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Morning Spiceheads. We are currently looking at possibly purchasing and implementing 3 Sonicwall TZ400 to replace our Cisco SA520Ws and our ISA570W at our 3 locations and I wanted to get some people thoughts on this. I have never worked with any other firewalls other than Cisco so this is a complete new direction for us. Being that networking isn’t exactly my strong suit I thought based on the Demos I saw that the Sonicwalls seemed more Admin friendly than Cisco. At any rate would love to hear from you guys one what your love/hate/indifferent relationships are with Sonicwall firewalls?

@Dell_Technologies @Cisco

5 Spice ups
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We use them almost everywhere. Not difficult to learn, tons of features, but I would be sure to purchase it through a partner. We don’t experience this as a partner, but I have heard some difficulties with support in the past. As a partner we skip part of the line and have never had anything but wonderful experiences with them, but something to keep in mind.

Hardware runs great, last a long time as well.

1 Spice up
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They are extremely easy to pick up, and I have had excellent luck with them in my IT career. The biggest difference between the two products is going to be everything in the SonicWALL is object based. You create the objects first and the rules second. Another huge difference would be the lack of CLI for SonicWALL. It does exist, but it is not as robust as Cisco’s.

I have used both and I prefer SonicWALL. It might be blasphemy, but I base decisions on how easy it is to manage something, and they are pretty dang easy.

2 Spice ups
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Sonicwall here as well. I’ve been really happy with them since I made the decision to standardize on them about five years ago. As far as the TZ400, that’s a pretty new product that I have not used yet. As you move up in the Sonicwall line, you’re typically paying for overall performance. Just look at the specs for throughput, keep in mind the more goodies you add the more it can affect performance. As Brandon mentioned, everything is object based, including the services, so it’s pretty easy to create a custom service group for a specific need, VOIP for example. As far as support, it is required on Sonicwall routers, and cheaper if you buy multiple years through a good reseller. Whenever I’ve needed help, they usually just dial in and do it for me. I have a great reseller out of Chicago, PM me if you want his contact information.

1 Spice up
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We were looking to get them through our Dell Rep. Should we look at a different avenue?

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Thanks for this info. 1-man IT shop and really need something admin friendly and very easy to understand cause my time I can spend on specific tasks is very limited.

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We’ve been using SonicWALL’s since around 2005 because my boss loved them. They are easy to pick up for the most part, but since Dell acquired them, their support has gotten worse and worse. We have literally made the decision this very week to move away from SonicWall’s completely with our next hardware refresh cycle. Their firmware updates break functionality that we have been depending on for 10 years now, and their suggestion is that we shouldn’t be doing it that way because the device won’t handle it… Well, it handled it just fine for 10 years with the old firmware, so how can you try to blame it on the device without feeling like a total idiot??

We found Calyptix provides very nice features on very nice hardware at an incredible price. I would strongly suggest that you look into them. Could be a great stepping stone, as I believe that Calyptix will work with Cisco, at least until you get all of the cisco out of your environment.

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We have Dell SonicWALLs here. Never had an issue with support, and never went through a partner channel. Admin interface is easy to learn, navigate, and use.

If you are managing several SonicWALLs it might help to look at GMS - http://www.sonicwall.com/us/en/products/GMS-Application.html

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Get quotes from multiple vendors: CDW, TigerDirect, and Dell. See who gives you the best price. If you are phasing out other firewalls be sure to ask if any qualify for the competitive trade-in program - http://www.sonicwall.com/us/en/competitive-firewall-replacement.html

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Been using Sonicwalls for years and currently am managing 2000 and counting through GMS.

They are easy to manage this way. Look into GMS and see if it’s helpful.

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I would only be managing 3. This is labeled as an enterprise solution, would it be cost effective?

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I checked and it doesn’t look like the Cisco Small Business firewalls are part of the trade up program but thanks for that tip.

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There is a form you can fill out to request pricing, or talk to your Dell Rep. He/she may have a quick answer for you.

Not sure what you would consider cost effective, but here is an example of pricing. SonicWall Global Management System Standard Edition - license - 10 nodes - 01-SSC-3363 - Firewalls - CDW.com