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Forum Discussion
FVS336Gv3 Firmware lifespan / Product life expectancy
Is there any information about the Firmware lifespan of the Netgear ProSafe FVS336Gv3? or something about its life expectancy as a product? I'm asking that becasue I'm looking for a Dual WAN Giga...
Well, it's not really always as you said because the SMB/LB limit is not always so clear...and Firewalls are not "fire and forget" devices...you need to manage them as pets...there are SMBs that rely heavily on fast and stable Internet connectivity...for those SMBs knowing that Firmware updates for their Hardware Firewall (updates released to provide security bug-fixes, feature bug-fixes, enhancements or new features) will be (1) available for many years after the first Hardware introduction and will be (2) continuously released will mean that the Hardware they purchased was (and is) a good investment and helped (and help) them to work flawlessly without disruption day to day. Otherwise one can go down the OSS road solutions (pfSense/OPNSense or whatever you like) using (a) specific hardware appliances or (b) quite classic hardware (considering an Intel ATOM + some GbE NICs can be OK). My thread started mainly because I think the FVS336Gv3 uses an interesting Hardware and shows good numbers (not too dissimilar from the Hardware and numbers of other Dual - physical - WAN ports Firewall I yet know: like Cisco RV320 or ZyXEL ZyWALL USG50 or the new ZyXEL USG60) so I was interested in knowing what would be its lifespan considering I can purchase it today and I don't want to be worried in, let me say, 2018 that its Firmware development can suddenly stop.
SamirD wrote:So the type of 'software concern' that you're talking about is something I see purchasers of enterprise equipment discussing. It's not something that the small business market talks about much because they'll just get some other equipment if need be.
Agreed that there are use cases for SMBs where they can spend more money making sure they have a solid router since their business depends on it. But that's where the entry level enterprise stuff usually comes in. Most LB-SMBs can afford the entry level enterprise equipment and the associated service contracts, and from what I've seen, even if there are OSS solutions or smb products that can do the job, they simply don't go down that route because of the work/uncertainty of it working. They want someone else to handle that so they can concentrate on their core business. We considered entry level enterprise for one of our locations until we ran the numbers and saw that the losses didn't justify such an expensive solution. We stuck with the 318N instead.
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