SonicWall TZ Reviews

It is a multi-setting tool. We have about 50 users at any point in time. So far, we haven't had any problems.

We use the content filter and the SSL VPN: 

• The content filter has increased our productivity, especially during working hours. We don't have users spending time on social media during working hours. This means productivity is good. 
• Then, when the guys are offsite, they are still able to work without taking any breaks due to the SSL VPN that we use.

We use the content filter quite a lot because it's an office setting. During working hours, we like to censor the sites users can visit so it increases productivity. Therefore, the content filter has been good for us.

We have been using the SSL VPN as well, because most of our people do travel. They go for rest and recuperation approximately every six weeks, and they are offsite for about 10 days. More often than not, they need to login, or get onto shared drives, to do some work.

SonicWall Analyzer needs a different license. It would be good if Analyzer would be part of the stock license, so even if a layperson is getting the device, he or she doesn't forgets about ordering the Analyzer because it's already there. 

This is what we realized that over the last few months. We tried to pull some analysis, and without the Analyzer, we couldn't. Now, we are in the process of buying the additional license. It would have been better embedded from the beginning.

It is very stable with no issues. The firewall has been up for the past 35 days non-stop. It's performed great. It has performed as it should perform.

Scalability is fine. Our needs do not vary regarding scalability. They are constant. We have about 50 users.

We used it on one occasion. It was quite straight forward. We have a 24/7 support service option. The people who provided support were very efficient.

The main company has been using SonicWall for awhile. When we setup our local office in Ghana, we decided to use what was being utilized in the main office for the local office.

The initial setup was very straightforward. The wizard was helpful. It took less than an hour and a half to set it up and have at least the basic functions apparent. The primary set-up took less than two hours, then we were up and running.

SonicWall has authorized distributors in our country. They have about two or three distributors in the country, so it makes it a bit easier. What we do is to request a quotation from these distributors, then we do a value for money analysis and see which one of them is giving us a competitive price.

Getting licenses in our country, Ghana, is not easy. Though, once we have them, adding them is quick (about a day).

Overall, the cost is great.

No, because we chose SonicWall because they are on our main company's vendor.

We did decide to go with SonicWall TZ instead of SonicWall NSA, because the SonicWall NSA is bigger and more costly.

The purpose of SonicWall is as a unified threat management appliance. We use SonicWall to protect our customers from cyber threat.

We have SonicWall in customer's on-premises environment and we have SonicWall in cloud data centers.

We like the central interface and we like the security features. Additionally, we use SonicWall with VPN connectivity and we have had no problems with SonicWall all these years.

In the next release, I would like to see a SonicWall integration with the DLP tool, this would be interesting. Data Loss Prevention integration.

I have been using SonicWall TZ for about 10 years.

SonicWall TZ is a stable solution.

In terms of scalability, we have to choose the right model according to the customer, their company's size, and according to the internet link capacity. Also according to the quantity of user parameters and the user quantity. The number of users and the link capacity are two parameters to define which SonicWall model is appropriate for that company.

They have a good technical support. I have no problem with them.

It is easy to set up SonicWall. It just depends on the scope of the project.

To set up for initial use takes about two hours. We start with the basic configuration and that is enough to start using SonicWall. After that, we do the more complex and detailed configuration of the security features.

Since we can deploy SonicWall in two hours with the basic configuration, we do a fast start because my users are starting to use the web and receive emails. After that, we do the next steps of the complex config for the more detailed secured configurations.

I would recommend SonicWall to other companies for their security, for the end customer and for security companies, to use as a UTM appliance. 

On a scale of one to ten, I would rate SonicWall TZ a nine.

It is cloud-based. I am managing it from my HQ to centralize all the branches connected with it, point-to point. I'm using the SonicWall for the gateway. Certainly I'm using it for DLP and antivirus logging, and we are using SonicWall firewall for the mail filtering. Also, we can use SonicWall firewall just like on SD-WAN. We can manage all our branches through that central point from their patches.

We have a centralized firewall here and it will take some bandwidth just like a broadband connection, but with low bandwidth or mobility connection. Through that, we can connect from the HQ to all our branches on those devices, through that particular antennae. All the data transmitted from the corporate office to branch offices works smoothly on the low bandwidth.

Because it is a software-developed feature in SonicWall, we just maintain the main firewall. With the main firewall routing there, we can do connectivity point-to-point. On the low bandwidth we can connect to all the branches from my corporate office.

In terms of what needs to be improved, I would say better load balancing and data filtering. This way we have low utilization of the net from the corporate office to all the branches. This is the connectivity there. The traffic from the HQ to all the branches goes on the low latency so that connectivity is continuous and not dropped.

In the next release it should have both the failure and load balancing combined on there. Whenever there is a failure and whenever they are load balancing, it should auto-generate the traffic for any connectivity on there, so it will run smoothly. It should also generate the alert.

I have been using SonicWall TZ for the last 10 years. We're using the SD-WAN solution from SonicWall.

This solution is quite stable.

Scalability is more than fine.

We have around 500 users with connectivity on it.

We do have plans to increase usage.

Technical support is good, there is no issue.

I am comfortable with them all: SonicWall, Check Point, Palo Alto, Sophos. Right now, I'm using the Sophos 225 and 125 in my offices and have a XG 862 in all the branches connected from there. I work on that firewall installation and also the NetScaler on the Citrix. That's simply fundamental. There are some differences with the connectivity and ruling. The rule tab is the same.

I work on their Azure AD platform and also Exchange. On the Exchange, I am working on the O365.

I am also using Trend Micro, Symantec, and McAfee.

This technology comes with these different platforms and you go on the previous one from a couple years ago. The SD-WAN-only technology is not that common. It costs more from US, Canada and from that area of connectivity. It will drop the packet from there.

It has an easy setup. You can centralize all the connectivity. This OS is running with each and everything, and you can monitor it all from the centralized point.

I also give the support for Exchange, but this will take low bandwidth and low latency from any mobile connectivity, any internet, any low-bandwidth connectivity and work fine. But other products like McAfee and Symantec can support the Exchange.

It can take time for the synchronization of updating the devices. This depends on how many devices we have connecting from the portal and which devices they are working on. Sometimes, you have the scanning on there. So it will take that functionality and we can define for root causes on the other things. We can define according to policy. So this depends on the policy design. It also depends on that criteria.

On a scale of one to 10, I would give SonicWall TZ a nine.

We use the solution to control and protect access between our various locations.

With this solution, our facilities are able to act as one, easily sharing resources. 

It protects against intrusion while allowing needed access. 

It needs more robust self-help documentation along with examples and things to watch out for. 

We have been using the solution for more than ten years.

The stability is great.

The solution works well.

Positive

Nothing is as robust and complete as SonicWall devices.

The initial setup was fairly straightforward and is particularly straightforward when upgrading.

Our implementation was done in a combination due to locations.

We have seen a 100% ROI. There are no intrusions. 

It was chosen by an IT support company.

Try it, you'll be glad you did, as you'll find a new peace of mind.

We primarily use SonicWall TZ as an internet gateway for a lot of our small to medium-sized clients' sites.

The most valuable features are unified threat management which provides security intelligence and the VPN for both site-to-site and remote access.

We are not receiving the rated throughput that the solution claims. We have noticed our client's internet bandwidth has increased but we are not receiving the throughput that the device is sized for. For example, if I have a device that is rated to handle 400 megabits of throughput, we are not receiving that speed. We are receiving significantly less than that in some cases, this needs to be improved. I do not know if this is still the case with the latest generation of SonicWall's, but we have sixth-generation SonicWall's in use and we are not receiving the rated bandwidth.

We have built a host secondary DNS directly on the firewall. For example, If you have a small business environment where you only have one server or you have a remote office location where you do not have any servers, you could use a VPN back to the main office and rely on the internal DNS server. However, you will have no redundancy for DNS. There are two choices, we can either use a public DNS service, which is a mistake because it will not know where the information is on the local network. The active directory is not going to work properly if the resources you want cannot be found. You end up picking between two poor options. You either have no redundancy for DNS or you have redundant DNS where one of them is not the best quality. The whole industry is lacking an alternative. I would like to be able to host a secondary DNS on a firewall appliance, many people need this feature.

In an upcoming release, SonicWall could improve by adding cloud management for all devices for free or at a nominal cost. Currently, they have a cloud management platform but is not free. We have the MySonicWall portal for purchasing from them for software updates and renewals.

I have been using SonicWall TZ for approximately 14 years.

SonicWall TZ is very stable. We rarely have to reboot the platform.

We have not needed to scale the solution very much, our clients are typically small to medium business environments where we do not need the scalability. However, The scalability could improve because there is not a centralized device manager.

The technical support is good. However, there is a language barrier because their support is based out of India and you cannot always understand the agent that you are speaking with. Sometimes support is outstanding, and other times you do not have the level of technical expertise that you need.

The solution is easy to do the setup and is intuitive.

To implement and do the maintenance of SonicWall TZ we do not need a dedicated team.

You need to purchase multiple licenses to manage multiple devices which is cost-prohibitive for the value you would receive.

I rate SonicWall TZ an eight out of ten.

This firewall makes up part of our security solution.

The most valuable features are security and technical support.

The pricing is of this solution is high and could be reduced to make it more competitive.

The monitoring is a little bit confusing.

I have been using SonicWall TZ for three years.

We have had no problems with stability.

This is a nice product in terms of scalability.

The technical support is good. If I call on the helpline then a technical person will assist us.

The initial setup is very easy. If a person knows some networking and about access levels then they will be able to configure it.

The price is high compared to some other solutions.

My license is about to expire and I am currently searching for a new solution. As we expand and open new offices, I am looking to change the whole setup.

In summary, this is a very good product and I recommend it.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

I find the security we are able to do with the policies to be valuable. The monitoring is valuable as well.

Full monitoring obviously needs to be improved. We need full monitoring covered under the security licensing. The license should include reporting and monitoring. It shouldn't be an add-on, it should just go along with it. They should also make the monitoring easy to manage. Sometimes we need reports. We need some live monitoring decisions on how it's going down. We should take the live report from the SonicWall itself. I want to display the report under our monitor so I can monitor firewalls outside our area.

It's very stable and working fine.

The solution is very scalable. We don't plan to increase the usage right now. We have sufficient coverage. We don't plan future deployment.

I've had a good experience with technical support.

We haven't been using a different solution previously. We were using some antivirus software and some firewall software. We decided to implement SonicWall because it has good support and a good reputation in our area.

Initially, the setup is not so straightforward but we managed to make it work. Deployment was not so fast. It has initially taken two days, then after that, an hour or so. You only need one person for deployment.

Initially, we could only implement with the support from the reseller but then afterwards we handled it by ourselves.

I've seen great ROI since implementing it.

We considered many products, and afterwards, we found SonicWall to be the best solution.

We're using a variety of different models. The solution is very simple and works great and is working fine in the regions that are here.

I would rate the solution a nine out of 10. If it had better reporting functionality, I would give it a 10.

Configuration of firewall policies is very easy. I would say its interface gave me the ability to step into firewall and routing. Also I find using the SonicWALL for Site to Site VPN's is extremely easy, in particular, if you want to have VPN fail-over. HA is another good feature. Only because its the most competitive in the market as they give you an HA unit at a reduced cost.

Being a simple to deploy product means you can quickly and effectively implement a secure network

Since the acquisition of SonicWALL by Dell, I have not seen much in the way of improvements. Probably the key area to improve are as follows

• Better Mail Security (Spam in particular)
• Some improvement in Application Detection and reporting
• Its reporting tool (Viewpoint/GMS) is probably still in need of much improvement.

The death for SonicWall for us unfortunately is the Dell acquisition. You end up competing with Dell for the sale of SonicWALL and then anything else IT related. They don't work with IT partners.

I've used SonicWALL NSA for five years.

No issues encountered with deployment.

The only stability issues I have encountered is the reporting tools' ViewPoint/GMS. I have seen those virtual appliances fail to the point of needing to rebuild.

The NSA side of things is extremely stable as is the HA functionality.

You need to know the environment to ensure the unit you deploy suits. One negative about the SonicWALLS is the spec sheets for their numbers seem to be quite "optimistic". I used to divide by two to get an idea.

I haven't dealt with customer support.

Pretty good, they are more than happy to get into the details of any issues and assist in resolving them.

This became the de-facto firewall for us.

Initial out of the box setup is very simple as it provides wizards to get you up and running and you can build your firewall on top of those wizards.

When SonicWall was SonicWALL we dealt with a very good vendor team. Since going to Dell it just went downhill.

We have seen many cases where installing the SonicWall has helped with security threats or just for safe user browsing

Setup cost is the hardware, configuration and installation. Once its installed, you don't need to refer to it much.

Just map out the connection requirements.