Vyatta

Vyatta is an enterprise-class, Linux-based firewall and routing solution. It is developed and maintained by a company of the same name. The company has been marketing its product as the open source answer to Cisco’s routing platform.

Origin – Home Page: USA – Vyatta Community Edition

Price: Vyatta Community Edition (CE) is Free Software.

Comments: Vyatta CE is more than just a firewall or a simple router for your home network, but also a very power routing platform, with features in line with those you will find on expensive solutions from Cisco Systems. It is very easy to install via a text-based installer. Some of the features supported are “horizontal” and “vertical” virtualization; role-based access control; remote access VPN; WAN load balancing; QoS; support for x86 systems with multiple redundant power supplies.

You may view the base features of Vyatta as well as that of other distros in the firewall cum router category in the feature overview of Linux and BSD firewall and router distros.

The feature that sets Vyatta apart from other distros in its category is the so called “horizontal virtualization,” a boon to network managers and admins. With “horizontal virtualization,” networking functions such as VPN, router, and firewall can be duplicated on the same host.

Download CD iso image, VMWare Virtual Appliance, and a Citrix XenServer image (still in beta) are available for free download. Commercial Vyatta products and commercial support may be purchased from the Vyatta Store.

Tutorials/Tips: Vyatta online demos and tutorials are available here.