SonicWall Eyes MSPs with Global Management System Update

SonicWALL this week released to the channel the latest edition of its IT management system, SonicWALL Global Management System (GMS) 6.0, which it hopes will appeal to managed service providers (MSP) with a spate of new features that include better reporting on application firewalls, improved data protection policy enforcement and a new API to sync GMS with other management consoles.

SonicWALL executives said the biggest add for MSPs is the new API, which offers better integration of GMS with other management consoles and enterprise applications and gives MSPs a way to tap into unique in-house systems of individual customers.

"One of the main focus areas at SonicWALL and for GMS in particular is serving our Managed Service Provider  customers," Jan Sijp, director of product management for SonicWALL, said in a statement. "Our MSP customers will benefit from a new Web Services Application Programming Interface  which MSPs can use to integrate GMS with their other in-house systems."

Sijp says that SonicWALL also responded to customer requests by adding GMS capability to centrally manage SonicWALL Email Security and Continuous Data Protection appliances in a  single console. This includes real-time monitoring and alerting based on syslog messages from SonicWALL devices.

SonicWALL also added application firewall reporting for greater visibility into application firewall policy enforcement, as well as new capabilities to run customer reports for secure remote access devices. In addition GMS customers will benefit from a new reverse inheritance feature.

"GMS at its core is a productivity enhancement and expense management solution and GMS 6.0 builds on this foundation," Sijp said. "Our new reverse inheritance feature closes the loop with the existing reverse inheritance functionality enabling customers to, among other things, copy configurations from one device to another or from one device to a group of devices."