Introducing the Sophos SG Series – our fastest appliances ever!

We’re very proud to announce a new generation of network security appliances: the Sophos SG Series. Engineered on the very latest Intel technology, they’re built to provide optimal performance, versatility and efficiency to meet the growing security needs of organizations of diverse sizes. Read on for a message from Guenter Junk, General Manager and Senior Vice President, Network Security Group, introducing our fastest appliances ever.

The SG Series portfolio

Whether you need a solution for a small remote office, want to protect your school campus, or are a global organization requiring high-availability and enterprise-grade features, our SG Series has a model to suit your needs. We will be introducing a total of 12 appliances in the coming months starting with six mid-range models in April.*

Better performance

With more bandwidth-intensive applications being used and the need for multi-faceted security to prevent today’s sophisticated attacks, a key consideration in designing these appliances was to have a significant performance boost.

Recent third-party tests conducted by Miercom Labs proved that the SG Series performance is second to none. We will be publishing the full test results shortly but you can find the first information here. That means SG Series appliances can effortlessly run multiple security applications and still provide the throughput needed to be responsive when processing large volumes of data.

Better technology

One major influence in getting us to our performance goals is the use of the latest Intel technology. Why do we use Intel vs. proprietary hardware chips like ASICs? Very simple: flexibility and scalability.

You don’t just buy an appliance to use now – generally you keep them over a number of years. As we add features with every new version of our software and provide enhancements – improving overall performance – we want our customers to see these improvements right away, without having to change their hardware or upgrade anything.

That would not be the case if we used ASICs. In addition, we’ve greatly increased memory capacity and integrated high-speed, high-volume Solid State Drives (SSDs). All this makes the hardware noticeably more responsive when generating complex reports on-box, for example.

Flexible connectivity

Network infrastructure is rarely static. You may have more bandwidth available that you want to make use of, or introduce high-speed fiber-optic networks.

An appliance you can adapt to suit your changing connectivity requirements offers better value for your money – today and tomorrow.

Our mid-range appliances all come with expansion bays for optional FleXi Port modules. Customers can choose between copper and 1 GbE or 10 GbE fiber ports to tailor hardware to their individual needs. The modules are also fully interchangeable between the 1U models in this, so even if the hardware is upgraded to a larger appliance, you can simply continue to use the FleXi Port modules you’ve already purchased.

Same protection for every business

Our approach provides the same level of protection for every size of business.

You often see competitor solutions being positioned for small businesses just by removing features. With Sophos, the same security features are available on every appliance – from the smallest desktop box to the largest 2U datacenter model.

Your company’s data is valuable to you no matter what size you are, and it deserves the same level of protection.

Same great value

Whether you choose to deploy our software on a new SG Series, a UTM Series, as a software or virtual appliance or even in the Amazon cloud, you’re guaranteed the best balance of performance and protection – on that you have my word.

With the very best regards,

Guenter Junk

General Manager and Senior Vice President, Network Security Group

Sophos SG Series launch event

Sophos SG Series launch event from Sophos on Vimeo.

Check out the SG Series appliances on the UTM product page on our website. To learn more about new features in UTM Accelerated (9.2), check out our recent blog posts or visit sophos.com.

Watch the SG Series launch event on Vimeo here.

And watch this video to get an overview of the SG Series.

(*With the exclusion of Taiwan and Hong Kong, the launch of the SG Series appliances will be later in all countries in the Asia-Pacific region.)