SonicWall Adds New Life To Pro Series Appliances

The new PRO 2040 doubles VPN performance of the 2030 model it replaces. The 2040 features additional ports, 150 VPN tunnels, a hardened platform and a Cavium CN 1005 Security Processor. It also comes with a plethora of new features that offer partners myriad upgrade opportunities.

In addition to a stateful inspection firewall, hardware supported IPSec VPN, integrated content filtering and McAfee antivirus, an enhanced SonicOS operating system offers fourth-port activation, hardware failover, WAN/WAN redundancy, load balancing, object-based management and flexible security zones, including WAN, LAN, DMZ or custom.

"We love add-ons, and there's a lot of add-on opportunities with the enhanced OS," said Rich Forsen, president of Network Depot, a solution provider in Herndon, Va. "Without having to swap out hardware, we can customize ports, add load-balancing and failover and multiple ISPs, all of which was missing with the old [2030] system."

The 2040 costs $1,995 with the standard SonicOS $2,745 for the enhanced SonicOS.

Other solution providers are more interested in the selling opportunities of SonicWall's new Global Security Client for the desktop to secure mobile access. Using the client, the network administrator can decide what a user is permitted to do and can set rules such as blocking file-sharing or access to particular applications.

But more importantly, the client protects transactions when employees are connecting to the network from a remote location.

"We have been screaming for years for SonicWall to develop a PC Card firewall software solution that we can load on portable devices for a complete secure solution," said Todd Beakey, vice president of business development at RSPEED, Pleasanton, Calif.

The Global Security Client ranges from $18 to $55 per user device, depending on purchasing volume. The client integrates with SonicWall's Global Management System (GMS), which allows partners to manage multiple devices and customers from a central system. The GMS license starts at $5,000.

SonicWall is also planning to release the higher-end PRO 5060 in June. The 5060, currently being beta tested, features six Gigabit Ethernet interfaces, a 1.0++Gbps firewall, a 500-Mbps IPSec VPN and a 2.8GHz Xeon-based platform. It is aimed at not only large customers, but also data centers and service providers, said Douglas Brockett, vice president of worldwide marketing at SonicWall.

Partners applaud the revitalization of the products, saying it is a direct result of SonicWall's new management team. The old team leaders focused too much on marketing and less on research and development, they said.