Talk:SonicWall

Removed Business Project stub
The wikipedia business project is for increasing the amount of articles related to business topics and information. It is not a listing of businesses or for business promotional purposes. Please read the following for more information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Business#FA_Criteria

Due to this I am removing the business project stub.

Corporate Sources (sources from the vendors themselves)
Corporate pages are fine reference for certain info... but they don't tell us what products are notable. They simply tell us what products they are trying to promote at a given time. Though we can use product descriptions ot's preferable to get product descriptions from reliable third-parties (ie: NOT WEBSPAM). But all the same, corporate only sources wont EVER tell us what is notable or not (for the previously mentioned reason). Their promotional activities may in the long run influence what is notable if they have a successful promotional campaign but that's not our place here in an encyclopedia! Retran (talk) 06:06, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:SonicwallBlue thumb.gif
Image:SonicwallBlue thumb.gif is not being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 05:34, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Where does SonicOS belong in this mix? The product lines are all links to the company website areas. Does this follow the same convention of other articles? 166.70.62.193 (talk) 19:55, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Limitations of filtering
The entire limitations of filtering should be removed or adjusted as newer firmware released supports SSL proxy to filter within SSL connections. Due to this, the statement mentioned in the wiki page is wrong. Please see the release notes on their site Remarks999 (talk) 18:30, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Remarks999. I wish I understood more about how SSL has been broken and can be monitored. Would you care to explain here in talk, citing from that PDF document? Retran (talk) 22:35, 5 March 2010 (UTC) I noticed the PDF is a white-paper/promotional thingy from SonicWall and from my quick reading found a claim in a bullet list "Deep Packet Inspection of SSL encrypted data (DPI-SSL)". Its not clear what this circumvents as far as the broader topic of the limitations of filtering, so I'm at a loss what should be written in this section. The claim in the PDF doc Remarks999 popsted certainly contradicts what is written in this article. I have found other wiki articles that explain in short how to circumvent firewall rules, and that would seem to apply to SonicWall in some way. But as articles cannot be reference for other articles we need some better source material explaining the issue.Retran (talk) 23:09, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

That is... if this issue is notable enough to be included here in the first place? And if not, any alternative instead? I'm open to that topic as well.Retran (talk) 23:09, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Also, I don't know if the entire section should be deleted simply because of a new feature regarding SSL monitoring. Would that be implying there are no limitations whatsoever to filtering? There certainly must still be.Retran (talk) 22:35, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

The reason I propose removing this section is it is biased against SonicWALL. Competitors' wiki pages such as Fortinet, Juniper, and Watchguard, do not have a limitations of filtering section, even though their units perform the same such filters. Also, with addition of the new technology it further invalidates the section. Remarks999 (talk) 02:38, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Are there any independent sources explaining that the limitations of URL filtering are invalidated besides material from SonicWALL? This would be very amazingly noteworthy if all limitations filtering has been solved with the last release of SonicWALL OS.Retran (talk) 20:50, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

I guess at this point my question is, "Why does the SonicWALL page have a limitations of filtering section while no other UTM vendors do not?" If you see the comment by previous users, it is not specific to Sonicwall and the general consensus seems to be to have the section removed. Is there a reason you find it needs to remain? Remarks999 (talk) 07:25, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Remarks999: Thanks for engaging in a dispassionate manner on this topic. As it seems there's been a lot of back and forth (see below), a consensus either way isn't really very obvious to me! But I am leaning toward agreeing with you the moment that it should be removed. I however emphatically dispute your position that there are no longer any relevant/meaningful limitations to filtering due to the change in OS you referenced. A big problem I have is there's no non-promotional material to reference.

I don't agree with the "fairness" logic you pitched as being reason to remove it. There might be many reasons to include a section on a company that is not included in another. There's many possible differences in companies and how/what specifically they market, and what features they emphasize. I'm not saying that's the case here necessarily; but you are arguing that it shouldn't be included just because its not included on a competitors page and that's not sound reasoning in my opinion. There might be an argument to be made that article's content should be patterned after the "best of" articles in their category (and a well-known company's article like Juniper might be a "best-of" I'd have to look), but that's not what you seem to be saying. It seems all the SonicWALL competitors are either too small of companies to have much better of a page than this, or they produce so many dissimilar products (in addition to a product that competes with SonicWALL) that its not necessarily the case that this article should follow their article as a template as close as otherwise might be the case.

But...I think we both agree it should be removed. I feel it should be removed because it places undue emphasis on "limitations of filtering" (which violates WP:NPOV), and there's not much non-promotional material available to reference (that I have found). Even if there was, having a section on it, I would argue would place undue emphasis. This perhaps could be seen similar to your reasoning that

In general, what I mean, is that if a section in an article is written with even extremely relevant, notable, and cited info, but it makes that section longer than others, it places an undue emphasis on that section (and the topics/info in it). Undue emphasis considerations are especially important to think about in an article like this one that is short and needs expansion. The limitations of filtering would be about 50% of the text of this article, and that means its no longer a neutral article on SonicWALL, it makes this article nothing but a placeholder to publish material saying how limited filtering technology is. This violates WP:NPOV.

The citation, reference issue is important, and should be well understood. From reading the old discussion on it, it seems many folks don't get it. You can't add info in the first place if you cannot cite it. You cannot use Wikipedia to publish original information, PERIOD! There's other places for that! Write a blog, write a newspaper, get it published any other way... except here.

To anyone who might be tempted to adding this "limitations" section again: I will vigorously defend the position that it should not be added until we have addressed the issues of undue emphasis, and appropriate source material. I feel those issues supersede all others as it hits the core of the encyclopedic quality of the article. This isn't a place to protest or stick it to the man.

The only way I can foresee a limitations section being appropriate is if we have plenty of information on SonicWALL's product line (or at least plenty of reliably cited info on its flagship product). Any only then should it be considered again, and only after saying so here so we have an idea if we're at the right spot.

Thanks again for responding to my original call for help on this issue, Remarks999. Retran (talk) 05:33, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Also... do you know any SonicWALL competitor's pages that would provide a good starting off point to expand and improve the quality of this one, now that we're at square one? Retran (talk) 05:53, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for putting this to rest. I planned on expanding the article as it has shrunk considerably. I have knowledge of how these products work, but again, the lack of evidence and third party sources is at times lacking. I planned on using pages like Check Point, and Juniper Networks as a starting block. The first thing I planned on adding was a product breakdown, but I need to take the time to look into it prior to write up. Remarks999 (talk) 16:02, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

old deprecated discussion on "limitations"- (doesn't consider undue emphasis) I have again removed the section on limitations of filtering. It is in no way specific to this company, and it is unsourced. I see no reason to include it here (instead of, say, in a general article on firewalls). Huon (talk) 11:37, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I have replaced the above section. Perhaps as Huon says it should be redrafted to be more specific to SonicWALL, but it should be included since consideration of the limitations of filtration is crucial to a full understanding of SonicWALL and this information may not be readily available to the layman. I would say if there is doubt about its inclusion then it should be left in rather than removed (or censored :) ). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.137.6.159 (talk) 09:28, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but internet censorship has nothing to do with the subject of the article. It is a loose connection at best. Q T C 09:37, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

I disagree, failing a separate article about the SonicWALL firewall this information is of relevance to a full understanding of SonicWALL. Agreed the early edits were advertisements. Suggest review http://www.sonicwall.com/us/products/5255.html#heading_5256. Is your objection that you consider internet censorship to be at national or supranational level rather than on a network by network basis? In any case my description re limitations in the last edit was more accurate than yours. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.137.6.159 (talk) 09:49, 30 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I see the page, it's a list of things it can classify and filter. My objection is not about censorship or what it is/means, my objection is that it has nothing to do with the article about this company.  Q  T C 09:52, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand how on viewing a list of some 40 plus categories of sites which this company's product disallows access to it is possible to conclude that internet censorship is not relevant to this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.137.6.159 (talk) 09:54, 30 June 2009 (UTC)


 * How is it relavent? This company provides an appliance that can filter things. What people do with it is beyond the scope of this article.  Q  T C 09:56, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

It is an intended primary purpose of the product, rather than something which it could be used for.

Consider an article about a handgun as an example. It would be relevant to note that it can be used to kill people or animals (since that is one of its primarily functions) but not relevant to note that it can be used as wall insulation, a back-scratcher or ship's ballast because these are not uses to which it would normally be put.

Where we are talking about something which (1) the designers had firmly in mind when creating the product; and, (2) is hyped massively at point of sale it should be mentioned in the Wikipedia article in furtherance of the spread of knowledge on the subject. 213.137.6.159 (talk) 10:07, 30 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm not disputing that, however this article is about the company not the product. Q  T C 10:09, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

So in your opinion what is needed here is a new article on, say, SonicWALL firewall? I suppose this is one way forward, I had thought it might not be of enough substance to start a new page and could be included here. Since this issue has been recurring since the articles creation in 2006 though it does need to be mentioned somewhere. 213.137.6.159 (talk) 10:19, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

It's clearly relevant to comment on the efficacy of the product in its article. Of course, general issues and their specifics can be linked to their main articles. 217.28.8.234 (talk) 12:40, 30 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I still strongly disagree with the entire "Limitations of filtering" section. It is mostly unsourced, and the sources we have don't mention SonicWALL at all - that's not surprising since the section itself isn't really SonicWALL-specific. It reads like a how-to guide guide, expressly discouraged per WP:NOT. It also puts an undue emphasis on a small section of SonicWALL's products - we have about as much information on how to circumvent one of their product lines as on all the company's product lines combined. It's as if the hypothetical handgun article 213.137.6.159 mentions above (or, more precisely, the article on the handgun manufacturing company) had as much information on bulletproof vests as on firearms. I also disagree with the "if in doubt, include it" motto - by Wikipedia's policies the burden of proof is on those who want content included, not on those who want it removed. Huon (talk) 13:20, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

I think everyone agrees that the historic 'how to' style was inappropriate - we have wikihows for that and advertising is also no acceptable.

For clarity on the "if in doubt, include it" point - certainly where the information proposed for inclusion is not verified then the burden should be on those wanting it included to prove its validity - that's a given lest we abandon any notion of being an encyclopedia.

However the above is totally distinguishable from a situation where we are talking about a link to another Wikipedia article which has already gone through the burden of proof test.

In any case (1) there are at least two viewpoints on whether this point should be included (see history and discussion) ; (2) the content has passed the burden of proof test on another article so cannot be misleading; and, (3) even if you do not agree it adds anything to this article you must agree it doesn't detract from it either. Looking at this from a 'worst outcome' point of view it does no harm to include and it may do harm to exclude it.

As 217.28.8.234 says above it is clearly relevant and it should be somewhere on Wikipedia. I think the only remaining point of disagreement is whether it should be in a new article. I am inclined to think as I stated above that this is not sufficient for a new article but should be a header under SonicWALL, but I accept this is a matter of debate.

Perhaps we should consider this as a disambiguity problem? i.e. 'SonicWALL' and 'SonicWALL firewall product'?

A final comment is that it is in the interest of atleast ten Wikipedia users who have commented to include this information and who knows how many who have not and so this needs to be resolved and historically it's exclusion has not been a satisfactory means of resolution. 213.137.6.159 (talk) 14:14, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I like the shortened version by Q. The undue emphasis has been reduced, the irrelevant proxy server lists are gone, and it actually focuses on what the SonicWALL products can and can't do. Now a secondary source would be nice, but I doubt we'll find one. Huon (talk) 16:41, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

This is only best if a seperate page is written to include specifically the operation of the firewall product and its limitation. That said it is an imporvement on no mention at all. Thomascjackson (talk) 17:12, 30 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Since the text added by 88.203.71.26 is the version I claimed to like back in June, I didn't remove it, but it still suffers of the same old two defects: We don't have a secondary source (or any source, for that matter), and it's not really SonicWALL-specific. Could we at least get a source? If not, I might change my mind and prefer complete removal of this section just for a lack of sources. Huon (talk) 19:10, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

I wonder if anyone have used the company's products??? if there is any comparison with other similar products, and what is the advantage of their products, are their any benchmark to compare, or special hardware they use make them more distinguished than other similar products??? Duhicomp (talk) 20:04, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

relationship to McAfee
I saw a PC in an office that had a McAfee icon in the system tray. When clicked, it brought up SonicWALL, but other text stated that it was from McAfee. ???? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.127.236.37 (talk) 14:20, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Business Continuity / Business Units
What in the world is "Business Continuity"? The term is not self-evident, and I imagine it is especially non-evident to a reader with no exposure to SonicWALL marketing or specialized business education. As the article is written, just how SonicWALL devices implement Business Continuity is unexplained and mysterious. This claim needs to be justified and explained better or be removed, lest the article be in violation of wikipedia's WP:NPOV (neutral point-of-view) policy. The claim would just serve promotional purposes otherwise. If I see no justification put forward, and I can't find justification very easily myself which can be cited, I will remove it. Retran (talk) 07:34, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

I am certainly removing the claims to Business Continuity. I will explain why:

First off, they were added without citation. That alone should be a red flag that its in there for promotional purposes.

During my research I found that in the Summer of 2007 SonicWALL started adding the term "Business Continuity" to promotional literature of some products, and following a press release around the same time, a few blogs and industry websites wrote a small article with the words SonicWALL and Business Continuity, yet none had any information on Business Continuity. SonicWALL promotional literature on certain lines of their products has has link from the word "Business Continuity" (also without any explanation) to some features described as "Hardware Failover" and "ISP Failover". The literature and articles also speak about backup and recovery, but backup and recovery on their own is not Business Contiuity. These are features that long been around. It seems the term "Business Continuity" was added into the wikipedia article as a result of this promotion, and not because of its encyclopedic value or notability.

During my research I found Business Continuity is a long process which involves many products, but mostly organizing and educating members of a business and organization, and taking the steps to prepare ahead of time. To say that SonicWALL is a Business Continuity product, would be like saying Generators, Redundant Wiring, Light Bulbs, Satellite Dishes, Phone Lines, are Business Continuity products. Retran (talk) 07:51, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Also, I found no way to document their so-called "business units". Nor do I think that the internal business structure SonicWALL corporation is very noteworthy. It's such a small company that only their products and services would be noteworthy, and only generally. How they organize their business units, naming them with catch-phrases-of-the-day? It just serves as promotion. Besides, the ones listed in the article seem to be out-of-date. And besides...how could anyone tell since they're not cited? I tried to find anything about business structure on SonicWALL's website. Found nothing. Retran (talk) 07:58, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

HP ProCurve Solutions Alliance
This screams "promotional" and non-neutral. I'm removing the whole "Partnerships" section since it contains only one entry, without any explanation as to what it is. When I visit the link its a page with a slew of corporate logos with this small explanation of what ProCurve is "Leading appliance or independent software vendors work with ProCurve to create applications, which together with ProCurve's network foundation allow customers to deploy tested or pre-integrated best-in-class solutions." Sounds basically non-noteworthy, and completely promotional. Removed per WP:NPOV. Retran (talk) 08:04, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Certifications
Is it normal for a good Wikipedia article to list a barrage of certifications, with absolutely no description in plain language as to what they mean? Especially when they are certifications of a very narrow-interest? Were they added here to simply expand the size of this article, or is it notable and important, each one of them? If all of them are notable enough for inclusion, there is a lot of work to be done to describe what these certifications are and what in the world it means to the reader. Retran (talk) 08:16, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Advertisement Issue Resolution
I am getting frustrated with this article. Is this company notable simply because its listed on a major stock exchange? Most of the stuff in here is put in here just to have content. For instance, if IBM, or Apple's wiki page contained pending hardware/software certifications it would be absurd and miles long.Retran (talk) 14:30, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

I've removed a few sections that upon editing them for removal of promotional material, there was little/nothing left! (imagine that). I added a few notes to the intro and another corresponding section dealing with product lines and acquisitions. But come on? Why should 50% of this article be an arcane list of acquisitions over the years? I'm sure the information on acquisitions will be publicly available elsewhere for posterity. And the other half was a simple copy/paste of their website's product page. I gave a description of their products so far as I could make out. I encourage anyone to give a nuetral description of SonicWall companies products in some meaningful prose! Prose please! No more weird lists with bullet points and links. Those are for promotional websites, not encyclopedias!Retran (talk) 15:02, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

I've removed the advertisement tag because the issue seems to have been resolved. I await new edits to see if that remains so.Retran (talk) 15:04, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

censorship section that was removed
i added that cencership post, hope u like it, probly got some grammer errors in it, im not much of a english student. ;)


 * Unfortunately, it's not appropriate for wikipedia -- all content has to respect WP:NPOV and WP:CITE. Reporting someone else's (notable) opinions about SonicWALL is fine, but simply adding your own feelings is not OK. Sdedeo (tips) 19:57, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

i must concur with the gentlman on his post. it is quite understandable.

Announced technology acquisitions
Please see also Category talk:Announced technology acquisitions, please feel free to come with a better method of following announced take-overs Tonkie (talk) 23:23, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Censorious
I used a computer today to search for information online and followed a link from the search programme results to "The Sun" newspaper in Britain. I discovered that the computer in question was running SonicWall when it blocked my attempt to read one of Britain's best-selling newspapers, citing the reason: Block reason: Forbidden Category "Intimate Apparel/Swimsuit". I rolled my eyes in disbelief. — O'Dea (talk) 10:20, 18 April 2015 (UTC)