Actually bells, I think this Soha thing is pretty much identical...

Actually bells, I think this Soha thing is pretty much identical to what IWG claims to offer.

IWG's "ghost network" marketing fluff was only ever that. They do not deploy a network, and nothing is separated out. They put a single Linux box in front of a customer's basic network services (web server, email, database) and reverse proxy back to the protected network. It is a single machine platform which offers a security "buffer", and even IWG have stopped calling it a "ghost network".

Based on what they claim, the Soha thing is clearly not just a filter. It looks identical to what IWG claim: they split off the front end services of a customer's network and all users of those services access them via Soha, thus leaving the attack surface in Soha's hardened environment. "Before they get to you they have to go through us" - makes sense. Interestingly, Soha's marketing approach is also to claim to offer a sort of "ghost network": they call it a "cloudlet", but based on the architecture diagrams it also appears to be a single Linux platform with a set of entry points which duplicate the customer's, exactly like IWG's VSP.

The differences appear to be that Soha is offered as a vertical cloud network protection solution and it is offered as a service. IWG offer the product for direct sale for customers to buy and deploy themselves.

I can not help thinking that the as-a-service approach makes a lot more sense, leaving the technology in the hands of people who know how to use it, and allowing much easier updating and feature provision, etc. It takes balls to offer something as a service, not to mention a working product, because customers can try it at virtually no cost and know they have the option of walking away at any time. IWG do not appear to have the confidence to offer even a demonstration system, let alone adopt such a business model.

Disclaimer: although I know a fair amount about the iWebGate product, I do not know the Soha product. I see they offer a free account, but I have not tried it. The above analysis of Soha is based on information on their website, but since talk is cheap and I know the iWebGate website bears very little resemblance to their product, I don't assume Soha's bears any resemblance to theirs!