I do not believe partners should be positioning the PA-500 in environments with >100 students. That is more suited for a PA-2000 device. Throughput is only one metric in sizing a firewall. The combination of multiple variables will determine the appropriate box: CPS Total concurrent sessions Throughput Type of traffic (HTTP, P2P, SMTP, etc.) ARP/Routing table sizes # of concurrent VPN users # of captive portal users Amount of SSL decryption DOS protection in hardware vs. software etc. Like I said before, my number is a rule of thumb - but please do yourself a favor and don't underprovision a security device. The boxes were designed for particular environments - not pure throughput numbers. The PA-200 is a small office/home office device. The PA-500 is a small office device. The PA-2000 is a Branch office/Small Headquarters device. The PA-4000 and above are Central office/Data Center devices. Also, keep in mind that education/university traffic tends to be more demanding than normal enterprise traffic due to the amount of P2P, malware, and floods/scans that happen on those typically open networks. Cheers, Kelly
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