me with its load capability,
although to be fair it has more horsepower and memory than the other two
devices. The 600MHz CPU and 133MHz FSB (front side bus) surely helped the
performance. A quick summary: the
Net Integrator handled roughly eight times the number of requests of the other
two boxes. Network throughput was
higher, as was disk storage and retrieval times (by about four or five times).
In every measure, the Net Integrator was faster than the Netwinder and Qube. Is the Net Integrator the best of the turn-key solutions I’ve tested so far? Yup. Check it out for yourself and see. It’s not as inexpensive as some of the alternatives, but the price-performance and the clean interface and configurability makes this a no-brainer. |
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