Score: 3.31

Editor’s note: This is a summary of our testing of this product, for a full rundown of how it fared in our testing across 10 UTM categories, please see our full coverage.

The Proventia MX5010 is an amazingly fast IPS that outclassed the competition when it came to detecting the attacks we threw at it. Unfortunately, that world-class IPS is housed in a firewall and sporting management system that are not up to enterprise standards. Although our scorecard ranks the Proventia MX5010 high because of its performance and IPS catch rate, few enterprises would feel comfortable with such a primitive firewall at the edge or core of their networks.

The ISS heritage in high-end IPS has been packaged into the Proventia MX5010 with an absolute minimum of controls, probably too few for any enterprise manager to comfortably deploy this in front of a server farm or protecting thousands of users. But more important, the firewall in the Proventia MX5010 is just too oversimplified and uncontrollable for the complex security policy we expect to see in enterprise environments.

Whitepapers

• Selecting Effective Virtual Directories
• A Modern Approach to On-Demand Email and Data Security
• Best Practices for HP Servers and HP Enterprise Virtual Array in a Microsoft Exchange
• Compliance, Protection, Recovery: A Layered Approach to Laptop Security
• Endpoint Security: Data Protection for IT, Freedom for Laptop Users
• IT Departments on Data Security: A Research Concepts Survey

View more SECURITY whitepapers

Webcasts

• Key Considerations for a Successful 802.11n Deployment
• Solutions to the Toughest IT Challenges in Remote Offices
• Lowering the Cost of Email Archives
• High Availability for SQL Server 2005 Using Array-Based Replication and Host-Based Mirroring Technologies
• Technical Overview of Exchange Server 2007 with HP Servers and Storage
• Bringing Order and Security to your Mobile Workforce: Corporate Mobility Policy and Device Management On-Demand

View more SECURITY webcasts

Special Reports

• The Evolution of Network Security
• Taking Virtualization Up a Notch
• Learn how to Keep your Mobile Workforce Connected
• The self-managed network

View more SECURITY special reports