SonicWall's TZ 150 is the world's first small-business firewall solution that supports gateway anti-virus and intrusion prevention. As a result, the integrated and easy-to-use box provides complete protection from viruses, worms, Trojans and other content-based attacks for your small business. Unfortunately, whilst SonicWall has literally given you everything to get you started straight out the box, the TZ 150's advanced protection tools require relatively expensive annual subscription charges. Nevertheless, the TZ 150 is still worth considering if you're looking for a solution that provides the security of a deep packet inspection firewall at a price small businesses can afford.

Pros: Easy to configure and use; solid and reliable protection
Cons: Limited to 10 users; annual subscription for enhanced options


These days the majority of small to medium-size businesses have installed and are using broadband because it has many benefits over a dial-up connection, not least of which are speed and robustness. However, having these benefits also increases the likelihood of being attacked, both by viruses and hackers, especially if you don't protect your network with a firewall.

The TZ 150 is a firewall device that sits behind the Internet and in front of your network and acts like a guard tower, only letting in users that are safe and blocking those that are not. Designed to prevent unauthorised access to or from a private network, the TZ 150 offers both hardware and software and can also be used to prevent unauthorised Internet users from accessing your company's private networks connected to the Internet, especially your intranet.

The TZ 150 is a fairly small unit (189x123x27mm) designed to protect up to just 10 users. It also includes a security CPU and 64MB of non-upgradable memory for intelligent control over its security features, a single auto-MDIX Ethernet WAN port and four-port auto-MDIX LAN switch, allowing multiple devices to connect safely to the network. The TZ 150 supports hardware-accelerated IPSec 3DES and AES encryption as well as SonicWALL Global VPN Client upgrades for secure remote access to critical network resources. Also standard on every TZ 150 is SonicOS Standard, SonicWALL's next-generation operating system.

The device's main selling points are deep packet inspection (protection from viruses and Trojans), denial of attack prevention services, VoIP (Voice-over-IP), e-mail filtering, VPN (Virtual Private Network), content filtering (for blocking certain Web sites), Dynamic DNS and network/gateway anti-virus protection.

Inside the box you also get a getting started guide, which we found more than adequate. There's also access to online help for advanced users, an RJ45 network lead and VPN client software - for connection to remote sites - and some useful network utilities. But to gain access to the advanced security features you are going to need to pay an annual subscription charge of at least £99 (ex. VAT), depending on the feature(s) that you enable.

This may put off a lot of small businesses, but it grants you (to name but a few) anti-virus protection both on the client and the gateway, content filtering for blocking users from certain Web sites, deep packet inspection for filtering virus and worms and access to the technical support site, including upgrades to the product. Sonic does offer a 30-day trial if you would like to test the features or leave them turned off, so at least you have a choice.

The product's main goal is to protect your network from Internet-borne threats, but at the same time give you total control over its features. Thankfully, all of the product's features can be configured and altered using a Web-based interface. We liked the interface a lot because each feature is clearly sectioned and there's enough information provided to satisfy any queries without bombarding you with technical gobbledygook.

We had no problems configuring the firewall on our test system, thanks mainly to the helpful configuration wizards that guide you through setting up and configuring the device, and which point you in the right direction should you get stuck. If you don't want to use the wizards, you can configure everything manually, which gives you greater depth of security but requires more advanced understanding of networking and security protocols. Having said that, most of the advanced options are explained in the online user guides or within the Web interface itself.

We also opted for the free trial to test out some of the features that you can subscribe to. These, too, were easy to setup and configure. For instance, the anti-virus software (McAfee's Virus Scan) offers both network and gateway protection, which worked well without noticeably impacting our test network's performance. The content filtering goes deep and can be adjusted to allow only those Web pages you want users to look at, and e-mail filtering works much the same and can be adjusted to block certain attachments from getting into your system. By registering the product you also get access to free e-learning courses based around the device.

For a small business, the TZ 150 provides everything that you could possibly need straight out the box. And though you ideally need some knowledge of IT to get the best out of it, you don't need to worry too much as long as you know your Internet access settings. SonicWall has literally given you everything to get you started, but its advanced protection tools require relatively expensive subscription charges.

BIOS, Feb 15, 05 | Print | Send | Comments (0) | Posted In Networking