Rolling out Sophos UTM in EC2

• By Jeff Collins
• on 09/06/2014

There are virtually no instructions on the Sophos or Amazon web sites, beyond the video <http://www.sophos.com/en-us/lp/aws.aspx>. There is no advice on how to size the UTM VM instance and how it interacts with internal interfaces (virtual network cards). This lack of clear documentation is a major stumbling block when attempting to deploy UTMs in EC2. Personally I wasted over twenty hours, and was almost on the point of giving up when I was finally able to get a UTM working in EC2. Despite the fact I have access to Premium Support from Sophos, they offered almost no support on how to size and deploy a UTM in EC2. The support from Amazon was very spotty. The Amazon technicians I dealt with had never used a soft UTM and did not understand how they work, so I spent a lot of time educating them about the Sophos architecture. All in all, the product is fine but the obstacles to deploying it in EC2 are very daunting. In summary, the lack of documentation could make the Sophos UTM almost useless in the Amazon cloud. If you are brave enough to attempt to use this product, make sure you have phone support from Amazon.