"With the Barracuda Web Filter, you don't have to maintain five or six different servers. Simply, you have one appliance that can be installed in 10 minutes," says Barracuda Networks product manager Sean Heiney.

System updates are made hourly by Barracuda Central, an operations center that allows engineers to catalog browsed Web sites and provide spyware protection. The product's URL blocking is bolstered by a URL database with more than 50 site categories. The Barracuda Web Filter, which integrates with popular LDAP directory servers like Microsoft Active Directory, also has no per user license fee. "We sell them a box. It has a recommended capacity, but they can have as many users as they'd like," Heiney says.

NOTABLE Barracuda Networks is embroiled in a patent infringement case brought by Trend Micro, partly over the use of the open source Clam AV engine in this product and others.