Sonicwall

Bl8ckr0uter

Well I started our upgrade yesterday but we didn't get everything so I had to pick it back up today. As I am working on this gear it hit me that I hardly ever hear anyone talk about Sonicwall. Anyone here use them in production/done a migration from another product to Sonicwall?

aethereos

knwminus wrote: »

Well I started our upgrade yesterday but we didn't get everything so I had to pick it back up today. As I am working on this gear it hit me that I hardly ever hear anyone talk about Sonicwall. Anyone here use them in production/done a migration from another product to Sonicwall?

I have two Sonicwall 2040s with Enhanced Bios doing load balancing at the office, serving between 200-250 users.

Sonicwall to Cisco is like Honda Civic to BMW 5 series. But I'm quite pleased with the 2040's because they do what we need, and don't cost too much. If you need more fancy stuffs (VLAN, QoS, etc...), you might have to look to Cisco.

The GUI interface is easy. It's set-it and forget it.

But, we're a biotech environment and not a techshop so our networking needs are very simplified.

forkvoid

I have a TZ170 running the network at my house, as well as a TZ170 running our office network. I also have two Pro 200s and a SOHO 150 in my lab network at the house. All are rock-solid with no problems.

I don't have a single complaint about their products, except that they have a sort of 'add-on' pricing structure.

Since the car metaphor was started, I find it perfect to continue: When you buy a Kia, power steering, power locks and power windows are not standard. Adding them on costs more, and is likely to bring the cost of the car over the price of a standard Toyota pretty quick.

With Sonicwall, the Enhanced OS costs money, VPN users cost money, Global VPN Client usage costs money... and then if you need network AV, content filtering, et al... you're already looking at more than the price of a Fortinet 80 series, which already does all that and more. Oh, and the biggest stickler: per-node licensing. Comes in 5, 10, 25 and Unlimited usually.

So, summary: performance is rock solid, but price, when compared with all competing products, is simply too expensive. The one for the office we got from a client where we replaced it with a Fortinet 80CM. It already had VPN and 25 nodes licensed, so it was fine for us.

phoeneous

aethereos wrote: »

I have two Sonicwall 2040s with Enhanced Bios doing load balancing at the office, serving between 200-250 users.

Sonicwall to Cisco is like Honda Civic to BMW 5 series. But I'm quite pleased with the 2040's because they do what we need, and don't cost too much. If you need more fancy stuffs (VLAN, QoS, etc...), you might have to look to Cisco.

The GUI interface is easy. It's set-it and forget it.

But, we're a biotech environment and not a techshop so our networking needs are very simplified.

I've worked with a few 2040's in the past, very easy to manage. Like he said, set it and forget it. I still prefer Cisco though

Bl8ckr0uter

I am in the process of moving us off of a PIX 515e to a NSA 3500 at our main office. We are also moving our branch office to a TZ210 from a PIX 506e.

aethereos

forkvoid wrote: »

I don't have a single complaint about their products, except that they have a sort of 'add-on' pricing structure.

I agree. I hate that Sonicwall is doing this, but it does provide 30 day trials on all of the additional features. But I've found that the NIDS and antivirus features are awful because no where can you customize settings. After just a week of "weird" network issues I just had to turn them off.

A host of other vendors have started doing the pay-for-features or subscriptions. It's like we're "renting" the hardware/software from them, instead of owning right out. If you press them (and I did), they'd say the printing industry has been doing this for years (buy a cheap printer that practically drinks cartridges).

Argg! Everybody is out to reap off everybody else. Arggg!

Bl8ckr0uter

aethereos wrote: »

I agree. I hate that Sonicwall is doing this, but it does provide 30 day trials on all of the additional features. But I've found that the NIDS and antivirus features are awful because no where can you customize settings. After just a week of "weird" network issues I just had to turn them off.

A host of other vendors have started doing the pay-for-features or subscriptions. It's like we're "renting" the hardware/software from them, instead of owning right out. If you press them (and I did), they'd say the printing industry has been doing this for years (buy a cheap printer that practically drinks cartridges).

Argg! Everybody is out to reap off everybody else. Arggg!

I think this is incorrect. I am able to customize my IPS rules. What SonicOS version did you have?

undomiel

sonicwall is what my company generally tries to go with whenever possible. We don't use too many of the features beyond a few NATs and turning on the content filter. I did see at one company a lot of weird network issues from having the NIDS turned on. Getting weird errors in SMTP negotiations and such, eventually just turned it off since it was more trouble than it was worth. The content filter does a great job though.

forkvoid

undomiel wrote: »

The content filter does a great job though.

Agreed. The Sonicwall Content Filtering System was my introduction to Sonicwall, back in 2006. It was fantastic. Worked very well, easy to administer too.

garv221

Cisco > Juniper > everyone else