Netgear FVS336G Dual WAN Gigabit VPN Firewall

Netgear ProSafe FVS336G is a dual WAN Gigabit VPN Firewall supports up to 25 IPSec and 10 SSL VPN tunnels simultaneously.

Each of the entry point from the un-trusted network (aka the internet) to the private (corporate) network must be protected by a secure firewall to protect the internal assets against any types of internet based security risks. Small to medium businesses with distributed environment where each of the number of branch offices need to be connected to the headquarters office can implement affordable virtual connections via secure tunneling by means of VPN technology.

One of the network security best practices states that any sensitive data traversing a public link such as the Internet must be encrypted using VPNs. Network device configuration over public links should also be encrypted. Netgear ProSafe FVS336G VPN firewall router is an ideal solution for branch offices to connect to the HQ office.

What this Product Does

True VPN Supports

Netgear ProSafe FVS336G is a dual WAN router – a native VPN firewall support. It supports up to 25 secure VPN site-to-site tunnels using IPSec and up to 10 SSL VPN tunnels for remote users or Tele-workers or Telecommuter using VPN Client Software VPN01L with IPSec VPN tunnel.

Dual WAN
This dual WAN router includes two WAN gigabit ports you can connect to two different broadband ISPs for either load balancing or fail-over configuration. In a mission critical task when you demand a constant internet connection you can configure this VPN firewall to support fail-over mode. You can connect one gigabit WAN port to the Surfboard SBG6120 cable modem (with gigabit Ethernet port) as the primary WAN connection and the other gigabit WAN port connect to the ADSL modem as the fail-over connection when the primary connection fails to function.

In load balancing configuration, you can maximize the throughput by connecting both WAN ports to two different ISPs either Cable or ADSL services. The system will select the lines automatically based on the load.

To support more than two WAN ports you can consider TP-LINK TL-R488T which supports up to four WAN ports for load balancing. But this multi WAN router doesn’t support true / native VPN. Or you can consider SRX5308 Prosafe which supports Quad WAN Gigabit SSL VPN Firewall.

Gigabit Ethernet Ports

The ProSafe FVS336G VPN firewall includes four Gigabit Ethernet ports for LAN connection. You can connect the computers (with gigabit ports) direct to the router or you can add a gigabit switch for expanding the network to support more computers connects to the network. Compared with the FVS318g which includes eight gigabit Ethernet ports, this FVS336G includes less gigabit ports but it supports dual WAN gigabit ports.

Pros:

• Dual WAN for load balancing or fail-over
• Gigabit Ethernet ports
• Affordable VPN appliance for small offices or branch offices

Cons:

• Doesn’t support USB for cellular network (compared with ZyXEL ZyWALL USG50)

Click here for more details about FVS336G VPN Firewall manufacturer’s specs and description.

Comparison

There are few VPN – firewall routers in the market you may also consider such as Cisco RV120W; TP-Link TL-R4229G or Duolinks SW24. The following tables show main spec comparison for various dual WAN VPN routers.

Netgear ProSafe FVS336G Vs Cisco RV120W Vs Cisco RV082

Network Diagram

The figure above shows the simple networking diagram site-to-site VPN using Netgear FVS336G VPN firewall router which both WAN ports connect to the ISP for load balancing. A gigabit Switch is used to expand the network.

See also:

1. Check Point UTM-1 Appliance Series
2. Cisco RV082 dual-wan vpn router
3. Edimax EnduraLINK ER-1088 Multi WAN Routers
4. Cisco RV016 Multi WAN Routers with VPN
5. D-Link NetDefend DFL-860 UTM Security Firewall