SonicWall cleans house

SonicWall has come out with the third of its brand-new firewall/VPN appliances that take advantage of the company’s two-tiered operating system.

Called SonicWall PRO 2040, it comes in a standard ($2,000) and enhanced ($2,750) version, similar to the dual versions available for two of its appliances introduced last year, SonicWall Pro 3060 and 4060.

All of them use the SonicOS 2 operating system, which comes in standard and enhanced versions. The standard version features set-up wizards to guide customers through basic configurations and is meant for businesses with limited IT staff. The enhanced version allows more configuration options that are executed via Web browser and a series of dialog boxes. It is meant for more complex networks with more IT staff.

These flexible appliances are part of a trend toward giving mid-sized businesses a variety of VPN options. The reason is that midsized businesses for the next five years will be where the money is according to IDC. These businesses have heightened need for security but are still on tight budgets and have limited IT staff. Vendors including Check Point, NetScreen and WatchGuard seem to be catering to these businesses as well.

These three new boxes and its new operating system seem to be a push by SonicWall to clean house and update its products. In addition to these changes, the company this week is also announcing a new VPN client for remote computers. The client is an upgrade of its old Global VPN Client that has a managed personal firewall added. The new client is called Global Security Client.

When remote users connect to SonicWall VPN gateways, the gateway requires the remote machine to meet corporate security policies before logging in. Security updates are automatically downloaded to the remote machines from the gateways.

 The new client costs $275 per year for five licenses, $445 for 10, $745 for 25 and $1,795 for 100.