FAQ

What is iboss cloud?

The iboss cloud secures user Internet access on any device, from any location, in the cloud. It is a cloud-based platform with a focus on following users instead of perimeters to ensure that Internet access is always secure regardless of user location. Since users are always connected to iboss cloud, their access to the cloud and Internet is always protected. Administrators can apply compliance, web filtering, malware defense and data loss prevention to Internet access regardless of user location.

How is iboss cloud sold?

The iboss cloud is sold as a 100% SaaS subscription. The iboss eliminates the need to purchase or manage web gateway appliances.

Why not host a virtual firewall appliance in the cloud and use an always on VPN instead?

Although hosting a virtual firewall appliance in the cloud may appear like a good idea on the surface, there are many reasons you should avoid this strategy when digging further.

First, public cloud providers typically charge for bandwidth either entering their cloud or exiting their cloud. Sometimes they charge for both directions. In this example, let’s assume inbound bandwidth to the public cloud hosting the firewall is free and outbound bandwidth is not, as is the case with one of the largest cloud providers. Since all traffic from the devices being secured will need to go into the public cloud that is hosting the firewall and then be sent by the firewall to the Internet in the outbound direction, the cost for this bandwidth is astronomical.

Let’s use a typical public cloud calculator which allows you to enter the number of outbound Gigabytes (GB) that will be used per month. We’ll start with 1 Gbps of bandwidth over a month period which is equal to 328500 GB per month of use. Using this calculator, the charges for this bandwidth consumption is $22,036.89 per month or $264,442.68 per year! This is only for the bandwidth and does not include the cost to operate the virtual firewall inside the public cloud which adds even more costs.

To make things worse, you actually have to multiply this number by two. Take a look at the flow of traffic from a user to its final destination on the Internet:

user -> (in) public cloud firewall (out $) -> [request] Internet Destination [response] -> (in) public cloud firewall (out $) -> user

The traffic flows out of the firewall to the Internet on the way from the user to the Internet (charges apply). On the way back from the Internet, traffic flows from the firewall back to the user in the outbound direction again (charges apply again). This doubles the amount of outbound bandwidth charges being incurred.

The financial issues aren’t over at this point. Bandwidth from all mobile users will have to be routed to the cloud firewall. Given that gigabit connections are becoming commonplace in the home, think about how much bandwidth is going to flow to the public firewall when you multiply the high amount of available bandwidth per user while mobile times the number of users in the organization!

Other challenges will follow. The virtual firewalls will eventually reach saturation. This will lead to virtual load balancing and additional firewall which will consume more cloud resources and incur more charges. And since this isn’t a SaaS offering, the amount of labor you will need to manage the cloud infrastructure will substantially increase as well leading to exponential costs.

With the iboss cloud, internet security is delivered as a SaaS offering, meaning you benefit from the security without managing any infrastructure. Best of all, when bandwidth increases from mobile users and cloud application use, this bandwidth cost does not impact your organization as it would using a virtual appliance hosted in a public cloud strategy. The iboss cloud provides a sustainable path to the cloud-first and mobile world.

I'm moving to SDWAN to replace my private MPLS connections between offices. How can iboss cloud help?

SDWANs are a cost effective way to connect branch offices together to the corporate network. SDWAN is related to perimeters and solves the need of making sure offices can communicate to each other over private connections for internal traffic. MPLS was traditionally used to do this, but the cost of the private connections are extremely high and the bandwidth that can be sent through the connections are typically very low.

The iboss cloud is not focused on perimeters at all and instead focuses on securing user Internet access as data leaves your users to the cloud. If you are leveraging MPLS or SDWAN to connect offices to each other for internal communication, there is no need to send Internet bound traffic through those connections at all. Even with increased speeds and the lower cost of SDWAN relative to MPLS, the private links will get saturated quickly if you are sending Internet destined traffic through those links.

Send Internet bound data through iboss cloud directly from branch offices for security. Send office-to-office traffic through your MPLS or SDWAN links.

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