Network security specialist SonicWall announced marked its
three-year anniversary of its Live Demo site with the addition of
hands-on experience for the Next-Generation Firewall feature
set. Designed to allow customers to test products before they commit,
the Live Demo unified platform provides an online demonstration
solution for each of the company’s security appliances and software
solutions.
The testing platform now includes NGFW features like application
intelligence, control and visualization of network traffic. The
inclusion of NGFW functionality and the necessity to learn and gain
insight into new solutions have resulted in 62 percent growth in
year-over-year traffic to the Live Demo site, a company release
claimed.
"Our customers continue to demand SonicWall’s products due to their
quality and breadth of offering. However, while they know what to
expect, they often request an opportunity to test the solutions before
making their investment," said Mike Ferraro, a security specialist at
IT products and services supplier CDW. "We use the SonicWall Live Demo
site daily to help demonstrate the capabilities of the company's
solutions as well as highlighting their ease of use. It really has
become a key sales tool for us and one that has helped directly drive
significant sales numbers."
According to information provided by the company, SonicWall’s portal
now claims more than 180,000 unique visits a year from resellers,
distributors and customers, an indicator SonicWall said emphasizes the
need for information from end-users who seek to experience viewing
features and functionality before investing in IT deployments.
In addition to being able to view a demonstration of products,
users can simulate how appliances would cope with traffic spikes and
adapt to an administrator's granular settings. Individuals can also
identify how ongoing maintenance would be managed before making a
purchase. Users of the demo site are also able to graphically observe
real-time application traffic, trace it back to individual users and
construct policies to optimize their network applications.
"With increasingly stretched IT budgets and an ever-evolving
Internet-borne threat landscape, purchasing an IT security solution has
become a much tougher decision than ever before for IT professionals,"
said Patrick Sweeney, vice president of product management and
corporate marketing at SonicWall. "Hands-on experience is critical for
IT managers to ensure they're buying the right products with the right
features and the right ease of use before they commit to spending their
budget. As well as helping sales, sites like Live Demo improve
customer satisfaction and help ensure that technology purchases are a
definite match to what the business requires."
