* SonicWall's TZ 190
SonicWall is expanding its branch office firewall, VPN, LAN switch line to include support for broadband wireless.
With a PCMCIA card from one of the major U.S. broadband wireless carriers – Cingular, Sprint or Verizon – the device can support branch office VPN connections to headquarters. SonicWall has worked with makers of cards compatible with these providers’ services, and says the TZ 190 supports those cards.
The card can be the primary WAN link or it can serve as backup. Because it is broadband, it would be roughly an equal tradeoff with a DSL line for bandwidth.
In places where DSL or cable broadband access is unavailable or available speeds are too slow, this device could bring needed connectivity. For a business with a large number of SonicWall branch devices, this could support those sites that would otherwise require a different WAN service supported by another vendors’ gear. So the TZ 190 could help simplify WAN management in such a circumstance.
In addition to the broadband support, TZ 190 contains an eight-port 10/100 Ethernet switch that can segment traffic into virtual LANs that enforce different security zones. So certain work stations attached to the switch could have restricted use of the Internet and office printer, but not certain application servers.
The new device is based on an upgraded hardware platform compared to previous TZ devices. The processor is a 200 MHz Cavium Nitrox, and the box has 128MB of RAM and 16MB of flash memory. This compares to a SonicWall security processor, 64MB of RAM And 8MB of flash in the TZ 170.
The switch is manageable via command line interface through a console port, and also has a Web interface.
TZ 190 is available now and costs $1,000.
