SOLUTION - The SonicWALL® team developed the Network Security Appliance (NSA) E-Class Series to be the most scalable, reliable and highly-performing multi-function threat appliance in the enterprise class. Designed to overcome the concerns historically associated with implementing Unified Threat Management (UTM) solutions, the NSA E-Class provides the highest level of UTM performance at its price point. By offering an Application Firewall feature set that delivers a suite of configurable tools to prevent data leakage while providing granular application control, the NSA E-Class represents a new level of UTM protection.

Incorporating its patented Reassembly-Free Deep Packet Inspection (RFDPI) engine, the NSA E-Class is able to eliminate threats over an unlimited file size and unrestricted concurrent connections, offering the ultimate scalability. Allowing IT managers to easily identify, find, classify, block or re-route packets with suspect content, the NSA E-Class helps allocate resources to streamline network traffic flow.

Integrating real-time gateway anti-virus, anti-spam and intrusion prevention, the SonicWALL appliance secures the network against a comprehensive array of dynamic threats including viruses, spyware, worms, Trojans, phishing attacks and software vulnerabilities.

The SonicWALL team worked hard to include a wide range of hardware options Delivering security for high-speed internal and external network protection on a purpose-built platform, the NSA E-Class appliances have up to 16-cores of processing power. NSA E-Class presents an ideal solution for wired and wireless applications, featuring four high-speed gigabit Ethernet copper interfaces and four high-speed configurable SFP (small form-factor pluggable) ports; or 8 gigabit Ethernet copper interfaces with wireless LAN (WLAN) functionality.

The SonicWALL team designed the NSA E-Class to address the administrators’ need for detailed insight into network traffic, while enabling uncompromised performance, as well as simplifying previously complex management tools. In an environment where applications such as Skype and video streaming sites are becoming increasingly common, the administrator is now able to locate, identify, limit or block the use of such applications.

With its consolidated UTM offering, the team has created a solution that organizations can deploy that will save them both time and money in the short and long run. Consolidating numerous security devices into one, with one easy-to-manage interface, gives IT managers unrivalled visibility into all aspects of the security infrastructure, reducing management time and TCO.

Info Security Products Guide

CONCLUSION - Moving into the enterprise market, the NSA E-Class has opened up doors to a host of new customers not previously targeted by SonicWALL. The new appliance is now being sought after by universities, large enterprises, companies with distributed environments, and data centers. NSA E-Class is also becoming popular with other companies that have high tunnel infrastructures.

Beyond simply developing a product that was a great choice from an IT security point of view, the team also sought to develop a ‘green’ appliance. With the SonicWALL multi-core platform, they are able to offer a solution that is 3 -4 times faster than the competition at a similar price point, while reducing power consumption and drastically reducing the heat dissipatation from the unit.

The momentum created from this product has helped demonstrate SonicWALL’s capabilities in the enterprise market, now highlighting its strength and breadth in technologies that span SMBs all the way up to large enterprises.

The core team was relatively small and has worked together previously on other product development campaigns. Realizing the importance of this product to SonicWALL’s success in the enterprise market, the team worked tirelessly around the clock to ensure that the product hit the deadlines and exceeded internal expectations, whether early starts, late nights or working from the dinner table at home.

During the launch the team carried around black binders that included the NSA E-Class launch plan.  The plan included owners, delivery dates and status allowing the team to easily track and ensure they were meeting the deadlines set to create final collateral, web site updates and provide timely communication to the field sales and marketing teams.  This binder became the ‘bible’ throughout the launch process, with the most feared question being ”Where is your launch binder?”  This was the last question the team would want to hear from the team lead process as it was equivalent to a football player forgetting to bring his playbook to practice.

Beyond product development, the team’s dedication extended to marketing the new product, putting together all supporting collateral, educating the internal sales team (sometimes holding their hand through the process) and holding Webinars for the channel, to ensure the launch went without a hitch.

It came as no surprise to the team that during the sales trainings attention could begin to wane, so one of the team members took it upon himself to energize the sales team with a healthy (or not) boost of sugar with Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Having satiated everyone with doughnuts, the team worked hard to keep morale up and meeting times down to ensure that the energy and enthusiasm remained high throughout, resulting in a highly trained and efficient sales team.

SonicWALL
1143 Borregas Avenue,
Sunnyvale, CA 94089 USA
Tel: 1-408-745-9600