New Multi-Gigabit Application Intelligent Firewall from SonicWALL Secures the Enterprise

SAN FRANCISCO, March 2 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- SonicWALL, Inc. (Nasdaq: SNWL), a leading secure network infrastructure company, announced today at RSA Conference 2010, (booth #2551), the SonicWALL E-Class Network Security Appliance (NSA) E8500, a new advanced Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) firewall with Application Intelligence and Control designed for the enterprise. The NSA E8500 extends the protection of SonicWALL's network security appliances to include the management and control of data and applications that pass through the network. The NSA E8500 enhances this threat protection with intuitive visualization tools that offer network administrators a wide range of data points on applications traversing the network, including who is using them, as well as the potential security impact. The product is expected to ship in the second quarter this year.

Unparalleled Intelligence, Security and Control

As enterprises attempt to achieve more productivity benefits from their network infrastructure, they have witnessed a dramatic increase in the number of mobile devices allowing employees to work from anywhere, anytime. At the same time, the growth of Web 2.0 applications has provided widely used collaboration tools. Converged communications has emerged as another powerful productivity enabler as voice and video traffic start to co-exist with the more traditional data traffic. These technology trends present a fundamental problem for network administrators – total traffic intelligence. This intelligence is required for performance analysis, discovery and immediate action to provide smooth operations of critical systems, yet this intelligence has become increasingly elusive to capture. As a result, traditional firewalls have grown blind to the application traffic on the network and to the threats that can travel through these applications.

Intuitive traffic visualization allows the NSA E8500 to display traffic intelligence in an easy-to-understand form that enables fast network assessment. The integration of advanced networking and remote access technologies allows SonicWALL to verify and defend the security of traditional and mobile wireless networks, users and applications — and their endpoint devices — while scanning and disinfecting the data stream across platforms and perimeters.  Robust Re-assembly Free Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) capabilities feed into the NSA E8500's integrated Application Intelligence engine, allowing the appliance to inspect hundreds of thousands of connections simultaneously with near zero latency and no file size limitations. Along with the technological scalability, SonicWALL's policy and administration management can scale as customers grow and evolve.

"The last few years have seen a fundamental shift in working styles and practices that requires organizations to implement new policies through which they can maximize employee productivity. At the same time, nefarious actions of cybercriminals and hackers have raised threats that are radically different from what these companies have seen in the past," said Patrick Sweeney, vice president of Product Management at SonicWALL. "Our vision is simple: we plan to deliver security solutions that evolve along with the organizations and the threats they encounter: dynamically and globally. With the NSA E8500 we give customers worldwide the ability to control, manage and protect their global networks seamlessly and automatically."

Through the incorporation of SonicWALL's existing foundation of E-Class NSA Series firewalls, the NSA E8500 delivers the following enterprise class features:

• Application Intelligence and Control provides a configurable set of granular policies per user, application, schedule or IP subnet. These policies can be used to automate application bandwidth allocation, restrict transfer of specific files, scan attachments using user-configurable criteria, control and inspect both internal and external Web access and enable users to add custom signatures.
• Intuitive Visualization Tools offer IT administrators a wide range of data points on applications traversing the network, including who is using them, and potential security impact.
• SonicWALL Reassembly-Free Deep Packet Inspection is capable of controlling more than 1,100 unique applications on the network and inspecting hundreds of thousands of connections simultaneously across 65,535 ports, with nearly zero latency and unlimited stream size.
• Powerful intrusion prevention and malware protection against a comprehensive array of network-based application layer threats by scanning packet payloads for worms, Trojans, software vulnerabilities, peer-to-peer and instant messenger applications, backdoor exploits, and other malicious code.
• Flexible deployment as either a traditional gateway or as an inline solution that allows administrators to keep their existing infrastructure, while adding application intelligence and control as an extra layer of network security and visibility to their network.

Dynamic Security for the Global Network

To help customers cope with rapidly evolving and continuously changing threats, SonicWALL is committed to its vision of Dynamic Security for the Global Network, in which security solutions dynamically adapt to the continuously shifting threats and easily adjust to new technologies or business demands.

SonicWALL also announced today the launch of its Global Management System (GMS) Virtual Appliance and its vision of Dynamic Security for the Global Network, further strengthening its enterprise portfolio and presence.  For more information, visit the company web site at http://www.sonicwall.com/.

About SonicWALL, Inc.

SonicWALL is committed to improving the performance and productivity of businesses of all sizes by engineering the cost and complexity out of running a secure network. Over one million SonicWALL appliances have been shipped through its global network of ten thousand channel partners to keep tens of millions of worldwide business computer users safe and in control of their data. SonicWALL's award-winning solutions include network security, secure remote access, content security, backup and recovery, and policy and management technology. For more information, visit the company web site at http://www.sonicwall.com/.

Safe Harbor Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements in this press release are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The forward-looking statements include but are not limited to statements regarding the benefits associated with the NSA E8500 Appliance; the anticipated ship date for the NSA E8500; challenges associated with total traffic intelligence; challenges associated with changes styles and practices; the impact of Web 2.0 applications and converged communications: and our vision to provided security solutions capable to adjusting to threats and adjusting to technology and business demands.  These forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates of management at the time the statements are made and are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements. In addition, please see the "Risk Factors" described in our Securities and Exchange Commission filings, including our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2008, for a more detailed description of the risks facing our business. All forward-looking statements included in this release are based upon information available to SonicWALL as of the date of the release, and we assume no obligation to update any such forward-looking statement.

NOTE: SonicWALL is a registered trademark of SonicWALL, Inc. Other product and company names mentioned herein may be trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective companies

SOURCE SonicWALL, Inc.