As an overall assessment of SNORT, it runs very well and does its job. Of course like any IDS or IPS for that matter, It only becomes useful when time is taken in then configuration and setup. SNORT must be configured to the needs of the system that is in use. If all rules were to be implemented, then the system would capture and log too much data, most of which being useless. We were very satisfied with how SNORT ran, as it did not seem to take up much system resources. SNORT was able to detect every covert attack we threw at it.  All methods of port scanning attempts were also logged and able to be tracked.  Running Snort on Ubuntu 6.06 LTS proved to us that its best operations will be in a Linux environment. We have spoken to people who have used SNORT in a windows environment and they seemed to have many issues that we did not experience. Like any successful open source project, SNORT it seems to have a huge online community backing its development. This community seems to consist of people that contribute to the betterment of computer networking. 

    Although we chose not to use a front end for SNORT, there are many different options to make data analysis more efficient and easier. Log files can be held in a database that would allow for search ability through queries and efficient analysis of data. After doing research it appears that some business use SNORT within their daily operations. With SNORT they can keep track of the protection of their system.  It seems as though if time is taken to setup SNORT in a business environment, it can be a very valuable tool and save those corporations money. This will allow for a quick response to suspicious activity and hopefully a prevention of an attack.
 
	SNORT would be a great tool to a wide array of people, from industry professionals to home user. SNORT offers value added detection to any business and contributes to making the internet more reliable. If people actively protect their computer from vulnerabilities, less attack could be made from zombie machines and other ways to use computers against themselves. We definitely would recommend SNORT to anyone looking for an IDS system.