Along similar lines to the McAfee and Juniper devices is the SonicWALL range of security appliances. For those familiar with SonicWall's family of internet and network security appliances -- or indeed for those who already have SonicWall equipment (running at least SonicOS 2.2) -- deploying the IPS can be as simple as buying the service subscription and following the upgrade manual.The SonicWALL IPS software will run on a variety of SonicWALL's existing security appliances from the entry-level TZ170 to the PRO5060; there is also support for the PRO2040, PRO3060, and PRO4060 appliances. The SonicWALL appliances are designed to be jacks of all trades and very easy to deploy and maintain. With the right model and subscription keys, users can enable features in the extended SonicOS 2.5 such as firewall, antivirus, content filtering, IPS, and even a multipoint wireless security gateway (when deployed with SonicWall's access points). The main differentiation in the PRO series is the number of available network ports and network throughput performance ranging up to Gigabit over fibre or opper in the 5060. Applying the IPS system will incur approximately a 15 to 20 percent throughput penalty, so if your SonicWALL appliance is already running out of steam, consider upgrading to the next model before deploying the IPS subset. Naturally if you are starting from scratch and will be deploying a new IPS, you can match the correct SonicWALL IPS performance to your environment.
IPS logs are stored intenally on generous amounts of flash memory and can easily be scheduled to be sent off the machine. There are quite a lot of included IPS rules and definitions, 1801 in total, however at this stage the users can't create their own.
This is a very neat device and a great concept to provide a scalable security solution in a single box. Unfortunately, we did not get very long to play around with this equipment, however what we saw was quite impressive.
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| Product | SonicWALL IPS service for SonicWALL appliances |
| Price | TZ170 US$595 up to PRO5060 US$14,950 |
| Vendor | ACA Pacific |
| Phone | 03 9674 8188 |
| Web | www.sonicwall.com |
| Interoperability |
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| Several models available with excellent features. | |
| Futureproofing |  |
| Range of models with clear upgrade paths. | |
| ROI |  |
| Excellent pricing considering range and features. | |
| Service |  ½ |
| Warranty and serice renewable annually with service contract. | |
| Rating |  |
