Respected experts,

I am establishing a GIS server platform where I have to deploy 2 live servers which will provide GIS mapping services to branch offices across the globe. I had done all home work except firewall section.

I need to procure a hardware firewall but have no idea which product should I purchase and in what specifications. the objective is simple, to protect my servers/network from anonymous access and attacks from WAN.

I need you suggestion which firewall should I purchase, I don't have experience in firewalls and configurations so any vendor and model that provides GUI interface will be much easier for me.

Please suggest vendor and model/specification which should fit in maximum budget of US $29k.

I like F5 BigIP equipment .. but you really need to spend the time to learn this stuff, it's not fool proof.

Most of the hardware is being sold for two advantages. One is speed and the second is support/upgrade feature. As kbp suggests, your security is only as good as your ability to configure it. You may have to consider using staff supported products where they come in a configure it for you and they manage it.

Security is a collection of many tasks. Learn and use more to protect more.

Since we don't know how secure you need to be then we can't suggest a starting point.

To be fair, many of the open source firewall and even distributions can be made to work nearly as secure as the big box stuff. We used to use PIX until we changed.

Can't you deploy cloud servers instead? Why do you speak of using your own iron?

Definitely worth thinking about, OP could have multiple instances situated in close geographical location to the branch offices.