Introduction
| At a Glance | |
|---|---|
| Product | SonicWALL Internet Security Appliance (TZ 190/TZ 190W) |
| Summary | Full-featured, “all-in-one” UTM appliance with WWAN support |
| Pros | • Wireless WAN (WWAN) Failover • Integrated Security Features for Anti-Virus, Anti-Spyware, Intrusion, and Content Filtering • Easy to use configuration wizards • Powerful SPI Firewall |
| Cons | • Questionable reliability of test unit • Ease of use for non-wizard configurations • Lack of Gigabit support on LAN |
The SonicWALL TZ 190/TZ 190W is a network appliance with an amazing array of capabilities and features! The 190 has dual WAN ports, Wireless WAN (WWAN) capability, Firewall and Unified Threat Management (UTM) Security functionality, VoIP configuration options and eight LAN ports. The 190W has all of this, plus 802.11g WLAN. For even more flexibility, the second WAN port, labeled OPT (optional), can be configured as a WAN port, a LAN port, or a DMZ port! Without question, this device is designed to do more than your typical small network device.
For this review, I tested both the TZ 190 and the TZ 190W. The difference between the two models is that the “W” indicates Wireless LAN functionality. The other difference is the TZ 190 I tested was an earlier Beta Unit, while the TZ 190W I tested was a more recent production model not designated as Beta.
The SonicWALL TZ 190W is pretty small considering all the power it has under its hood. It measures only 10” wide and 7” deep, while standing only 1.2” high. The front panel has simple indicator lights for power and status, as well as signal and activity lights for WWAN, WLAN, WAN, OPT, and (eight) LAN ports. The back panel is comprised of RJ45 ports matched to the front panel lights, as well as a console port.
Figure 1: the front panel
Figure 2: the back panel
The circuit board is pretty clean, as you can see in the below figure. The large silver device in the top right is the PCMCIA slot for the WWAN card. The board is based on a chipset manufactured by Cavium (www.cavium.com), which utilizes Cavium's Nitrox Security Processor series. The board uses passive cooling, so it is silent, and has 128MB of RAM plus 16MB of Flash Memory.
