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NetScreen Technologies Inc.’s NetScreen-Security Manager offers solid centralized firewall policy and VPN distribution capabilities to companies that have numerous NetScreen firewall/VPN appliances. NetScreen administrators who want to deploy next-generation security services will find NSM to be an indispensable management and deployment tool.

NetScreen Technologies Inc.’s NetScreen-Security Manager offers solid centralized firewall policy and VPN distribution capabilities to companies that have numerous NetScreen firewall/VPN appliances. NetScreen administrators who want to deploy next-generation security services will find NSM to be an indispensable management and deployment tool.

However, there are few options for full multiplatform firewall management. NetScreen appliances integrate with NetIQ Corp. firewall forensics solutions, and Solsoft Inc. offers a policy management platform. But eWEEK Labs believes the best bet is to either write a custom application to NetScreen’s flexible command-line interface or deploy NSM.

NSM, which shipped last month, refreshes the earlier NetScreen Global Pro management product line, adding support for NetScreen’s ScreenOS 5.0-based appliances and increased management delegation capabilities. ScreenOS 5.0, NetScreen’s latest appliance firmware, brings application-level deep filtering and anti-virus scanning to the table.

NSM costs $5,995 to manage 10 NetScreen appliances. A single NSM server can manage a maximum of 1,000 devices for $55,995. Companies with active support contracts for NetScreen Global Pro products may convert to NSM free of charge.

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