2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Useful wireless overview and SonicWALL/SonicPoint config guide, July 20, 2009
This review is from: SonicWALL Secure Wireless Network Integrated Solutions Guide (Paperback)
Summary: Very useful guide for designing a wireless network using a SonicWALL firewall and SonicPoint wireless access points. Note that the book is written for the older 802.11a/b/g SonicPoint G access points, so about 10% of it will be out of date for new 802.11n SonicPoint N access points. Nevertheless, it's worth the money if you are using SonicWALL firewalls and either SonicPoint G or N access points. Also, I really enjoyed the insightful Forward by Joe Levy (CTO of SonicWALL, Inc.) on wireless in general.
About me: I am a computer systems administrator for a 75-person manufacturing company. I have been using SonicWALL firewalls for about 10 years and am currently about half way through a project to switch out my four Cisco Aironet 1200 802.11g access points for four SonicWALL N access points.
The first part of the book is an overview of wireless and then general design principles and guidelines (infrastructure, site survey, security, your business goals, etc.). I found it well presented and useful as I am reassessing and re-designing my wireless infrastucture.
The rest of the book is a step-by-step guide with decent explanations of why for each step. Note that it is written for the SonicPoint G access points, which are the 802.11a/b/g model. However, Sonicwall recently released their new SonicPoint N devices, so some of the material was out of date for me. Still, the configuration difference between the G and N models are small, so most of it applies.
To configure my SonicPoint N access points, I downloaded the latest SonicWALL documentation (SonicOS Enhanced 5.4 Administrator's Guide), which is free from [...]. The Admin Guide is technically in-depth but lacks some of the design philosophy and answers to why questions that the book covers.
FYI, the reason I am switching from Cisco Aironets to SonicPoints are these:
1. To get 802.11n speed (I am getting 300Mbit consistently with the SonicPoint N's)
3. To centrally control my access points from my SonicWALL 3500 ("wireless on a string"), rather than having to manually configure each Aironet independently. Cisco sells a control console, but why buy that when I already own a central console in my firewall. My Aironets have been rock-solid for three years, and I have been very happy with them.
4. To separate my wireless network from my LAN with a firewall. Up to now, I have had my Aironets on my LAN switch, which does not follow current wireless security best practices. Now I will have all traffic from my WLAN to my LAN being scanned by all the services on the fireewall (antivirus, attacks, intrusion prevention, rogue access point detection, etc.)
4. To set up guest wireless for my two conference rooms. The SonicPoint N's can have multiple WLANs on each physical access point, so they can service both my internal users (corp WLAN) and guests (guest WLAN) at the same time securely separated by the rules on the firewall. Very cool feature and has worked well in my testing.
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0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Covers much much more than wireless networks, November 5, 2008
This review is from: SonicWALL Secure Wireless Network Integrated Solutions Guide (Paperback)
I was hoping for a book that would offer direct insight as to the best way to "DO" a sonicpoint wireless architecture.
As a plus, the first time sonicwall/firewall user will be fully educated on the way to set up a secure network. The experienced user will tire of digging though the basics to get to the meat of sonicwall/sonicpoint wireless design and deployment.
With a significant absence of a Sonicpoint wireless N device I am concerned that the Sonicpoint product line will be abandoned by Sonicwall.
And don't get me started on Viewpoint and GMS...
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