The Link Balancer comes with a firewall that will soon be available on other Barracuda products.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Managing Editor [September 18, 2008]

Campbell, Calif.-based Barracuda Networks is an ISP-Planet favorite because when the company enters a market, it shatters the pricing in that market. Readers have reported that the company can fail to deliver features that ISPs need, focusing on the enterprise customer first, but acknowledge that for many small ISPs, the pricing itself is a key feature. Furthermore, Barracuda Networks always tells you its pricing—we cannot say the same for most equipment vendors.

With its link balancer, Barracuda Networks has delivered on pricing, but not on the order of magnitude (10 times) level that we've seen before. Instead, the company focused on delivering a fully featured box that any small business can trust to manage internet connections of different kinds or from different vendors.

"Customers were coming to us for a solution. They did not have the budget to expand their leased line connectivity but needed more bandwidth. They wanted way to aggregate low cost bandwidth and make it reliable," explains Sean Heiney, product manager at Barracuda Networks.

The product comes in three models: the 230 has two ports, the 330 has three ports, and the 430 has six ports. The box is designed to deliver more throughput than the customer will need, from 70 Mbps on the 230 to 250 Mbps on the 430.

Heiney says that many customers keep their leased line for critical applications, and direct the rest of the traffic over the cheaper connection. Most leave web browsing as high priority and perhaps one other application, such as a CRM tool, also at top priority.

He adds that Barracuda Networks has included its own proprietary firewall, but admits that many customers are already happy with what they have.

"We feel we've put a lot of cool features in this box," he says, "and this is just version one."

Expect more features.

So are SMB customers using more than one ISP? This is a question that many ISPs are asking. According to Heiney, many SMBs now understand how important the internet is to their business and want to have more than one connection. They also like to supplement an expensive leased line with cheaper DSL or cable or wireless.

SMBs with bandwidth issues will also appreciate the ability to prioritize key applications and traffic.

Pricing and availability
Pricing starts at $1,999 and there are no per port charges or per server licensing fees. Nevertheless, for very low bandwidth customers, such as those using a T-1 instead of a DS-3, there may be cheaper options that deliver fewer features and handle less bandwidth.

—End