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SAN JOSE, Calif., May 9, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- SonicWALL, Inc., the leading provider of�intelligent network security and�data protection solutions, today launched the SonicWALL WAN Acceleration Appliance (WXA) Series, an extension of the current SonicWALL Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW) suite. The SonicWALL WXA Series consists of the WXA 5000 virtual appliance, the WXA 2000 and WXA 4000 hardware appliances and the WXA 500 Live CD. The offerings allow businesses of any size to select the right deployment solution for their network. The new series significantly improves WAN (Wide Area Network) performance between regional and branch offices and reduces traffic by up to 95%. It gives users faster access to mission-critical applications, resulting in increased employee productivity.

To simplify the deployment of WAN acceleration, the WXA Series attaches directly to SonicWALL Network Security Appliance (NSA) and TZ Series appliances for seamless integration, without requiring any reconfiguration of the network. SonicOS, SonicWALL's firmware, automatically detects, provisions and manages the WXA solution. Because the SonicWALL firewall is able to combine both application intelligence and WAN optimization in a single solution, networks experience unprecedented speed and bandwidth efficiencies. Unwanted applications are eliminated from the network, while mission critical applications are allocated increased bandwidth. WAN optimization then reduces the total traffic over WAN links improving network capacity and speed. All traffic is scanned for intrusions and malware with SonicWALL's Reassembly-Free Deep Packet Inspection engine. Additionally, since the solution is integrated with IPsec and SSL Virtual Private Networking (VPN) features, it eliminates the problems associated with WAN Acceleration of encrypted traffic by auto creating the routing and policy logic for remote and branch offices.

With the WXA Series, application acceleration is achieved through the de-duplication of transmitted data using SonicWALL's advanced proprietary byte caching technology as well as TCP protocol optimization and data compression. Further, for Wide Area File Services (WFS), the WXA Series provides intelligent local file caching and CIFS protocol optimization which enables acceleration of remote file servers saving time and network resources.

"The amount of data being transmitted across company networks has grown exponentially in recent years � and this trend won't be reversed. It is critical for businesses that network infrastructures keep up with these increased volumes," said Shane O'Hanlon, director of software engineering at SonicWALL. "Companies that use a WXA Series appliance in conjunction with a SonicWALL NGFW solution greatly reduce expenditures and eliminate the need for network upgrades. In addition, they benefit from superior security and tightly integrated network management."

The WXA Series works in combination with SonicWALL's DPI scanning technology and Application Intelligence and Control to speed up the network and better gauge where bandwidth is being wasted. This gives IT managers granular control over network data while analyzing every byte of every packet of all network traffic. Networks also benefit from top-notch security scanning capabilities with the guarantee that data is moving quickly and still being scanned effectively. Ultimately, businesses now have the ability to control non-business applications in the branch and not compromise security while continuing to receive the benefits of WAN Acceleration.