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Hey Spiceheads, I have something I would like to run past you all. We currently have a Sonicwall NSA 220 that we have been using for many years, and things are coming up to expire. I am evaluating what to do with this device. It has worked fairly nicely for our Firewall needs, but the Anti-Spam features Sonicwall has leaves much to desire as we have some users getting upwards of 30-40 emails that come through as [Likely-Spam] that are clearly Spam, but if we up the Spam filters we have too many legit emails being blocked. We work with multiple countries, and get roughly 70,000 emails sent to us in a month.

I am not the biggest Firewall/Email guru, but I am a 1-man shop when it comes to IT here. They are looking at getting someone else to help with more of the Database Design and Programming though. We manufacture products, so we have several different types of CNC Machines and Lathes and other products that connect up to the network. Not too many users here though. We have just over 30 employees, with a few that don’t touch a computer much at all other than to click buttons to say they are starting work on a certain project and then to click it saying they are stopped on that project. That sort of thing, and this is done on Tablets for them.

What would you all recommend for a decent Firewall and Anti-Spam set-up? We don’t have a ton of money, and I have my quote for the next Sonicwall and Software pricing. I am looking to compare to see if there is something that would be a better fit for us than what we have or what we need as this has not been debated or looked at here in almost 10 years now.

Thanks for your thoughtful answers here.

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Since your compnay is use to pay a yearly fee with sonicwall these are great firewall and easy to use and understand for someone that is not a firewall guru if you have issue then call there support there great.

Plus in the manufacturing world if you need AP’s there awesome too

Also go with Office 365 for email something like this

https://products.office.com/en-us/business/office-365-business-essentials

Brandon is a cisco Meraki partner

@bsvec

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What email platform are you using? Another option, have you thought about keeping the firewall (or even upgrading to a newer model), but also moving your antispam to a hosted solution?

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What are you using for email? Have you considered going hosted for email rather than running it all through a firewall appliance?

Things like GSuite or O365 often have much better Spam tools.

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We use fusemail for spam management and have done for several years, it’s a hosted solution with a web mgmt interface, you point your mx records at their servers they deliver to your servers. Takes a bit of load off your internet link too, plus end users get a report if desired of what’s been caught, with the option to release.

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Give Sophos firewalls a look, from what I understand their offerings pair well and are geared for small to medium sized businesses, and they have a good feature set for what you pay for. I used to work with sonicwalls and wanted to blow my brains out more days than not.

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I agree with all the comments above. Running a your own spam filter on a firewall is not common anymore. Nor is having an email server for a small amount of users like that. So, I would also suggest either moving to GSuite or O365 or using a cloud based spam filter.

If you want to know anything about Meraki ask away. They are a good fit for a lean IT team that has general knowledge and likes the idea of having 24/7 phone support and solid monitoring and notifications.

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Support is the main reason we are moving more and more from WatchGuard and to Meraki…call them, they are there…every time.

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Sorry for taking so long to respond back here, things got swamped at work.

For all those asking what we have for email, we host our own Exchange Server that is behind the firewall. I have looked at O365, but it just ends up being so much money every year on top of everything else that we have, so I am not 100% sure on that, nor how to convince the President of the Company that it would be worth it to spend that kind of money. With us not having to pay any more money for email as of right now, convincing him to spend money on a new email system, plus the time to move everyone over is going to be a hard sell.

My biggest thing is firewall hardware to prevent intrusions in our network, which we are fighting multiples every day, and the anti-spam of some kind before getting to our Exchange Server.

Thanks for all the suggestions so far, I am definitely looking into all of them so I can have the best informed decision when I meet with the President next.