Firewall Appliance Installs Easily With Virtually No Technical Knowledge Required and Provides Small and Medium-sized Businesses With More Horsepower for VPNs and a DMZ Port for Secured Public Subnets. Progressive Systems, Inc., a leading provider of network security solutions, . . .
Firewall Appliance Installs Easily With Virtually No Technical Knowledge Required and Provides Small and Medium-sized Businesses With More Horsepower for VPNs and a DMZ Port for Secured Public Subnets.

Progressive Systems, Inc., a leading provider of network security solutions, today announced it has implemented its Phoenix Adaptive Firewall onto Cobalt Network's (NASDAQ: COBT) RaQ3i platform. Designed for the many small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) that are implementing full-time Internet access but have growing security concerns, the new firewall appliance can be quickly installed and configured to provide very effective protection that is transparent to the network. This new implementation joins Progressive's existing firewall appliance based on the Cobalt Qube and Cobalt RaQ server appliances.

Based on the highly successful Cobalt server appliance platform, this new version of the Phoenix Adaptive Firewall system features increased processor power, making it better suited for implementing Virtual Private Networks (VPNs). The unit comes standard with a DMZ port for a secured public subnet and features greater expandability than is normally found in the firewall appliance market. The fully featured product will sell for $4495 for unlimited users and will be on display at TheLinuxStore.com booth during Comdex Spring in Chicago, April 17 - 20, 2000. It will be available shortly after the show directly from Progressive Systems or from any of its distribution and reseller partners.

"Our new Phoenix Adaptive Firewall Appliance provides the SMB market with the right balance of sophisticated, effective protection and ease of use," said Matthew Dawson, president of Progressive Systems. "As the strategic importance of Internet access grows for small and medium-sized organizations, so do the dangers of its use. These enterprises are just as vulnerable to outside exploitation as much larger companies, but they lack the resources and capital needed to deploy conventional firewall systems. Our new Phoenix appliance provides every bit of protection they need in an affordable package that can be easily implemented by any network administrator."

With Progressive Systems' adaptive state analysis firewall engine and built-in, anti-attack features, the Phoenix appliances provide an extremely stable, secure firewall and VPN solution. Since the software payload of the Phoenix is fully integrated within the appliance hardware, it is one of the easiest and fastest security solutions to install into virtually any network environment, even for someone with little or no previous firewall experience. Because of its attractive price point, the Phoenix offers businesses of all sizes a cost-effective security solution from the headquarters, branch offices and intranets/subnets of large corporations to the networks and web servers of small and medium-sized companies.

"To get an apples-to-apples comparison, I looked at the best ICSA products available," said Miguel Morales of Paraday Computers. "The Progressive Systems Phoenix Adaptive Firewall Appliance was the clear winner. It offered more management capabilities and a robust operating system at a fraction of the cost of other systems."

Virtual private networking (VPN) capabilities can be added to the appliance. By strongly encrypting traffic traversing the Internet and by authenticating users on a corporate network, VPNs allow businesses to fully leverage the flexibility of communications over the Internet without sacrificing the security of the information transmitted. Progressive's VPN solution is available with client seats for Linux, Windows (95/98/NT/CE), Solaris and Macintosh.

ABOUT PHOENIX
The Phoenix Adaptive Firewall gives businesses an enterprise-class, network-layer firewall that combines stateful analysis of network traffic with anti-attack features to secure business assets. The Phoenix protects networks by performing a detailed inspection of all aspects of incoming packets and distributing them according to rules determined by the network administrators. The firewall also includes anti-attack features that disable networking probe attacks commonly used by hackers and offers secure remote administration through a Java GUI. Phoenix also helps protect organizations from distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks.

The Phoenix firewall appliance, based on the space saving 1U rackmount Cobalt RaQ3i, uses an x86 architecture with a 512k level 2 cache to reach performance levels above T-3 (45mbps) speeds. The appliance features network address translation (NAT); transparent Ethernet; in-the-field upgrade capabilities; support for IP, TCP, UDP, ICMP, GRE and IPSEC; and a DMZ Port for secured public subnets. The security appliance also features an integrated LCD front panel for set-up and administration without the need for a monitor, keyboard, or mouse.
The Phoenix is also available on the award-winning Cobalt Qube platform, which also features an additional Ethernet interface for creation of DMZ security zones. The set-up process for any of the appliances usually takes minutes, not hours like a normal firewall implementations.

The Phoenix Adaptive Firewall, the first commercial firewall to support Linux, is the only firewall on the market to be certified by both the ICSA and Linuxcare Labs.

ABOUT PROGRESSIVE SYSTEMS, INC.
Progressive Systems, Inc. is a leading vendor of Linux-based network security solutions. Beginning with its initial flagship product, Morning Star PPP, Progressive has been delivering quality security products to the Linux and UNIX communities since 1996. Progressive Systems enterprise-level products are used by customers worldwide who operate mission-critical applications. The company's Phoenix Personal Edition Firewall for Linux may be downloaded for free and is currently deployed by over 20,000 individual Linux users. The Phoenix Adaptive Firewall is available directly from Progressive Systems or its worldwide network of resellers as either an appliance on the Cobalt RaQ3i and Qube platforms or as software for most commercial Linux distributions, including Caldera, Red Hat, S.u.S.E., and TurboLinux. Headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, Progressive Systems also has offices in San Francisco, CA. Further information is available at or by calling (800) 558-7827 or +1 (614) 326-4600.

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Cobalt Qube and Cobalt RaQ are trademarks of Cobalt Networks, Inc and Phoenix Adaptive Firewall is a trademark of Progressive Systems, Inc. All other product names are trademarks of their respective owners. This press release may contain forward looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Exchange Act of 1934 and are subject to the safe harbor created by these sections. Actual results could differ materially from those described herein as a result of certain factors and circumstances.