SonicWall consolidates low-end product lines

SonicWall is rationalizing the bottom end of its product line with a single hardware platform that will boil down two of its current product lines.

This makes sense for the company as it will have a simpler set of gear to keep track of and for customers who will have less cross-checking to do before making a purchase decision.

In all, the company is getting rid of six models from its Tele 3 and SOHO 3 family of products, which will be replaced by a three-model product called TZ 170.

For customers this means they can upgrade the TZ 170 platform with software licenses. So if the need arises for a site to handle more IPSec tunnels or more remote access connections, a customer can download the software key that unlocks the additional capacity. No new hardware needed.

SonicWall has also packed the hardware with extra processing power that it will use later to offer more security features. These could include content filtering and spam filtering, the company says. So customers who buy the boxes can expect that someday these upgrades will also be available.

The base model TZ 170 10-Node costs $500; TZ 170 25-Node costs $700; TZ 170 Unrestricted costs $1,000. The node count indicates how many LAN addresses it will support. The hardware includes a single WAN port, a five-port 10/100 Ethernet switch and a work port, which is a separate, secure port for plugging in a computer that is used only for work to keep other home devices from accessing a business VPN link.

The models being cut as of this quarter are the Tele 3 TZ and Tele 3 TZX models as well as SOHO 3 10-node, SOHO 3 25-node, SOHO 3 50-node and SOHO 3 Unlimited.

SonicWall will keep two other Tele and SOHO models for their unique features. Tele 3 S3 will be kept to offer customers an appliance that has an analog dialup failover port if the dedicated Internet access link dies. SOHO TZW will be kept for its support of wireless LAN devices.

 All in all it should be simpler to make sense of what is available from SonicWall.