SonicWall NSa Reviews

We are a solution provider and SonicWall NSA is one of the firewalls that we implement for our clients. I have implemented it for many companies and currently, I have four or five clients that we are supporting.

The most valuable features are the VPN, SSL VPN, and IPSec VPN.

The port forwarding functionality works well.

The number of concurrent VPN users is too limited.

SonicWall does not support DynDNS, yet this is an important feature for smaller companies that do not have a static IP address. It means that if the IP address changes then it would automatically be picked up by the firewall and it will assist with site-to-site VPN connections.

I have been working with SonicWall NSA for two years.

SonicWall NSA is a stable firewall.

I have set up SonicWall NSA for smaller companies in Dubai. Most of my customers are small to medium-sized with between 20 and 100 users. I would say that it is scalable.

The support offered by SonicWall is good. I would rate them a six or seven out of ten.

I also have more than five years of experience with Fortinet FortiGate. I have worked with models such as the 30E, 50E, 60E, 100E, and 60D. I also have experience with the Meraki Firewall.

The VPN limitations are better with FortiGate. Even with the lower versions, such as the 30E, it supports 100 tunnels and 100 users. With SonicWall, you are limited to five IPSec VPN connections at one time.

FortiGate also supports DynDNS, which is an important feature for smaller companies.

The initial setup is okay and I don't have any issues with it. When you configure any UTM box, whether it's new or if you are configuring it for the first time, it will take some time to complete. Once you get through it for the first time, it is much easier from then on.

If you want to connect more than five concurrent users by VPN then you have to pay an additional fee.

Overall, this is a good firewall and they would do much better in the market if they included support for DynDNS and additional VPN connections for free.

At this point, because of the restrictions with the VPN, we are recommending Fortinet rather than SonicWall. If in the future these concerns are dealt with, then I will recommend SonicWall.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We use SonicWall NSA as part of our overall security solution.

This product handles what we're expecting in a box like this.

This product is user-friendly and easy to configure.

The logging is very good, as long as it is configured properly.

It would help us a lot of SonicWall sent us more information about the latest updates and things that are changing.

I would like to have the capability for full active-active mode.

I have been working with SonicWall for about 14 years, since 2007.

This is a stable product.

SonicWall is scalable. Depending on the size of the box that I have, if the demands increase then I can upscale it. These demands are based on the users and their activities. We have between 2,000 and 2,500 users.

The support that I get from SonicWall is good. They have supported us for more than ten years and we haven't faced any issues with them to this point.

I have not worked on any other platforms.

SonicWall NSA is easy to install. I have not personally completed an installation lately, but it used to take me no more than half an hour to move from one box to another. The box can be configured offline and then moved online afterward, which makes it easier.

I used to work on SonicWall regularly. Now, I am working as an IT analyst and my job is to check the SonicWall configuration and test it. For example, I have to check the policy and then audit which ports are open.

The pricing and value are good.

SonicWall fulfills our requirements and it does it well. My advice for anybody who is considering this product is to properly understand their requirements. As long as SonicWall meets the needs, I can recommend it.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

Our primary use case of NSa is for security. We are customers of SonicWall and I'm an IT administrator. 

The solution is user-friendly with good security and application control which is very important these days. 

The support is severely lacking with very slow response times. There are latency issues with this solution. I'd like to see improved performance and an updated dashboard.

I've been using this product for seven years. 

The stability is fine although there are some security and latency issues. 

The scalability is fine. 

Customer support requires additional engineers because their long response times are problematic. 

Neutral

The initial setup is relatively straightforward. We have several hundred users, predominantly IT specialists, engineers and developers. I'm the maintenance person for this product. 

I rate this solution eight out of 10. 

Licensing costs are reasonable. 

In general, this is a good solution and I rate it eight out of 10.  

At the organization I used to work for, this solution was used as the primary perimeter firewall. We had 11 sites. Each site had a firewall that sat behind a router and did all the filtering.

The security features we pretty good. The antivirus and items of that nature were quite helpful to have.

The web sourcing was very good. 

The stability was very good.

We found the installation to be pretty straightforward.

Sometimes I found the GUI and some of the features a little bit hard to navigate, as opposed to Fortigate, which is much more user-friendly. 

What Fortigate has which SonicWall doesn't, is the per rule natting. SonicWall only does the central mapping. If they could include something like per rule natting it would be better.

I've used the solution for about three years or so.

The solution was very stable. There were no bugs or glitches. It didn't crash or freeze. It was reliable. There were no breaches.

The solution was quite scalable. If a company needed to expand it, it could do so.

We had 300 or so users at our organization using the product.

I do not work for the company anymore. I can't speak to their plans for the solution and if they plan to increase usage or not. 

I had experience with support in the past and I found them to be helpful and responsive. I was very pleased with their level of assistance.

I'm currently using Fortigate now. I switched companies and this company uses Fortigate.

The installation process isn't too difficult. It's pretty easy and rather straightforward. A company shouldn't have any trouble with the initial setup.

The time it takes to deploy depends on the company, however, I recall it only took about an hour or so at our organization. Physically, you might need help with the actual setup, however, for the most part, a person could handle it alone.

I was able to handle the process myself. I did not need the assistance of a consultant or integrator. 

Our organization would pay for a license every two to three years.

I was a customer and an end-user. I never had a professional relationship with SonicWall.

I would recommend the product to other organizations.

I'd rate the solution overall at a seven out of ten.

We are system integrators and we install products for our customers. It is mainly used in Universities, for corporate use, and in the government sector as a firewall.

What I like the most is that this is a one-time purchase with no renewal fees.

The stability is better than other products.

The pricing for this product in India is high and the fees should be reduced.

The visual process needs improvement.

Because of the price, our customers prefer PSA. The price is what needs to be addressed in the next release, it's the only that that matters.

I would rate this solution a five out of ten.

I have been using this solution for approximately 22 years.

This solution is stable.

This is a scalable product. As our customer need increases we plan to increase our usage.

Technical support is good and it is available online as well as offline.

Currently, I am using SonicWall and Wildcard.

The setup process was perfect.

It was straightforward and easy. This is not a complex product at all.

We handle the integration for our customers.

SonicWall is a one-time purchase and there is no renewal license.

I would not recommend this solution because the price is too high. More than 30% of our customers prefer PSA because of the price.

In summary, the product is good but the price is too high.

I would rate this solution a five out of ten.

We are a managed service provider and SonicWall is our primary firewall. We offer this solution to customers as part of a rental program, as well as sell them outright.

The most valuable feature is the Global Management System. This is the driving force behind why we continue to use it.

Having to deal with too many lower-level people in technical support means that it takes longer to resolve issues, so escalating support tickets should be faster.

I have bee using SonicWall at this company for nine years, although it was SonicWall TZ prior to SonicWall NSA. This company has been using it for longer than that. I also have experience with SonicWall that predates my time here.

SonicWall is very stable.

I don't think that scalability is a pertinent criterion for firewalls because they're hard-coded by the ASICs that go into them. When we rent a firewall to a customer instead of selling one, that customer has an upgrade path available. In this regard, it is scalable because we can switch them to a larger model if they outgrow it. Otherwise, it's limited by the ASIC.

The technical support from SonicWall is good. However, if it were easier to access where you were not stuck in a queue of people and forced to escalate problems it would be a bonus. 

The initial setup is straightforward.

Overall, this is a good solution and it's doing the job we need it to do. By in large, we don't have any complaints. There are always things that can be easier, but it's doing the job.

My advice for anybody who is implementing SonicWall NSA is that you can't be an expert on every brand. This means that you should pick a model, learn it very well, and build relationships with the support people at the vendor.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

The NSA 2400 is used as our edge device. We subscribe to two services.

• Comprehensive Gateway Security Suite
• Anti Spam Service

The ability to configure the appliances for efficient usage.

• Content filtering
• Anti-Spam
• URL blocking
• Bandwidth management
  

• Content filtering reduces the load on the available bandwidth and restricts employees from using distracting websites on the job, which leads to more productive hours.
• Anti-Spam reduces unwanted mail on corporate exchange services.

After-sales support and hands-on training facilities are poor or not available in my country. Improving these will help users like me optimally manage and administer this solution.

I like that you can run a packet capture from within SonicWall and configure it to automatically upload the packet captures to an FTP server. This is useful when trying to troubleshoot an intermittent issue. It can capture for as long as you have disk space on the FTP server.

We are more aware of security issues since SonicWall can be configured to send e-mail alerts. Server-side Outlook rules and Exchange transport rules (more informational subject lines) can be helpful in sorting and making sense of the many alerts it can generate. We have also configured it to send logs to a syslog server. They also offer SonicWall Analyzer which can reportedly be very helpful when viewing logs but I have no experience with it.

I am not sure if SonicWall has finally addressed this issue but a major area for improvement would be being able to export the settings file in a non-binary readable and editable format. It is not possible to export, make changes and then upload a revised configuration. Since the settings file is binary and non-readable, it seems to always be suspect when any strange issues arise with the appliance. I have had their techical support many times through the years question whether our settings file was corrupt. Of course it would be very easy to know if it was possible to look at it but it’s binary.

Another issue we had was with SonicWall auto-creating firewall rules for VPN tunnels until I learned to disable that feature and not allow it. SonicWall will not let an admin delete an auto-created object. I personally believe an admin should be able to delete anything. We had cases where a VPN tunnel was deleted first and auto-created objects for the tunnel would get abandoned. Other objects can also get abandoned. A time or two I was able to delete abandoned objects by recreating what created them in the first place and then deleting things in the right manner to cause the auto-deletion of the objects. If that doesn’t work, you will need to restore from a backup settings file or live with the abandoned object(s). We made it a policy to always backup the settings before any change and again after the change with the file names of the settings files reflecting what was changed. It also helps to send an e-mail to the team or record in a ticket details on any changes made, e.g. screen shots of all changes. If the settings file becomes corrupt you will need to load a previous settings file. It will be helpful to have a previous version along with a record of all changes made since that settings file was saved. This is another example of how helpful it would be to be able to view the settings file, make changes and delete objects if needed and then reload it. It would be so much easier and faster.

I have used SonicWall products for about eleven years, these models for about eight years. They are near EOL.

Years ago, we would often have problems after firmware upgrades. Once after a firmware upgrade all firewall rules were still present except for HTTP and HTTPS which of course meant our web servers were dead until all the rules were recreated. We began to experience spontaneous reboots after another firmware upgrade. In recent years, they now issue early release firmware, often many versions of it, until they release a new general release. We never upgrade to early release and chose to only use general release after it’s been released for three months (true for all vendor firmware and software) and after we have searched for horror stories on the Internet. You can also open a tech support case and specifically ask the tech if the firmware is still considered a good and stable release. They will usually tell you honestly whether it is or not. We have had technical support tell us early release is tested and just as good as general release firmware while other technical support has told us it is not fully QA-tested and might cause problems. Using only general release firmware, our SonicWall has been rock solid and very stable for many years even when they were newer and had more frequent firmware releases.

We never tried to scale it.

SonicWall technical support is quite good. As with all contact with any technical support, I always document the issue, who I spoke to and their response. This can prove to be very valuable if trying to demonstrate a longstanding issue. It helps to have in hand previous dates, case numbers, names of previous tech support with notes on what they said and details on the previous attempts to fix things. For the most part, SonicWall technical support can quickly identify and resolve most issues.

We had a SonicWall 5060 PRO and upgraded to the SonicWall NSA 4500s. They are near EOL and another upgrade will soon be required.

I built them from scratch since our settings file in the 5060 PRO was suspected to have corruption. I documented all of the settings in the previous firewall and manually created all of the address objects, service objects, firewall and NAT rules to duplicate what was in the SonicWall 5060 PRO. I previously built the 5060 PRO so I knew it was configured correctly.

SonicWall absolutely has the best bang for the buck hands down. Other firewalls are two to three times as expensive both in initial cost and recurring maintenance cost. SonicWall does not require duplicate licenses if you have an HA-pair in Active/Passive mode since only one unit will be active at any given time, which is a big savings in cost compared to other vendors. If you buy a security bundle you get even greater savings. SonicWall does, however, license user VPN access unlike most other vendors.

It’s been so long ago I can’t remember.

At the time of this post SonicWall is now owned by private equity firm Francisco Partners and Elliott Management. I would research those firms and form an opinion as to the possible future of SonicWall and then decide accordingly. If you have already made your purchase, utilize tech support often if needed. They have been invaluable to me through the years and have always helped me in getting answers to any questions. They have always been there to assist me in setting up something new and unfamiliar when needed.