SonicWALL TZ 210

The king of the small business market security, SonicWALL recently added six new models of its popular TZ series of UTM (Unified Threat Management) articles, offering a mix of enhanced functionality and improved performance. Designed to serve the band for the man up, the new range is headed by the TZ 210 which, as we discovered, clearly the gap between SMEs and the company’s products – at a price that the competition will find difficult match.

The USB ports on the front of the TZ 210 can be used to add a 3G wireless adapter or an analog modem. In the back, the TZ 210 has two Gigabit Ethernet ports and five Fast Ethernet interfaces.

Available with or without an integrated access point Wireless-N (802. 11n), the TZ 210 has two Gigabit Ethernet interfaces on the back, labeled WAN and LAN, the Internet and local network connection, respectively. Along with five network ports that can be used for a variety of purposes, including additional LAN / WAN connectivity with built-in load balancing and failover, but these are all Fast Ethernet (10/100 Mbps) only, Gigabit place (10 / 100/1000) enabled. In the front, you also get two USB ports for a 3G wireless security device and / or to connect to an analog modem to further increase WAN bandwidth and protect against service failures.

In terms of performance, the firewall in the TZ-210 can inspect traffic at speeds up to 100Mbps. UTM services applied to the halves of 50 Mbps, but still an impressive figure for a device in this price segment. Indeed, it is sufficient to protect the WAN links up very large organizations and more than enough, when the equipment is used for secure connections to branch offices distributed. Installation on our test network (more modest) had a few minutes, following the instructions in the large get-started guide, which includes a lot of useful examples that show how to deal with different network deployments. Most of the initial work carried out by configuration wizards, which certainly helped us – especially with the configuration of the VPN. However, they can not do everything possible to, once the basic setup is complete, it is common to Web-based interface for more detailed settings, or in large networks, SonicWALL GMS (Global Management System) software.

There was no option to inspect SSL encrypted traffic for threats, but can scan compressed files and enforce antivirus protection in the local network equipment. Plus there’s a helpful guest service option for wireless users to allow visitors, for example, to connect to the Internet but do not sniff the corporate LAN. You can even use the TZ 210 to manage security on wireless access points, although only the SonicWALL hardware is used.

Browser was used for our tests and found the interface easy to navigate. On the negative side, a certain degree of technical knowledge is assumed and some of the options took time to exercise. But that is par for the course of this type of device, and it took just under an hour for firewall and antivirus key services up and use the content filtering service to stop users to browse sites we wanted to block. We also found it easy to the area of our network and implement different policies for each – and even scan and filter traffic passing between the zones.

Another point to note is that most services must be licensed before they can be used. Go to the device you naked and free trials usual. However, I recommend the total security package, which includes licenses for the gateway antivirus, spyware, content filtering and intrusion prevention services. This adds £ 113 (VAT) the price of the TZ 210, but it’s cheaper to buy separate licenses. Plus it’s good to go immediately with a full year of updates and support, after which there are several ways to extend their protection – one of the cheapest for a three year old license Comprehensive Gateway Security Suite for £ 406 ( VAT).