R80.x for SMB Appliances

[Mark_Mitchell]

Hi CheckMates,

Does anyone at Check Point or close to Check Point know if/when R80.x will be available for SMB appliances and also if it will support inline layers?

Cheers

Mark

[PhoneBoy · Accepted solution]

Planned for later this year.

See the CPX presentation:  SMB CPX 2019

[Mark_Mitchell]

Thanks Dameon. Slowly getting through all th CPX videos and slides. 

[HristoGrigorov]

From that same presentation became clear that the feature set that will be supported by R80.xx is already more or less determined. And for Gaia, CheckPoint will usually announce it (as it did for R80.20 for example). I expect to be the same for SMB. 

We want to know exactly what from R80.20 Gaia will be ported for Gaia Embedded  

And no need to take it as a promise. We know often plans change and features might have to be dropped in transit for different reasons...

[G_W_Albrecht]

Honestly, i would not expect that many currently unsupported features from GAiA will be ported to GAiA Embedded - so we certainly will receive a large document "R80.30 for SMB Known Limitations" 😉

Also, we have to differenciate between locally and centrally managed SMB devices: Centrally managed they already support many of the new R80.x0 features, but as locally managed devices they are strongly limited as we all know...

What we can find in the CPX Presentation as new announcements is:

- Mobile App (that i am already testing)

- IoT Security

- Geo Protection

- SMP as part of Infinity Portal

[HristoGrigorov]

I am waiting for the promised boost in VPN performance which implies using the dynamic scheduling which is very nice. Also improvements in HTTPS inspection are welcome. Oh yeah, and that automatic port scan and DoS protection. 🙂

[G_W_Albrecht]

Boost in VPN performance using the dynamic scheduling, improvements in HTTPS inspection, automatic port scan and DoS protection - on which roadmap is that listed ?

[HristoGrigorov]

R80.xx is a technology, not a firmware revision. Just like there is a Windows 10 for PC and Windows 10 for IoT for example. And of course nobody expects that hardware limits can be eliminated by software no matter how smart and slick it is. At least I don't.

That said there are technology improvements that do not necessarily depend that much on the hardware but more on other factors - marketing strategy, availability of RnD resources, customer demands, priorities, etc.

An example is the dynamic scheduler. As you know the current one do not utilize the CPU cores very efficiently. The VPN traffic is handled only by one core. The hardware is perfectly up to the task to do dynamic scheduling but it is just not feasible to back port it to R77.20 from R77.30. Once that happens the VPN traffic will be processed by more cores and that's where the boost will come from. Btw, check again the presentation from CPX (VPN boost it is promised there).

I never said that HTTPS inspection and DoS protection are planned, only that I will welcome improvement in this area. And I am sure that even as we speak RnD is making efforts to improve HTTPS inspection in R77.20 because majority of the traffic now days is HTTPS and no adequate security can be guaranteed without scanning it efficiently.  It is already not an extra feature but a requirement. 

[G_W_Albrecht]

Sorry - but all i can see in the presentation is about the 2018 VPN Enhancements ! On SMBs with a very limited number of cores 😉 (dependig also on local or central mangement) i am not especting any breakthrough performance boosts...

[Tommy_Forrest]

I would be happy if they'd just unify the commands where possible.

The differences between Gaia and SMB are annoying.  Trying to set a simple password or the expert password can leave you typing the wrong command if you bounce between the platforms often.

[HristoGrigorov]

It is not in the PDF. It is on a slide in the video presentation from CPX. But I cannot find it in this new site. It is all spaghetti to me atm 🙂

[PhoneBoy]

The CPX content is linked from the large, rotating banner at the top of the page.
The video you're after is here: https://community.checkpoint.com/videos/11044

[HristoGrigorov]

Thanx mate. That's exactly the presentation I was talking about.

[Martin_Valenta]

R80 for SMB was promised to be ready in 2018, but it's was being just postponed everytime, who knows when this year it will be available, hopefully not and end of year 2019

[G_W_Albrecht]

Just forget it - R80.x is just a name, Embedded GAiA will stay Embedded GAiA, flash based appliances will always stay on a low performance level and implemented features, even hardware limits, will always be included according to price level. I fear that some people really believe that with a firmware called R80.x for SMB, it will work like e.g. a 5x00 appliance but be much cheaper...

[Martin_Valenta]

I'm personally with fine with Gaia Embedeed, but for 1400 series device i would really welcome to be able to have unified policy and be able to use inline layers..

[Steffen_Appel · Accepted solution]

It is published now, BUT no support for the 1400s: https://supportcenter.checkpoint.com/supportcenter/portal?eventSubmit_doGoviewsolutiondetails=&solut...

[G_W_Albrecht]

The new R80 WebGUI