SonicWall NSa Reviews

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.

Our primary use case for SonicWall NSa is as a public firewall, as an interface between our private network and the public network.

The product is working okay. The product is working feature-wise.

I would rate SonicWall NSa as an average product, not a very highly recommended one. It is an average product.

The stability is not there. The features are there, but they are not stable. They need to improve on this product because I feel that they have launched this product without much R&D.

We are using SonicWall NSa for quite a long time, around 10 to 12 years, but that includes the the older model, which was the 5500. Now we have been using the 5600 model for the last two, three years.

Performance wise, they are good - not very good, but they're okay, just good.

They are not stable. It is a very unstable product.

For maintenance, we require one engineer from the support partner, one from the tech side, and one from our side, so three engineers and one manager.

At any point in time we have more than 600 users.

We do not have plans to increase the number of users.

Tech support is okay, but the product needs much improvement.

We were not using a different solution before. We have always been using SonicWall, just the older model, which was 5500. We upgraded to 5600.

The installation part of the initial setup was a painful experience. I felt at the time that it was not a finished product. They have to do more R&D on this product to improve it.

It took a very long time to set it up, to be honest. It took very long because they had some bugs and fixes. After so many fixes, it took them very long to install this product.

Obviously, no OEM deals directly with them. We have their channel partners who did the installation.

To be very honest, we are not satisfied with the 5600 product.

On a personal level, I would not recommend SonicWall NSa.

On a scale of one to ten, you can rate SonicWall NSa a six.

The license and the hardware both need to be renewed. The annual maintenance contract is there. So they have to renew the licenses.

Because this is a UTM, we appreciate having a single pane of glass for a firewall, content filtering, and IPS/IDS services. It is much easier to manage and costs less.

In a K-12 environment, internet security is paramount and threats change quickly.

The main improvement for the organization is uptime and the ability to quickly affect security changes.

The second plus is the ability to improve throughput during peak traffic hours.

SonicWall uses a cloud-based database for content filtering. If the NSA cannot contact that online DB, filtering is handled one of two ways. Traffic is either halted completely or it is passed-through totally unfiltered.

In a K-12 school environment, neither is acceptable. It would be better if the DB can reside on the NSA and is used in the event the online DB is unavailable. Other than that, it works fine.

This product has been online for over four years.

On two occasions, we had a 10GB SFP failure. But because we have an HA configuration there was no disruption. 10 GB SFPs seem to be fragile. Other than that, the system is quite stable.

None.

Technical support has been very good, the few times we've needed it.

A Cisco ASA 5500 was used prior to the NSA 6600. We switched to a UTM to have a comprehensive security solution and one interface to manage it.

Initial setup was complex. But that was expected when migrating from three separate security systems into one unified system. There was a basic template for converting some Cisco's ASA command line instructions to those used by SonicOS. Most of the configuration had to be developed or cleaned up in the SonicOS GUI.

ASA has a much better CLI, especially if you’re used to Cisco IOS. SonicOS CLI is mostly used by tech support.

Initially, it was a bit of a learning curve, but the SonicOS GUI is efficient and easy to use, enough for our needs, anyway. Once network and firewall rules (80% of the complexity) were configured, content filtering, IDS/IPS and other security services were enabled with check boxes.

I recommend a 30-day test run in monitor mode. If you decide on this product, spend the extra dollars and get a second unit to setup an HA system. No down time during SonicOS upgrades or major configuration changes.

If you expect to operate at 10GB, keep one or two extra 10GB SFPs as spares, even though they are not cheap.

The NSA series has several suites available depending on your security needs. Pricing and licensing is straightforward based on the suite you choose.

We considered upgrading the ASA to include the IPS module and adding a second unit for HA.

We also considered PaloAlto but at the time considered it too pricey for our needs. As for as an online evaluation, we did not do that. Time and rack space constraints prevented it.

However, a trusted VAR (more than 12 years) helped to ease our decision to go with the SonicWall.

The solution helps with VPN. 

The most valuable feature I've found is VPN and web protection, particularly with navigation assessment. We use the application control feature to create rules controlling specific application navigation. 

The web interface administration of SonicWall NSa could be improved. Compared to Sophos and FortiGate, making rules is easier with those systems.

The solution is expensive. Its pricing is based on the number of users. 

I rate the overall product an eight out of ten. 

SonicWall NSa's most valuable features are the ease of configuration and the GUI. It's a web-based application, so we can easily configure all we want in the browser.

An area for improvement would be SonicWall NSa's integration with antiviruses. In the next release, SonicWall should include a wireless solution so we can implement the firewall in our networks and for wireless users and access points.

I've been using SonicWall NSa for about two years.

SonicWall NSa is a stable system that's really easy to handle and communicate with.

SonicWall's technical support is very responsive and helpful whenever we need support from them.

Positive

Previously, I worked with PMG Firewall, but SonicWall has a higher level of compatibility, and the integration between the software and hardware gives us more speed in traffic and processing the data over the firewall.

The initial setup was easy - we could implement rules for mapping, network traffic, and network address translation easily on our firewall. I would rate the ease of the setup as four out of five.

SonicWall NSa is a great choice for any growing company - it's really helpful, and it's suitable for networks with limited or unlimited users. I would rate SonicWall NSa as 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.

We are integrators, but for SonicWall, we use it for a specific project in industrial cybersecurity. It was for ransomware recovery and network restoration.

We did the firewall and the configuration for the ransomware prevention.

Our clients were using it to control the SCADA System in their industry.

The most valuable features of this solution are the GUI pre-filtering and the ATP (advanced threat protection). Also, the ATP packet capture is helpful. We used these features during our restoration.

The content ID needs to be improved. If I compare it with Palo Alto, there are more features in Palo Alto that are not included in SonicWall. For example, PDoS is not available in the current version, that I could find.

They do have DLP and Host protection, but not PDoS.

Also, the IPS and the UTM need to be improved.

I haven't found anything regarding the IoT security in the device security on SonicWall.

I have been working with SonicWall for one year.

We are working with NSA 3600, which is the latest version.

We have no complaints about the model.

The scalability level is medium. They are okay with the model, the throughput, and the traffic rate.

We did not require technical support.

Currently, we are running Palo Alto, Check Point, and SonicWall.

Two or three months ago, we were working with Fortinet FortiGate. We have also used Vyatta.

This solution was not implemented properly.

The AV enforcement feature in SonicWall is limited to only one vendor for antivirus, which is Kaspersky. It's the only antivirus solution that we can enforce through the firewall.

Other vendors provide you with multiple options such as Sophos, Kaspersky, Trend Micro, and Bitdefender.

I would rate SonicWall NSA a six out of ten.

We use it to secure the perimeter of our company. We use all the integrated features of this Next-Generation Firewall. We are using NSA 3650.

The bandwidth consumption of the company has improved since we took control and restricted the music on YouTube being accessed on office computers. A lot of computers in the company were streaming, and we used the intelligent application control feature to control that.

Deep packet inspection and intelligent application control are the most valuable features. 

It is a very updated solution. It is very current as compared to other brands and vendors.

I would like to have a built-in vulnerability scanner in the firewall. It would be great to have such functionality. Its price could also be better.

It would also be good to have a local warehouse. It doesn't get damaged a lot, but if a customer needs a replacement, currently, it has to come from Miami or Mexico, which can take a few days. It would be better if they have a local warehouse from where we can just pick replacements and quickly solve a client's needs in terms of replacing equipment. It would be great to have it locally instead of waiting for it from Mexico or the USA.

I have been using this solution for approximately seven years.

It is stable. We have been representing SonicWall in Panama for approximately seven years. Our customers usually don't need any help from us. We don't have any customer attacks or downtime because of the lack of features in the product. It has been a very good experience.

SonicWall has 12 different models for enterprises and service providers. They have a wide range of models to meet the needs of customers of all sizes.

We have all kinds of clients. We have service providers, and we have small, medium, and big companies as clients. In the biggest company, there are 25,000 users. It is a university here in Panama.

It is always there when we need it. They have a very good service.

Customers usually had FortiGate or WatchGuard. Those are the two major brands that we have replaced with SonicWall.

SonicWall is being represented by us here in Panama. FortiGate is a very strong solution here in Panama, but we're trying to get them out of our way. Price is the biggest thing that we might use to replace them. 

Support from the vendor is also a big thing here. WatchGuard has no representatives in Panama. They have no presence, so, it is very easy to replace them, but FortiGate is a difficult one to replace.

It is straightforward. It has a wizard, and you just follow the steps. 

It took us one month because our personnel had to be trained. We need two or three people for its deployment. It is not that demanding on services.

We implemented it with the assistance of SonicWall. 

It would be better if it has a better price, but its price is okay considering the benefits that you receive.

The operating system of all boxes is pretty much the same for enterprises as well as small businesses. It has the same behavior from the smallest model to the biggest one, which is a major advantage of SonicWall.

I would rate SonicWall NSA an eight out of ten.