SonicWALL Boosts Network Efficiency, Integrates WAN Acceleration with SonicOS 5.8.1

SAN JOSE, Calif., June 28, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- SonicWALL, Inc., the leading provider of intelligent network security and data protection solutions, today announced the availability of WAN Acceleration in SonicOS 5.8.1, further enhancing the capabilities of the current SonicWALL Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW) Series and introducing integrated support for the SonicWALL WAN Acceleration Appliance (WXA) Series. Today's announcement underscores SonicWALL's commitment to continued investment in its NGFW series and to providing its customers with a highly secure, accelerated and optimized network that drives business and employee efficiency.

The delivery of SonicOS 5.8.1 bolsters SonicWALL's consolidated security platformand tightly integrates features like application intelligence, control and visualization and deep packet inspection scanning with the WXA Series to provide WAN optimization and acceleration for the distributed enterprise. The WAN acceleration is seamlessly built into the existing SonicOS user interface, self-discovers and allows system administrators to easily leverage the new and advanced features.

"A key requirement for the ongoing success of our business is a secure and efficient network that we can manage in a smart way," said Michael E. Crean, president of Solutions Granted. "With the combined power of SonicOS 5.8.1 and the WXA Series, we drive business and employee productivity in two ways. Firstly, we leverage application intelligence and control features to optimize the applications on the network for our business needs. In addition, we can now transmit business-critical data faster and effectively increase our bandwidth - this saves us time, money and helps us drive profitability."

Additional new features offered by SonicOS 5.8.1 enhance application intelligence and security features in SonicWALL firewalls. The new capability to use IP reputation data to block communication with suspected botnet command and control centers allows administrators to reduce the risk of having potentially compromised hosts on their network participate in spam or DDoS attacks. Administrators can further reduce the risk of data theft or attacks by controlling traffic access by geography or blocking of traffic from unknown locations.

Key benefits include:

• Ability to detect and block communications to botnet command and control communication centers identified by the SonicWALL GRID network
• Ability to view and control traffic by geography, thus providing an additional layer of security by reducing the risk of attacks or data theft
• Ease of Use enhancements for application flow visualization that provide easier methods to quickly create policies based on real-time application traffic insight to simplify network management
• Increased deployment flexibility with Wire Mode and new opportunities for Deep Packet Inspection that provides greater security and application control

"As the data that businesses transmit on their networks grows exponentially, so does the need to increase the efficiency of firewall protection. The introduction of SonicOS 5.8.1 further enhances SonicWALL's NGFW offering and improves bandwidth capability, while protecting against instrusions and malware attacks," said Patrick Sweeney, vice president product management and corporate marketing at SonicWALL.

The SonicWALL Network Efficiencies Solution is a tightly integrated security and WAN Acceleration solution. It integrates SonicWALL Application Intelligence and Control and SonicWALL Deep Packet Inspection with the WXA Series and enables businesses to better manage their bandwidth to accelerate business critical applications. Corporations can consolidate features for application intelligence and control, DPI scanning, WAN Acceleration and VPN into a single interface. This can help companies save on IT management costs, reduce the amount of data being sent between corporate and remote offices and drive profitability.

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About SonicWALL, Inc.

Guided by its vision of Dynamic Security for the Global Network, SonicWALL develops advanced intelligent network security and data protection solutions that adapt as organizations evolve and as threats evolve. Trusted by small and large enterprises worldwide, SonicWALL solutions are designed to detect and control applications and protect networks from intrusions and malware attacks through award-winning hardware, software and virtual appliance-based solutions. For more information, visit http://www.sonicwall.com/.

Copyright © 2011 SonicWALL, Inc. All rights reserved. SONICWALL® is a registered trademark of SonicWALL, Inc. and all other SonicWALL product and service names and slogans are trademarks or registered trademarks of SonicWALL, Inc. Other product and company names mentioned herein may be trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

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Patrick Sweeney

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SOURCE SonicWALL, Inc.