WatchGuard is launching a set of appliances that roll VPNs in with a variety of other functionality aimed at improving the efficiency of branch office networks.

The Firebox X Edge e-Series devices support a range of functionality including firewall, VPN, traffic shaping, WAN failover, Web filtering and virus screening. The devices also come in models that support Wi-Fi networking.

WatchGuard says this new series of devices completes an upgrade hardware for all its products that includes support for environmental standards adopted by the European Union to make the devices eligible for sale in Europe.

For large deployments, the devices can be managed via WatchGuard System Manager, which distributes uniform policies across each device and includes tools for speeding up the creation of VPN tunnels. Rather than key in commands, the software includes a GUI that supports drag-and-drop configuration of tunnels. The devices support remote access and site-to-site VPNs.

The wireless models support three methods of protecting traffic between wireless devices and the access point, either WEP, WPA or IPSec, which uses VPN clients that are included with the devices.

The e-Series appliances come in six models that are based on four hardware platforms. There are wired and wireless versions X10e models designed for offices with up to 11 users as well as wired and wireless versions X20e for up to 25 users. The X20e models can be upgraded with a software license that expands the number of users to 55. These expanded models are designated X55e.

The wired versions start at $480 and the wireless models start at $580.

Tim Greene is senior editor at Network World.