🧱 Firewalls That Are Slower Than a Home Affairs Queue 🧱

Ronald BartelsRonald Bartels
3 min read

Ah, firewalls – the so-called guardians of the network, the digital bouncers, the cyber sentries. Sounds impressive, right? Until you actually have to use one. 😑

Some of these so-called "next-gen" firewalls have the audacity to take 20 minutes to boot. TWENTY. MINUTES. 🤯 That’s enough time to:

🍳 Make and eat a full English breakfast.
☕ Stand in line at Wimpy for your coffee (and still have time to complain about the price).
🚗 Drive from Sandton to Midrand in light traffic.
🎮 Play a whole round of FIFA on PlayStation.

And when it finally boots up, you make a simple change – just tweaking a NAT rule or allowing a port – and suddenly, the firewall “committing changes” for another eternity. 😵

🔄 Committing…
🔄 Still committing…
🔄 One eternity later…

At this rate, I could apply for a passport at Home Affairs, sit in the queue, take a nap, wake up, and still have to wait for the firewall to finish saving a setting. How is this “Making Security Great Again?” 😤


⏳ Firewalls Stuck in the Past

Some of these firewalls act like they were designed during the dial-up internet era. They:

Crash when handling more than 10 VPN tunnels – Lekker, now remote workers must just suffer.
Need a full reboot after a simple config change – What is this, Windows 95?
Have an interface slower than a load-shedding schedule update – You click, you wait, you grow old.
Charge extra for basic security features – Oh, you want IPS? That’ll be another R100k. 💸

And don't even get me started on those that need a reboot after every firmware update. Nothing like telling a customer, “Just hold on, we’ll be back in 20 minutes... maybe.”


🔥 The Fusion SD-WAN Difference: Fast, Reliable, No Nonsense!

A proper modern network security solution should:

Boot in seconds, not in geological time.
Commit changes instantly, like a proper 21st-century device.
Handle high traffic loads without falling over like a Joburg taxi in a pothole.
Make security easier, not harder.

This is exactly why Fusion’s SD-WAN with built-in security is leaving these ancient firewalls in the dust. No more waiting, rebooting, or praying that your firewall doesn’t freeze mid-update.


🚀 Security Shouldn’t Be a Waiting Game

If your firewall takes longer to boot than your car on a cold winter morning in Gauteng, you have a problem. Security needs to be fast, seamless, and built for the modern network.

So if you're still dealing with a firewall that thinks it’s 2005, maybe it’s time for an upgrade. 🚀

✌️💀 RIP slow firewalls. Long live real-time security!

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Written by

Ronald Bartels
Ronald Bartels

Driving SD-WAN Adoption in South Africa