SonicWall NSa Reviews

Our primary use case is at the perimeter of all of our customer's sites with all of the security services turned on. That is anti-malware, anti-spyware, geo IP filtering is an important thing for us, web filtering and the Capture ATP. We are looking at preventing downloading of any virus-infected files.

Geo-IP filtering has made a large impact on us and it is very important to us.

The most valuable features to us are the security services which is a critical factor in our deployment. Today we need to have all the security services enabled because firewalls are not enough.

When it comes to security I think all of the features are currently open to improvement.

I have been using SonicWall NSa for the past ten to fifteen years.

Technical support used to be very good and now we are dealing with long response times.  On a scale of one to ten today we are looking at a four or five instead of a nine or ten.

The setup is straightforward however you want to have a good technical support individual involved for proper deployment.

I would rate SonicWall NSa a nine out of ten as an overall solution in security.

It is a brilliant product. It is a Unified Threat Management (UTM) system. It has got about 11 security services that take care of your perimeter security. It takes care of any kind of cyber threats that could come in. 

It takes care of creating VPNs between two SonicWalls instantly and very easily. It has got spyware in it as well as a firewall. It has also got a gateway antivirus and an application firewall that can block things from outside.

It would be useful to have an application firewall that prevents the outside world from seeing your private IPs. You don't need to publicize your private IPs to the outside world, and you can create a barrier, like a proxy server.

I have been using this solution for four years. We are using SonicWall NSA 3600.

It is very stable.

The product that we have is not scalable. You'll have to buy a firewall model that suits your requirement with a certain amount of growth built into it. They have other products that are scalable, and they are the 9600 series ones.

Currently, we have about 300 users. We plan to keep using this solution.

I have contacted their technical support, and I have received good support.

Its initial setup is absolutely straightforward. It took less than an hour. There were no issues.

I did it myself. Currently, we are maintaining it ourselves. We are not getting it done from anyone outside, but we have the subscription for SonicWall so that the security areas are taken care of by them.

Normally, when we buy any product, we buy it with a five-year service built into it. Later on, depending on the growth of the organization, we go for a new one or an upgrade.

We've been using SonicWall since 2006. When we decided on SonicWall, I had tried another product for 15 days, but it was not serving the requirements that we had. Therefore, we decided on SonicWall.

I would very much recommend this solution to others. I would rate SonicWall NSA an eight out of ten.

• Site-to-Site VPN
• Deep Packet Inspection
• Easy routing capabilities
• Stability
• AD integration
• Traffic shaping options
• VLAN options per interface
• APP based rules/filtering

With Site-to-Site VPN we can connect several branch office that we have and with the routing options we can setup a VPN backup route using different ISPs, this is great when the ISP stability is not good. The AD integration is not the best but it works, thru that option we enhance the security of the device in terms of manageability. Deep Packet Inspection helps us to block undesired traffic like p2p activity even in ssl encrypted tunnels, but this is far from being easy to setup. Traffic Shaping options give us the ability to limit interfaces like the "guest wifi interface" however you can setup this per interface, not per VLAN, you have to create a firewall rule then apply "Bandwidth management rule".

Sometimes, the GUI is extremely annoying and you need to implement external tools for better network monitoring.

The GUI needs to be worked on as sometimes it's annoying to configure because the options are separate. For configuring a simple port mapping you have to go to the address object menu, then the NAT menu, then theFirewall menu, and if you want to delete this rule, you have to go backwards.

The AD integration works but in some cases when the connectivity to the AD is lost, SonicWALL also lost the AD synchronization and we had to login using a local user to re-synchronize the appliance with the AD.

Last, but not less important, are the tools for monitoring the network. The appliance has a lot of monitoring tools, but they are not efficient. For example, you cannot see (in real time) what user is accessing what site, consuming bandwidth, etc. but you need external tool to do this. Dell need to take a look at their Kerio control software).

I have been using it for eight months.

None, the deployment was done in conjunction with a Dell partner. They had some difficulties, but all of them related to our specific scenario. In that time we use all the configurations per IP basis and not per zone basis like Dell recommends.

Some, but they were very strange. For example, one of our ISPs gave us an IP address through DHCP, and in two cases the interface won't take a new IP address, even if we reboot the appliance, we have to use another interface to solve this. For other cases, we use LenovoEMC Storage Connector.

That software floods the connections of SonicWALL reaching the 322000 simultaneous connections/sessions. Until we find this software, the SonicWALL becomes very slow almost unresponsive, also we start to losing connection to other networks that are being handled by the SonicWALL. We solved this by applying connection limits but the final solution was uninstalling that Lenovo software.

None, but if you need more you have to pay licenses and if it is no enough that you have to buy a mayor model of SonicWall.

We use our Dell Partner who are slow, but efficient.

Our Dell partner have great technicians and they know the product. However they were slow to solve some problems because the GUI didn´t allow a fluent workflow/management.

We didn't have a solution in place previously.

Because our scenario requirements were complex, the initial setup was somewhat complex.

We used a Dell partner who had a great level of expertise.

You have to look if this device will do the task that you need, and if it does with which license do it. If you haven't got a license, you almost cannot use this equipment. Here you have a license for all, from the device itself to the user VPN license, so you have to be careful with this. Also, the licenses are not perpetual so my advice is talk with a Dell partner, know the product, know the limitations and compare with other brands.

We didn't look at any other options.

SonicWALL offers two operating modes, per IP basis, and per zone basis. You should design your network for work on the per zone basis. It will be easier and effective to manage the device.

We use SonicWall as the primary firewall for the internet connectivity of a multi-site educational organization. It is a private multi-site wide area network for an educational institution with around six sites. There are currently about 3000 users in this client's organization.

It has excellent stability. 

The filter settings are confusing and overly complicated. The user interface can be improved. 

I have been using SonicWall NSA for a little bit over 10 years.

Stability is excellent. 

Scalability is marginal. SonicWall is currently tied to hardware, so the only way to scale is with new hardware. 

The initial setup was straightforward. 

I would recommend this solution, but I would suggest allocating time to become familiar with the interface.

I would rate SonicWall NSA a seven out of ten. I would like to see usability enhancement, specifically around the filters.

In the main office we have set up a SonicWall TZ device, and then from the branches, we have set up a lower branch model, the SonicWall, and then created site-to-site VPN. We then deployed the VoIP between those branches to the main office. We also deployed the firewall and the URL filtering between sites and the main office. So, we just enabled and created the different DMZ zones from the devices.

We have utilized all the features. The most valuable are the:

• URL filtering by category,
• DMZ zoning
• Load balancing
• The site-to-site VPN.
  

Because this is an old device, the throughput needs to improve. Right now, the only problem is that since it eight years devices had to keep up with the latest technology. Most of the devices are now linked to the plants. That is one thing that can be improved. 

We also need to increase the throughput because the other devices are slower. The throughput will become slow. Since we're using VoIP, it tends to affect the voice quality. Even if you're using a quality service, it tends to decrease.

We're going to replace them. Since this is already eight years old, so we're going to replace the hardware but with a different brand.

We have been using this solution for ten years. 

It's deployed from the main office to the site office. So, we're using site-to-site VPN between project sites since we are a construction company.

There is no problem with the stability. Since the very start, I have not experienced any problem yet until recently during the quarantine, but the problem is now resolved. Since the requirement is to have a voice quality, we're using a platform like MS Team, Zoom, and it does not perform well when using those applications.

We have around 100 to 200-people using it. Most of them are users. It's on around 10 projects or 10 branches.

We only require one staff member for the deployment and maintenance. 

I have never called support. I only called when we first purchased it, if I had a question. I have not found any difficulties when contacting them, or just because I contacted only lower support. Then since it is a user-friendly solution, I didn't experience any problems with the device.

We used Fortinet and Juniper NetScreen, but we already replaced them.

After seven years or five years, the performance degraded. Then we sourced from our local suppliers and got a recommendation from them and er also checked IT Central Station to compare each product. 

It's not hard to configure, it's user-friendly. It's very user-friendly. It's just the performance that's an issue because it has already aged out. It is already old.

The quality and security support should be improved in the next release.

I would rate SonicWall NSA an eight out of ten. 

The primary use cases for this solution are protection and for a VPN.

My former company is a SonicWall distributor and I am looking to work with this solution in future projects.

I really like the performance; there are no delays and no latency, which is a unique quality in firewalls nowadays.

• The cloud services may be in need of some improvement.
• ADR needs to be added to the portfolio.
• Some next-generation features are not included in the product.

This is a very stable solution and I have heard no objections from customers about it.

It is very scalable.

We have had no interaction with their technical support.

The initial setup of this product is very easy.

Two engineers are required for deployment and maintenance.

I have implemented this solution many times. Some of these were on my own, while in some cases I obtained the help of a consultant. The consultants are great. They are well educated and know how to use the product.

The pricing and licensing are the best part. SonicWall is great compared to competitors, such as Palo Alto, and it has the same features. Considering the market, I believe that the price of this solution is great. 

This product is not as well known as some others because it is not marketed as well as it could be.

My advice for others who are implementing the solution is to do the sizing well. If it is done correctly then there will not be any problems.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

I am using SonicWall NSa as a firewall for many of its functionality, such as intrusion detection and traffic control.

The most valuable feature of SonicWall NSa is the control aspect of the solution.

The detection of malware can improve in SonicWall NSa.

I have been using SonicWall NSa for approximately seven years.

SonicWall NSa is stable.

The scalability of SonicWall NSa is good.

We have approximately 2000 employees and 6000 students using the solution. We have plans to increase the usage of the solution in the future.

The support is mostly online that we have received from SonicWall NSa.

I rate the support from SonicWall NSa a four out of five.

We did not use another firewall previously.

The initial setup of SonicWall NSa is straightforward. The full deployment took approximately two weeks.

We had an integrator do the implementation of SonicWall NSa for us.

I am the only one who maintains the solution.

SonicWall NSa is a straightforward firewall appliance, and most of the features are available.

I rate SonicWall NSa a nine out of ten.

Our use case is for firewall security. The solution is deployed on-premises.

It's an all-in-one solution. We can do the hosting and security all under one box. The UTM is a good feature.

The dynamics needs to be improved. The solution is not very compatible compared to the market products.

The solution is stable. We need only one or two people for maintenance.

It is scalable. We have around 100 users, and we have plans to increase usage.

Technical support is good.

Initial setup was easy. We mostly did the installation ourselves. One person is enough to complete the installation. Depending on the network, it only takes a couple of minutes to do because it's so simple.

I would give this solution 10 out of 10. I would recommend it to others; it's a good solution.