Hrm, it's kind of bad for a reseller not to sell one to a home user just because there's no money in it.
Word get's around and I would have thought it would be in their interest to make a good impression no matter who the customer is. Astaro themselves should make it a condition of becoming a reseller that they won't refuse sales except for reasons like bad credit etc.
In Singapore, there is a company known as InfoSec Pacific which no longer respond to me after knowing I am just a individual.
As for Astaro, I was simply told stick to the Home Edition when I indicated I am keen to buy a 110 /120 for learning as the Appliance Itself does have things to learn such as how to load Firmware, reload Firmware and various troubleshooting, console access, High Availability, DMZ follow by RED etc. I need to learn to know and be comfortable before I will consider to deploy at work place or start my own business to resell etc but overall it had been a pain that I am giving up, stick to the Home Edition on my HP Server and Fit 2 PC for my "Appliance" but it does not have 3 NIC.
Personally, I think it would be best Astaro can have a web store whereby we buy and that is it, we are on our own, no warranty, no support.
I am more than happy to buy 02 x 120 (Provided they come with 2GB as it simply is not sufficient with 1GB to run everythig ), 01 x RED, 03 x AP and I can learn a lot from it.
For what its worth, the software and hardware appliances are virtually identical, so much so that anything you learn on one applies equally well to the other. Console access, HA, RED, Access Points (assuming you can get hold of them) all function in the same way, and so time spent with a home license on a software appliance is by no means time wasted. About the only difference is that the software appliance doesn't support the LCDs on the 220 and up, and also doesn't provide the extra graphic on the dashboard showing what the device looks like.
Regarding firmware, I had always assumed there was something "special" about installing a firmware update on a hardware appliance compared with installing on a software appliance. I think "firmware" is a bit of a misnomer; there are no chips being flashed here; it's just a software update or reinstall whether you're on a hardware or a software appliance. The main difference with a hardware appliance is, when re-installing from scratch, you just pop the CD in, reboot and wait for it to finish - it's an unattended install since it detects which ASG it's running on, and therefore doesn't have to ask any questions in the way the software appliance install does.
On the subject of memory, I have the 8.100 software appliance running on an old (rev.2 I think) ASG 110/120 which I upgraded to 1GB RAM, and also on a brand new ASG 220 which has 1GB out of the box. For the 110, around 65% RAM usage is normal, even with WAF, SMTP Proxy, HTTP proxy and most other features enabled. On the 220 the memory usage for the same release and configuration is around 70-75%. In both cases performance is great, so while I would probably opt for 2GB if I were installing the software appliance on my own hardware, the ASGs work very well with 1GB RAM even with the latest release. I'm not sure what HA, RED and a few APs would add to the usage, however.
I doubt you'll get Astaro to sell direct for home users. Resellers just don't want to risk having a problem getting paid or having their employees answer questions from people that aren't going to help the business be successful. If you let the reseller know that you understand these things, and you prepay with cash or otherwise allow them to confirm payment, I expect most will sell to you.
Then again, I have been accused of looking at the world through rose-colored glasses...
