q000053

What are the differences among the three versions of the product (Defender, Agent, and Sentry)?

This article applies to: BlackICE Defender, BlackICE Agent, and BlackICE Sentry.

SUMMARY

Defender is for home consumers, Agent is for corporate desktops and servers, Sentry is not for desktops, but for dedicated boxes that monitor entire network segments.

DETAILS

All versions of the product come with the same intrusion detection system.

Defender and Agent come with a built-in firewall that protects the local machine it is installed upon.

Agent will report to our console product ICEcap, and can be fully managed by ICEcap. With Agent, the firewall settings are not managed by the local user, but by ICEcap. Defender cannot report to ICEcap, but for home users, there wouldn't be one anyway.

Agent was designed for corporations where Information Services installs the product on all the desktops from a central location. In fact, most people won't even be aware that Agent is installed. Remember that Agent is not really much better than Defender, unless you are a company with thousands of desktops.

Finally, Sentry is designed to monitor entire network segments. Corporations use it to monitor their websites, for example. It has no firewalling capabilities, but it also is managed from ICEcap. It is installed on dedicated hardware and runs in "promiscuous" or "sniffing" mode.

 
Keywords: difference 
Version:  2.1cn or earlier 
Fixed:     
Modified: 2000-10-26