SUNNYVALE, Calif., Feb. 19 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- SonicWALL, Inc. (NASDAQ: SNWL), a leading secure network infrastructure company, today announced the SonicWALL Network Security Appliance Series (NSA) for the mid-enterprise, the next generation of Unified Threat Management (UTM) aimed at helping mid-sized businesses benefit from multi-function network security, without compromising network performance or manageability. The NSA Series multi-core platform, which first appeared in the E-Class Appliances launched in 2007, is now available for mid-size organizations to help manage their security in an increasingly complex network environment. These appliances allow IT administrators to better control, secure and authorize network access, thereby reducing security lapses and dramatically improving visibility of network activity and application use.

The rise of Web 2.0 applications, the growth of inbound and outbound network activity and the increased utilization of network resources have lead to growing challenges in terms of securing networks and gaining greater insight into data. With new applications being used and communication growing both inside and outside of an organization, it has never been more important for an IT department to gain full control across the corporate network. With unprecedented inspection performance, the NSA Series provides administrators much deeper intelligence over their network infrastructure and delivers a tremendous increase in network efficiency and productivity. Using massively paralleled processes to classify then inspect networked applications, the NSA series identifies unknown connections and gives administrators back complete control of networked communications.

The NSA Series also breaks through performance barriers using a combination of SonicWALL's patented Reassembly Free DPI (RFDPI) and purpose-built multi-core acceleration hardware, which also appears in the E-Class Appliances. This technology is now available in products specifically designed to help mid-size organizations manage their security in an increasingly complex and high speed network environment.

"Our full-service ASP network supports 50 client organizations, each ranging up to a dozen locations, and it's growing all the time, so our solution needed to secure large loads of traffic at peak times," said Ray Turilli, Network Services Manager, ASA Tire Systems. "Deploying the NSA 3500 let us ensure that our clients were fully protected at gigabit throughput, giving us the freedom to take on larger clients and expand our hosted ecommerce services."

"The ever-changing landscape of security threats and network productivity issues, weaken the control point for administrators. Customers want a continually evolving Unified Threat Management solution that offers secure real-time internal and external network protection without compromising network performance," said Jon Kuhn, director of product marketing, SonicWALL. "With this in mind, we designed the NSA series from the ground up with multi-core acceleration hardware and multi-function security capabilities delivering unprecedented performance and inspection capabilities making communication networks extremely efficient and predictable."

Deeper Protection & Data Leakage Control

Designed to simplify security solutions, the NSA series features the next generation in UTM protection. Combining multiple protection technologies, the NSA series includes intrusion prevention, advanced file and content anti-virus/anti-spyware inspection to provide a comprehensive solution to protect against a wide array of network attacks including, viruses, spyware, worms, Trojans and phishing attacks.

The NSA series increases application visibility and offers data leakage capabilities for administrations through the integration of Application Firewall. This feature set delivers a suite of configurable tools to prevent content and data leaks while providing granular application control that can be set per user, e-mail user, per schedule and per IP subnet levels to create a future proofed solution for administrators.

Eliminating Threats Through Inspection

SonicWALL's NSA appliances utilize the RFDPI engine to eliminate threats over unlimited file sizes without affecting processing time. In addition to DPI, this solution enables unrestricted concurrent connections offering users ultimate scalability.

The NSA Series multi-core acceleration combined with RFDPI means performance is no longer bound by overtaxed hardware or limited to predefined file inspection capabilities. Rather the NSA Series maximizes application performance and scalability to achieve new levels of network efficiency.

The NSA series also provides safety from both internal and external attacks as well as application vulnerabilities by scanning against multiple application types and protocols.

Custom Built Platform Increases Efficiency

At the heart of the NSA series is the SonicWALL multi-core performance architecture, specifically designed for high-speed internal and external network protection, VPN implementations and deployment flexibility. The new platform uses its multiple processing cores to dramatically increase throughput and inspection capabilities while keeping power consumption nearly constant and lowering total cost of ownership.

In addition to its processing power, the NSA series also features wireless LAN (WLAN) and a range of ports making it an ideal solution for wireless and wired applications requiring high-speed access and heavy workgroup segmentation.

  Additional features of the NSA series include:
  --  SonicWALL Clean VPN: A DPI architecture, assuring mobile user
      connections and branch office traffic are decontaminated to prevent
      vulnerabilities and malicious code from being introduced into the
      corporate network.
  --  Standards-Based VoIP: Incorporating VoIP capabilities to provide the
      highest levels of security for every element of VoIP infrastructure.
  --  Secure Distributed Wireless LAN Services: The NSA can function as a
      secure wireless switch and controller that automatically detects and
      configures SonicWALL's wireless points, SonicPoints™.
  --  Advanced Routing Services and Networking Features: Built in routing
      services that provide full support for Open Shortest Path First (OSPF)
      and Router Information Protocol (RIP).
  --  Award Winning Global Management System (GMS): Enabling the user to
      manage, enforce policies and configure all appliances on the network
      at a central location.