Small business owners rushing to get their hands on a SonicWall VPN for their remote workers have a lot of questions. We have a lot of answers. Below are the four questions that business owners and network administrators should be able to answer before they buy a SonicWall VPN solution and get their employees working from home.
1. SSL VPN or Global VPN Client?
If you’re shopping for a SonicWall VPN, your first question is probably: what kinds of SonicWall VPN solutions are there? SonicWall offers both SSL VPN and Global VPN Clients. You can take a closer look on our SonicWall VPN comparison page, but here are a few key differences:
- Global VPN Clients are best used in Windows-only environments
- SSL VPN is better suited to mixed-use environments where employees use many device types
- Global VPN Clients can be a bit harder and more costly to install, especially for smaller businesses
- SSL VPN is delivered in a client that won’t eat up a lot of resources
- Price-wise, both SonicWall VPN options are about the same
- Global VPN Clients use IPSec to connect hosts to entire private networks
- SSL VPNs connect users to specific services & apps inside secure networks
2. How many SonicWall VPNs does my firewall support?
Did you know that all SonicWall TZ and NSa firewalls include at least one SSL VPN or Global VPN license? However, each firewall model has a maximum capacity of clients that it can connect to and protect. After this threshold, service becomes spotty, slow, and unsecure!
In most cases, a firewall can support more Global VPN licenses than it can SSL VPN licenses. However, small business owners may lean towards SSL VPN because TZ firewalls actually support far more SSL VPNs than they do IPSec clients.
- SonicWall SOHO 250 – supports 5 Global VPN Clients & 25 SSL VPN licenses
- SonicWall TZ 300 – supports 10 Global VPN Clients & 50 SSL VPN licenses
- SonicWall TZ 350 – supports 10 Global VPN Clients & 75 SSL VPN licenses
- SonicWall TZ 400 – supports 25 Global VPN Clients & 100 SSL VPN licenses
- SonicWall TZ 500 – supports 25 Global VPN Clients & 150 SSL VPN licenses
- SonicWall TZ 600 – supports 25 Global VPN Clients & 200 SSL VPN licenses
3. How do I increase performance for remote workers?
SSL VPN licenses require a lot of performance to process all of the secure data they transfer and inspect. Setting up a dedicated Secure Mobile Access appliance such as a SonicWall SMA 210 or SonicWall SMA 410 remote access appliance can greatly improve speed, uptime, and stability for your employees working from home, lessening the burden on your firewall.
The Firewalls.com Remote Worker Bundle combines Secure Mobile Access appliances, SonicWall VPN licensing, and our expert professional configuration services in a comprehensive package to get your workers setup at home fast. The bundle includes a SonicWall SMA 210 or 410 appliance with a 5 user license, expert setup assistance, and a free configuration to make the transition seamless.
4. How do I provide extra protection for remote workers?
Just because your employees are working from their couch doesn’t mean your security can slouch. The fact is, hackers always find a way to exploit the hottest news in the world to their benefit. Expect attackers to target home users with spearphishing, social engineering, encrypted malware, and more. Now is the time to ensure your mobile workers are locked down with advanced network security solutions like SonicWall’s Capture Advanced Threat Protection for SMA, extending the same great cloud-based multi-engine sandboxing protection to your secure access infrastructure that networks worldwide enjoy through a high-end firewall.