Check Point boosts management with SmartCenter

At its Experience conference, being held in Dublin through Friday, Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. offered its customers two new management products designed to make their lives easier The new tools, SmartCenter and SmartCenter Pro, are centralized firewall and VPN (Virtual Private Network) management consoles designed to give users a single location from which to manage Check Point products, security policies and OPSEC (Open Platform for Security) -compliant offerings, said Greg Smith, director of product marketing at the company, based in Redwood City, California. By centralizing the functions of a number of the company's offerings into the SmartCenter products, users will save time and money administering their networks, he said.

SmartCenter will include the management console and policy management features, whereas SmartCenter Pro offers those capabilities along with LDAP (lightweight directory access protocol) access to user information and the ability to automatically download and remotely install software updates and patches, he said.

The company expects that larger enterprises will be the first customers to adopt the new products as they have the most installations to manage, and thus more cost savings to realize, Smith said.

Both products are immediately available. SmartCenter costs US$14,000, with SmartCenter Pro tipping the scales at $18,000.