More and more businesses, schools, government agencies and libraries are connecting to the Internet to meet their organisational and educational goals. In doing so, they are faced with the need to control access to inappropriate or objectionable Web sites. Without that control, businesses risk productivity losses, liability exposure and misallocation of bandwidth due to non-productive Web surfing. Schools and libraries risk forfeiting their federal funding unless they provide the content filtering mandated by the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA).

SonicWALL’s revolutionary Content Filtering Service (CFS) Standard and Content Filtering Service Premium Editions are scalable, enterprise-class solutions that are both affordable and easy to use. Featuring a powerful rating and caching architecture, SonicWALL CFS leverages a comprehensive database of over 4 million continuously updated Web sites to extend protection and productivity while reducing administrative overhead.

Architecture

At the core of SonicWALL CFS is a revolutionary content rating and caching architecture that rates and filters millions of URLs, IP addresses and Websites. When a network user makes a request, SonicWALL CFS checks the URL or Web site against its immense database. A rating is returned and permission is then granted or denied based on established access policies. Ratings for acceptable Web sites and URLs are cached within the SonicWALL appliance, enabling instantaneous compliance.

• Appliance-based, Scalable Content Filtering Solution. SonicWALL CFS delivers an enterprise-class, completely scalable content filtering service that runs on all SonicWALL appliances and requires no additional server or deployment costs.
• Web Site Caching. The innovative SonicWALL CFS architecture caches URL ratings locally on the SonicWALL appliance. These Web site ratings are stored for all future users that attempt to visit the URLs, making response time to frequently visited sites virtually instantaneous.
• Comprehensive Database. SonicWALL CFS combines an unlimited database featuring millions of URLs, IP addresses and domains with a unique caching system that reduces latency to a fraction of a second.
• Category Blocking. SonicWALL CFS employs an innovative rating architecture that utilises a dynamic database of millions of URLs, IP addresses and domains to block up to 50+ categories of objectionable and inappropriate Web content such as porn, hate, violence and others, providing network administrators with greater control to transparently enforce acceptable use policies.
• Web-based Management. SonicWALL CFS provides an easy to use Web-based management interface for simple policy configuration while also providing greater control over Internet usage.
• Dynamic Rating. SonicWALL CFS Premium Editions analyse pages not in the database and automatically populate the database for future access.
• Group Policies. SonicWALL CFS Premium Editions give administrators the flexibility to enforce custom policies for groups of users on the network*.
  
  * Requires SonicOS Enhanced