me it was one of the few=A0affordable solutions competing with Packeteer, a=
nd their one-price model was more appealing and affordable than SonicWall's=
.=A0=A0 It was a very good experience and I would recommend looking at them=
, however after 3 years I am sure the competition is stiffer.=0A=0APros:=0A=
--Detailed reporting and logging.=A0 I could maintain logs on=A0all=A0netwo=
rk activity for a full year (320 students and 100 faculty)=A0and go back th=
rough the history of individual machines.=A0=A0It also has good high level =
reporting that can help you=A0understand your traffic better and make good =
shaping decisions.=A0 =0A--Pretty charts and graphs.=A0 It shouldn't make a=
difference but it does.=A0 The crisp, professional looking data made an im=
pression on non-technical people, especially=A0parents.=A0 It also made it =
easy=A0to show my browsing history to students at the beginning of the year=
to help them understand the information that was being collected or could =
be collected on any network.=0A--AD integration was solid as was filtering.=
=0A--Individual machines are=A0IDed by MAC address, AD, DNS or a custom nam=
e you assign.=A0 This was especially helpful with our students laptops.=0A=
=0ACons:=0A--The interface mostly worked with Safari, but every so often yo=
u needed IE.=0A--iBooks and macs were only picked up by MAC address and I h=
ad to manually label them for ID purposes.=0A--The built in firewall was an=
emic, especially the VPN (Hopefully this has=A0changed over 3 years)=0A--Th=
e options for setting times for traffic shaping were somewhat limited.=A0 E=
xample=A0you could not set multiple times per day to allow students expande=
d bandwidth to IM (i.e. before and after school).=A0 These have likely impr=
oved as well.=0A____________________________=0AJason at jasonpj@yahoo.com =
=0A=0A=0A=0A=0A________________________________=0AFrom: "Hennel, David" <he=
nneld@notredameprep.com>=0ATo: ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU=0ASent: Wednesday, M=
arch 25, 2009 9:47:38 AM=0ASubject: Anyone using Cymphonix=0A=0AHello All, =
=0A=0A=0A=0AWe are looking at=A0 Cymphonix Network Composer (www.cymphonix.=
com) as a=0Asolution to help shape our internet traffic and maximize our li=
mited=0Abandwidth.=0A=0AOur main goal is to prioritize teachers and educati=
onal web use over the=0Anon-educational web traffic (streaming media ,ect) =
that is currently=0Ataking place on campus. Ultimately I would also like to=
retire my linux=0Aweb proxy (squid) and would look to this device for our =
content=0Afiltering as well. =0A=0A=0A=0AIf anyone has a good or bad experi=
ence with this product could you=0Aplease let me know.=A0 We are planning o=
n demoing the product if anyone is=0Ainterested I would be happy to give my=
feedback as well. =0A=0A=0A=0ADavid Hennel=0A=0ANetwork Administrator=0A=
=0ANotre Dame Prep School=0A=0ATowson, Maryland =0A=0A443-921-2855=0A=0A=0A=
=0A=0A[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]=0ASubmissions to=
ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution, non-commercial,=
share-alike license.=0ARSS Feed, http://listserv.syr.edu/scripts/wa.exe?RS=
S&L=3DISED-L=0A=0A=0A=0A
[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
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