SonicWall NSa 4650
Low Latency Multi Gigabit throughput for growing medium-sized organizations and branch office

Overview:

The SonicWall Network Security appliance (NSA) series provides organizations that range in scale from mid-sized networks to distributed enterprises and data centers with advanced threat prevention in a highperformance security platform. Utilizing innovative deep learning technologies in the SonicWall Capture Cloud Platform, the NSa series delivers the automated real-time breach detection and prevention organizations need.

Benefits:

Cutting-edge threat prevention with superior performance

Today’s network threats are highly evasive and increasingly difficult to identify using traditional methods of detection. Staying ahead of sophisticated attacks requires a more modern approach that heavily leverages security intelligence in the cloud. Without that cloud intelligence, gateway security solutions can’t keep pace with today’s complex threats. NSa series nextgeneration firewalls (NGFWs) integrate two advanced security technologies to deliver cutting-edge threat prevention that keeps your network one step ahead. Enhancing SonicWall’s multi-engine Capture Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) service is our patent-pending Real-Time Deep Memory Inspection (RTDMI™) technology. The RTDMI engine proactively detects and blocks mass market, zero-day threats and unknown malware by inspecting directly in memory. Because of the real-time architecture, SonicWall RTDMI technology is precise, minimizes false positives, and identifies and mitigates sophisticated attacks where the malware’s weaponry is exposed for less than 100 nanoseconds. In combination, SonicWall’s patented* single-pass Reassembly-Free Deep Packet Inspection (RFDPI) engine examines every byte of every packet, inspecting both inbound and outbound traffic on the firewall. By leveraging the SonicWall Capture Cloud Platform in addition to on-box capabilities including intrusion prevention, anti-malware and web/URL filtering, the NSa series blocks even the most insidious threats at the gateway.

Further, SonicWall firewalls provide complete protection by performing full decryption and inspection of TLS/ SSL and SSH encrypted connections regardless of port or protocol. The firewall looks deep inside every packet (the header and data) searching for protocol non-compliance, threats, zerodays, intrusions, and even defined criteria. The deep packet inspection engine detects and prevents hidden attacks that leverage cryptography, blocks encrypted malware downloads, ceases the spread of infections, and thwarts command and control (C↦C) communications and data exfiltration. Inclusion and exclusion rules allow total control to customize which traffic is subjected to decryption and inspection based on specific organizational compliance and/or legal requirements.

When organizations activate deep packet inspection functions such as IPS, antivirus, anti-spyware, TLS/SSL decryption/inspection and others on their firewalls, network performance often slows down, sometimes dramatically. NSa series firewalls, however, feature a multi-core hardware architecture that utilizes specialized security microprocessors. Combined with our RTDMI and RFDPI engines, this unique design eliminates the performance degradation networks experience with other firewalls.

Network control and flexibility

At the core of the NSa series is SonicOS, SonicWall’s feature-rich operating system. SonicOS provides organizations with the network control and flexibility they require through application intelligence and control, real-time visualization, an intrusion prevention system (IPS) featuring sophisticated anti-evasion technology, high-speed virtual private networking (VPN) and other robust security features.

Using application intelligence and control, network administrators can identify and categorize productive applications from those that are unproductive or potentially dangerous, and control that traffic through powerful applicationlevel policies on both a per-user and a per-group basis (along with schedules and exception lists). Business-critical applications can be prioritized and allocated more bandwidth while nonessential applications are bandwidthlimited. Real-time monitoring and visualization provides a graphical representation of applications, users and bandwidth usage for granular insight into traffic across the network.

For organizations requiring advanced flexibility in their network design, SonicOS offers the tools to segment the network through the use of virtual LANs (VLANs). This enables network administrators to create a virtual LAN interface that allows for network separation into one or more logical groups. Administrators create rules that determine the level of communication with devices on other VLANs.

Built into every NSa series firewall is a wireless access controller that enables organizations to extend the network perimeter securely through the use of wireless technology. Together, SonicWall firewalls and SonicWave 802.11ac Wave 2 wireless access points create a wireless network security solution that combines industry-leading next-generation firewall technology with high-speed wireless for enterprise-class network security and performance across the wireless network.

Easy deployment, setup and ongoing management

Like all SonicWall firewalls, the NSaNSA series tightly integrates key security, connectivity and flexibility technologies into a single, comprehensive solution. This includes SonicWave wireless access points and the SonicWall WAN Acceleration (WXA) series, both of which are automatically detected and provisioned by the managing NSa firewall. Consolidating multiple capabilities eliminates the need to purchase and install point products that don’t always work well together. This reduces the effort it takes to deploy the solution into the network and configure it, saving both time and money.

Cloud-based centralized management, reporting, licensing and analytics are handled through the SonicWall Capture Security Center. Administrators are provided with an intuitive dashboard for managing all aspects of the network in real time, including critical security alerts. Together, the simplified deployment and setup along with the ease of management enable organizations to lower their total cost of ownership and realize a high return on investment.

Secure, High-speed Wireless

Combine an NSa series next-generation firewall with a SonicWall SonicWave 802.11ac Wave 2 wireless access point to create a highspeed wireless network security solution. NSa series firewalls and SonicWave access points both feature 2.5 GbE ports that enable multi-gigabit wireless throughput offered in Wave 2 wireless technology. The firewall scans all wireless traffic coming into and going out of the network using deep packet inspection technology and then removes harmful threats such as malware and intrusions, even over encrypted connections. Additional security and control capabilities such as content filtering, application control and intelligence and Capture Advanced Threat Protection can be run on the wireless network to provide added layers of protection.

Features:

Breach prevention subscription services

SonicOS feature summary

¹ Requires added subscription

Additional Features:

Capture Cloud Platform

SonicWall's Capture Cloud Platform delivers cloud-based threat prevention and network management plus reporting and analytics for organizations of any size. The platform consolidates threat intelligence gathered from multiple sources including our award-winning multi-engine network sandboxing service, Capture Advanced Threat Protection, as well as more than 1 million SonicWall sensors located around the globe.

If data coming into the network is found to contain previously-unseen malicious code, SonicWall’s dedicated, in-house Capture Labs threat research team develops signatures that are stored in the Capture Cloud Platform database and deployed to customer firewalls for up-to-date protection. New updates take effect immediately without reboots or interruptions. The signatures resident on the appliance protect against wide classes of attacks, covering tens of thousands of individual threats with a single signature. In addition to the countermeasures on the appliance, NSa firewalls also have continuous access to the Capture Cloud Platform database which extends the onboard signature intelligence with tens of millions of signatures.

In addition to providing threat prevention, the Capture Cloud Platform offers single pane of glass management and administrators can easily create both real-time and historical reports on network activity.

Advanced threat protection

At the center of SonicWall automated, real-time breach prevention is SonicWall Capture Advanced Threat Protection service, a cloud-based multi-engine sandbox that extends firewall threat protection to detect and prevent zeroday threats. Suspicious files are sent to the cloud where they are analyzed using deep learning algorithms with the option to hold them at the gateway until a verdict is determined. The multi-engine sandbox platform, which includes Real-Time Deep Memory Inspection, virtualized sandboxing, full system emulation and hypervisor level analysis technology, executes suspicious code and analyzes behavior. When a file is identified as malicious, it is blocked and a hash is immediately created within Capture ATP. Soon after, a signature is sent to firewalls to prevent follow-on attacks.

The service analyzes a broad range of operating systems and file types, including executable programs, DLL, PDFs, MS Office documents, archives, JAR and APK.

For complete endpoint protection, the SonicWall Capture Client combines next-generation anti-virus technology with SonicWall's cloud-based multi-engine sandbox.

Reassembly-Free Deep Packet Inspection engine

The SonicWall Reassembly-Free Deep Packet Inspection (RFDPI) is a singlepass, low latency inspection system that performs stream-based, bi-directional traffic analysis at high speed without proxying or buffering to effectively uncover intrusion attempts and malware downloads while identifying application traffic regardless of port and protocol. This proprietary engine relies on streaming traffic payload inspection to detect threats at Layers 3-7, and takes network streams through extensive and repeated normalization and decryption in order to neutralize advanced evasion techniques that seek to confuse detection engines and sneak malicious code into the network.

Once a packet undergoes the necessary pre-processing, including TLS/SSL decryption, it is analyzed against a single, proprietary memory representation of three signature databases: intrusion attacks, malware and applications. The connection state is then advanced to represent the position of the stream relative to these databases until it encounters a state of attack, or other “match” event, at which point a pre-set action is taken.

In most cases, the connection is terminated and proper logging and notification events are created. However, the engine can also be configured for inspection only or, in case of application detection, to provide Layer 7 bandwidth management services for the remainder of the application stream as soon as the application is identified.

Global management and reporting

For highly regulated organizations wanting to achieve a fully coordinated security governance, compliance and risk management strategy, SonicWall provides administrators a unified, secure and extensible platform to manage SonicWall firewalls, wireless access points and Dell N-Series and X-Series switches through a correlated and auditable workstream process. Enterprises can easily consolidate the management of security appliances, reduce administrative and troubleshooting complexities, and govern all operational aspects of the security infrastructure, including centralized policy management and enforcement; real-time event monitoring; user activities; application identifications; flow analytics and forensics; compliance and audit reporting; and more. In addition, enterprises meet the firewall’s change management requirements through workflow automation which provides the agility and confidence to deploy the right firewall policies at the right time and in conformance with compliance regulations. Available on premises as SonicWall Global Management System and in the cloud as Capture Security Center, SonicWall management and reporting solutions provide a coherent way to manage network security by business processes and service levels, dramatically simplifying lifecycle management of your overall security environments compared to managing on a device-by-device basis.

Flexible, Customizable Deployment Options:

NSa series at-a-glance

Every SonicWall NSa appliance utilizes a breakthrough, multi-core hardware design and RFDPI for internal and external network protection without compromising network performance. The NSa series NGFWs combine high-speed intrusion prevention, file and content inspection, and powerful application intelligence and control with an extensive array of advanced networking and flexible configuration features. The NSa series offers an affordable platform that is easy to deploy and manage in a wide variety of large, branch office and distributed network environments.

Specifications:

¹ Testing Methodologies: Maximum performance based on RFC 2544 (for firewall). Actual performance may vary depending on network conditions and activated services. ² Threat Prevention/Gateway AV/Anti-Spyware/IPS throughput measured using industry standard Spirent WebAvalanche HTTP performance test and Ixia test tools. Testing done with multiple flows through multiple port pairs. Threat Prevention throughput measured with Gateway AV, Anti-Spyware, IPS and Application Control enabled. ³ VPN throughput measured using UDP traffic at 1280 byte packet size adhering to RFC 2544. All specifications, features and availability are subject to change. ⁴ For every 125,000 DPI connections reduced, the number of available DPI SSL connections increases by 3,000 except for NSa 9250 and above. ⁵ Active/Active Clustering and Active/Active DPI with State Sync require purchase of Expanded License. ⁶ Performance optimized mode can provide significant increases in performance without major impact to threat prevention efficacy. *Future use. All specifications, features and availability are subject to change.

Specifications (con't):

¹ Testing Methodologies: Maximum performance based on RFC 2544 (for firewall). Actual performance may vary depending on network conditions and activated services. ² Threat Prevention/Gateway AV/Anti-Spyware/IPS throughput measured using industry standard Spirent WebAvalanche HTTP performance test and Ixia test tools. Testing done with multiple flows through multiple port pairs. Threat Prevention throughput measured with Gateway AV, Anti-Spyware, IPS and Application Control enabled. ³ VPN throughput measured using UDP traffic at 1280 byte packet size adhering to RFC 2544. All specifications, features and availability are subject to change. ⁴ For every 125,000 DPI connections reduced, the number of available DPI SSL connections increases by 3,000 except for NSa 9250 and above. ⁵ Active/Active Clustering and Active/Active DPI with State Sync require purchase of Expanded License. ⁶ Performance optimized mode can provide significant increases in performance without major impact to threat prevention efficacy. *Future use. All specifications, features and availability are subject to change.

Services & Add-Ons:

Advanced Gateway Security Suite (AGSS)

Leverage SonicWall Advanced Gateway Security Suite (AGSS) to deliver a multi-engine sandbox, powerful anti‐virus, anti‐spyware, intrusion prevention, content filtering, as well as application intelligence and control services. An upgrade over CGSS, this package features Capture Advanced Threat Protection (ATP), a multi-engine sandbox that runs and inspects suspicious files, programs and code in an isolated cloud-based environment.

Comprehensive Gateway Security Suite (CGSS)

Get the most from your deep packet inspection firewall with the SonicWall Comprehensive Security Suite (CGSS) subscription. CGSS includes gateway anti-virus, anti-spyware, intrusion prevention, application intelligence and control service, content/URL filtering and 24x7 support. Combine security, productivity and support in a single, bundled solution that lowers TCO.

Gateway Security Services

Enable your business firewall to provide real-time network threat prevention with SonicWall gateway anti-virus, anti-spyware, intrusion prevention and application intelligence and control. Block the latest blended threats — including viruses, spyware, worms, Trojans, software vulnerabilities and other malicious code. Guarantee bandwidth prioritization and ensure maximum network security and productivity with granular policies for both groups and users.

Capture Advanced Threat Protection

The cloud-based SonicWall Capture Advanced Threat Protection Service scans a broad range of files to detect advanced threats, analyzes them in a multi-engine sandbox, blocks them prior to a security verdict, and rapidly deploys remediation signatures. The result is higher security effectiveness, faster response times and a lower total cost of ownership.

Content Filtering Services

Gain a cost-effective, easy-to-manage way to enforce protection and productivity policies, and block inappropriate, unproductive and dangerous web content in educational, business or government environments. SonicWall Content Filtering Service lets you control access to websites based on rating, IP address, URL and more. You get the ideal combination of control and flexibility to ensure the highest levels of protection and productivity, which you can configure and control from your network security appliance, eliminating the need for a costly, dedicated filtering solution. Extend enforcement of your internal policies to devices located outside the firewall perimeter by blocking unwanted internet content with the content filtering client.

Content Filtering Client

Extend the enforcement of web policies in IT-issued devices outside the network perimeter. Although it doesn't require a firewall, it can be optionally coupled with SonicWall Content Filtering Service as an ideal combination to keep students and employees off of dangerous or non-productive websites by switching to cloud-enforced policies even when they are using roaming devices.

Support Services

Benefit from advanced technical assistance and ongoing software and firmware updates with SonicWall Dynamic Support. The service includes:

• Telephone and web-based support 24x7
• Direct access to highly-trained senior support engineers
• Advance exchange hardware replacement in the event of a failure
• Access to electronic support tools

TotalSecure Hardware & Services Bundle

Enjoy the convenience and affordability of deploying your firewall as a SonicWall TotalSecure solution. This combines the hardware and services needed for comprehensive network protection from viruses, spyware, worms, Trojans, key loggers and more — without the complexity of building your own security package.

Comprehensive Anti-Spam Service

Block threats from your email server and stop spam at the gateway by adding SonicWall Comprehensive Anti-Spam Service (CASS) to your SonicWall firewall. Rapidly deploy your spam firewall software with one-click activation of up to 250 users.

Enforced Client Anti-Virus and Anti-Spyware Software

Execute an innovative, multi-layered, anti-virus internet security strategy with SonicWall firewalls and Enforced Client Anti-Virus and Anti-Spyware software. You get SonicWall Reassembly-Free Deep Packet Inspection anti-malware at the gateway, and enforced anti-virus protection at the endpoints. You can redirect any user with a non-compliant endpoint to a web page to install the latest Enforced Client Anti-Virus and Anti-Spyware software. Provide automatically updated security definitions to the endpoint as soon as they become available. Plus, you can automate enforcement to minimize administrative overhead.

Documentation:

Download the SonicWall NSa Series Datasheet (.PDF)