SonicWALL is a company that has been in the business of secure internet access, routing, firewalls, VPN appliances, and secure access for well over a decade now. When you buy any Sonicwall VPN appliance, you buy experience and reliability, be it for a home office, or a small-to-medium business office.

We'll review here the IPSec-based (Internet Protocol Security) variant of a SonicWALL VPN router or SonicWALL VPN gateway, the SonicWall TZ 170 TZ170 10 Node VPN Firewall. The IPSec implementation allows for an easy VPN access to the home office network through a client IPSec software. Office email, office intranet, as well as seamless access to office data becomes available with a IPSec-based SonicWALL VPN appliance.

SonicWall TZ 170 TZ170 10 Node VPN Firewall Features

• includes Gateway intrusion Anti-Virus, Anti-Spyware and Intrusion Prevention Service


• easy, secure access to any resource on the corporate network, like applications, file systems, etc.


• the firewall features include anti-spam filters, and content filtering service to only allow business-related internet data


• maximum recommended user VPN tunnel connections - 25


• numerous protocols supported to allow multiple types of internet traffic: DHCP, PPPoE, PPTP, TCP/IP, ICMP, HTTP, IPSec, ISAKMP, SNMP, L2TP, RADIUS, H.323, SIP


• office connections: wired only

If you already provide wireless connectivity within the office, or if you do not need an additional wireless access point, but require compatibility with a different types of internet traffic such as VoIP, IPSec, RADIUS, etc., then this model is worth looking into.

Where to purchase SonicWALL TZ 170?

One of the best ways is to buy it at Amazon where you will get free shipping and where you can also read customer reports. Most customer reports view SonicWALL as a mature product, with diversified functionality that will fit a small office. Interestingly, customers are amazed at how difficult it is to get around the content filtering feature, certain websites are just impossible to get to. If the parents can afford it, they recommend SonicWALL for children's content filter in this review.