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UTM firewall review: SonicWall smashes speed records

New appliance offers enterprise-level UTM performance
By Joel Snyder , Network World , 04/07/2008
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Last month, SonicWall rolled out its next-generation unified threat management firewall appliance geared for the enterprise. In our exclusive test of the Network Security Appliance E7500, results show that SonicWall has, indeed, crashed through the speed barrier.

This box offers 1.3Gbps of UTM performance, which is nearly triple the speed of the fastest product in our comparative UTM test last November (See comparative UTM test).


How we tested SonicWall
Archive of Network World tests
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While SonicWall has not changed much on the surface of its firewall, there are dramatic differences in the internal architecture that yield performance gains that leapfrog the throughput numbers of the SonicWall Pro product line. This makes UTM features including intrusion-prevention system (IPS), antivirus, antispyware, and content filtering cost-effective because they can run at gigabit speeds. (Compare UTM products in UTM Buyer’s Guide.)

Fifth generation multicore performance

SonicWall's NSA firewall line, based on a family of multi-core security processors from Cavium, is called the company's "generation 5 product." The new hardware (six models have been announced already) is slated to entirely replace the company's old Pro series.

SonicWall NSA E7500 Version 5.0
SonicWall
4.01
Price: $25,000
Pros: Very high-performance UTM features; small size; low power consumption; high interface density; redundant power supplies and fans; SonicPoint wireless LAN management system and wireless IDS
Cons: Manageability of UTM features limited, especially in IPS; Web-based management system had difficulty handling complex policies in firewall or NAT; firewall configuration flexibility held back by built-in configuration limits
Scorecard
Performance 25% 4.75 Scoring Key:
5
: Exceptional
4
: Very good
3
: Average
2
: Below average
1
: Subpar or not available
Intrusion prevention 15% 2.50
Antivirus 15%
4.50
VPN 15% 4.00
Management 15% 3.50
Hardware architecture 10% 4.50
Power5% 4.00
TOTAL SCORE 4.01
Click to see: SonicWall net results

The high-end E7500 that we tested has a 16-core Cavium CPU, with each core operating at 600MHz. One core is dedicated to system management, while the other 15 are used for security processing, including firewall, VPN and other UTM features such as antivirus, IPS and content filtering. Also built into the CPU is hardware acceleration for cryptography (useful in VPNs), compression, and regular expressions, which compare a pattern against a string, and are heavily used in most IPS rule sets. SonicWall claims it took 18 months to port its existing operating system to effectively make use of the multicore capabilities of the new hardware.

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Comments (13)
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Terrible SupportBy Anonymous on June 10, 2009, 10:05 amTo bad the company doesn't actually provide a service when you buy the support. Spent so much time on hold then getting cutoff with these people its a joke.

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You're comment is approved?By Anonymous on February 25, 2009, 4:00 am"Anonymous comments subject to approval." Come on...

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We manage 5000 SonicwallBy Anon on January 26, 2009, 11:12 amWe manage 5000 Sonicwall routers all around the world, TZ series and Pro and NSA. I have never seen such fast, reliable and cost effective devices. It all comes...

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BlovkBy Anonymous on January 26, 2009, 11:07 amYeah, when enabled, the features will block the trafic you want to block... It's not a bug, it's a feature... And yes, compare any Cisco to the same level Sonicwall...

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I HATE YOU YOU STUPID SONICWALL CRAP! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! By Anonymous on November 29, 2008, 12:30 pmI HATE YOU YOU STUPID IDIOTIC SONIC WALL CRAP ALL I WANT TO DO IS PLAY GAMES ON ANDKON BUT NOOOOO. ALSO I WANT TO CHECK MY EMAIL BUT AGAIN NOPE. I'M FREAKING SEIROUS...

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