Facilitating simplified rollout of award-winning Barracuda Web Filter, Barracuda Networks Inc., has expanded authentication capabilities of its product line with Novell (News - Alert) eDirectory, an identity management and policy control tool used by many Fortune 500 companies as well as educational organizations. With this upgrade, Barracuda Web Filter can perform transparent, single-sign-on authentication.

 

For those customers who already have Novell eDirectory deployed on their networks, using the Barracuda Web Filter is a seamless experience as the web filter does not require installation of any desktop or server software. Barracuda claims that unlike the competing companies, the customers of Barracuda will get unique benefits such as ease of use and set up. For example, Caldwell School District in Caldwell, Idaho, selected Barracuda Web Filter as it was important for the school to keep the network usage model simple as well easily log the Internet activity of its more than 6,300 students. The school did not want the hassle of installing individual client software on each desktop PC.

 

Without any per user licensing fees, the Barracuda Web Filter is available in six models and pricing starts at $1,499. International pricing varies based on region. The company says the expanded eDirectory authentication is currently available in limited production and will be generally available in July.

 

“While the Barracuda Web Filter has long supported transparent authentication with Active Directory and NTLM, we are excited to extend this support to Novell eDirectory environments,” said Stephen Pao, vice president of product management for Barracuda Networks (News - Alert). “With these new capabilities, the Barracuda Web Filter automatically integrates with the Novell eDirectory server to detect user log-in events, gather user credentials and apply appropriate network security and management policies for individual users on the network.”

 

Recently, Barracuda launched a new version of its Barracuda Spam Firewall appliance aimed at large enterprises and Internet service providers. The Barracuda Spam Firewall 1000 supports up to 100,000 concurrent e-mail users and 5,000 domains in a single appliance, making it the largest of the appliances in the product line so far.