Meet Rackmount.IT and their custom mounting kit for Barracuda NextGen Firewall F18 and F80

Note:  Here we have a guest post from our friends at Rackmount.IT.  They announced their new rack mount kit on twitter a couple of weeks ago, and we thought it would be fun to have them introduce themselves to you. 

Barracuda offers mounting hardware with our rack mount form factor appliances, but we do not include mounting kits for our smaller desktop appliances such as the NextGen Firewall F80.  We also do not sell or endorse any particular rack mount provider, but we are excited to show you how this company has responded to customer demand.  So after some chatting on Twitter and email, we are pleased to give you this post from Mark van der Pijll, Marketing & Sales EMEA, Rackmount.IT. 

 

BREAKING: The prototype of our rack mount kit for #Barracuda F18 and F80. Bluemazing! Expecting stock end of August. #rackmount @barracuda pic.twitter.com/xsSsNKxyve

— Rackmount.IT (@RackmountIT) July 27, 2017

New! Rack mount kit for Barracuda F18 and F80

Many thanks to Barracuda for inviting us to write a post for the Barracuda blog! There’s no greater compliment than when a large IT security vendor such as Barracuda recognizes the products we create. But who is “we”? What products do we produce? And why were we invited to write this post?

RACKMOUNT.IT

The “we” in this story is Rackmount.IT, a vendor independent developer and producer of rack mount kits for small firewall appliances of large security vendors. Rackmount.IT has its headquarters and production facilities in the Netherlands. This year in February, we were excited to open an office and warehouse in Round Rock, Texas.

The company was founded in 2010 out of frustration from the founder and CEO Eric Cantineau. When he couldn’t find a proper rack mount kit for his own small firewall, he decided to build one himself. Now, seven years later, Rackmount.IT produces approximately 40,000 rack mount kits annually for appliances of eight security vendors.

Development and production take place in the Netherlands to guarantee high product quality. Because everything is close to headquarters, it takes approximately six weeks from the first industrial drawings to full production of a new rack mount kit.

NEW BARRACUDA RACK MOUNT KIT

This month the newest rack mount kit for Barracuda F18 and F80 was launched. Development of this kit started for several reasons. The most important were multiple inquiries from IT Value Added Resellers and visitors at the Rackmount.IT booth at the InfoSecurity Europe trade show in London.

All larger Barracuda firewalls are rack mountable with the enclosed mounting ears. However, lots of SMBs – who often buy the smaller F18 and F80 devices – have a small 19-inch rack in their offices.  Next to SMBs, we are experiencing an increase of large companies that buy large firewalls for their datacenters and have a small firewall in every branch office or shop.

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Back ‘in the old days’, when no proper rack mount kit was available, people most often chose to lay their desktop firewalls on ordinary shelves or mount them with extended ears.  This generally results in more problems than solutions to the customer: network connections are difficult to reach, the firewall can shift around in the rack, the power supply can loosen which results in accidental loss of power and cables typically become an unorganized cable “spaghetti”.

CUSTOMIZATION

The RM-BC-T1 is customized specifically for the F18 and F80 and therefore has a guaranteed fit. Both the firewall and the power supply are fixed to the rack mount kit. This prevents accidental loss of power along with shifting and falling equipment in the 19-inch rack. Furthermore, all cables are redirected from the back to the front with CAT6 cables and couplers thus eliminating the cable “spaghetti”. Last but not least, the whole product is designed to match the Barracuda F18 and F80 branding colors and design.

Do you want to learn more? Always feel free to contact Rackmount.IT or stay up to date by following Rackmount.IT on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn

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Mark van der Pijll represents Marketing & Sales EMEA of Rackmount.IT. After his study Marketing Management, he got the opportunity to work at the headquarters of Rackmount.IT in Breda, the Netherlands. He is passionate about every aspect of marketing and sales, but what really motivates him is helping others, making people happy and the cooperation with colleagues and partners to expand the Rackmount.IT business.

Connect with Mark on LinkedIn here.

For more information on Barracuda NextGen Firewalls, visit us online here.