Dell Security has released Dell SonicWALL Secure Mobile Access (SMA) 100 Series OS 8.5, which provides mobile and remote workers at small- and medium-sized businesses with policy-enforced SSL VPN access to applications, data and resources.
The company says the newest version of the Dell SonicWALL SMA 100 Series OS allows administrators to “quickly and easily” provision secure mobile access and role-based privileges so workers using smart phones, tablets or laptops (managed or unmanaged) get “fast, simple and secure access.”
At the same time, the solution enables organizations to institute BYOD security policies to protect their corporate networks and data from rogue access and malware, according to Dell.
The proliferation of devices in the workplace, both employer-issued and personally owned, has increased the demand for secure mobile access to company applications, data and resources. Often, employees use the same device for both business and personal use, resulting in the intermingling of business and personal data and applications. This places organizations at increased risk for security breaches such as:
- Unauthorized access to networks and systems from lost or stolen devices
- Malware and ransomware spread through infected devices that serve as conduits
- Interception of organization data in-flight on unsecured public Wi-Fi networks
The new enhancements to the Dell SonicWALL SMA 100 Series OS provide greater control and ease-of-use for companies in setting policy controls, allowing users to access the data they need from the devices they use and without skimping on security.
Dell says the SMA 100 series is compatible with all commonly used devices across Windows, iOS, Mac OS X, Android, Linux, Kindle Fire, and Chrome, to provide mobile users secure access to network resources including shared folders, client-server applications, intranet sites, email, and remote and virtual desktop services.
Dell says that the new version’s “easy-to-use” wizards to deploy policies for OWA, ActiveSync, Outlook Anywhere and Autodiscover, saves IT administrators considerable time for the most commonly created policies, making them more productive, and it lowers the company’s overall TCO.
The new version’s HTML5 enhancements everything can be run from within the context of the browser window, making connection to resources very easy and with zero-day support of all major operating systems and browsers.
Meanwhile, virtual host multicore support increases resource capacity of host resources that can be accessed by SMA to provide greater reliability and performance at higher concurrencies of connected users. With this additional resource capacity, concurrent user maximum increases from 50 to 250.
Lastly, to align across the entire portfolio, this product previously known as “SRA SMB Virtual Appliance” has now been renamed “SMA 500v.”
“Due to resource restraints, SMBs often struggle to simultaneously keep up with today’s security requirements and ensure that workers can remain productive while on-the-go,” said Han Chon, director, Security and Endpoint Systems Management, Dell Asia Pacific & Japan. “It’s a balancing act for IT to keep employees productive, with the flexibility to access corporate data whenever and from wherever they are on the device(s) they choose, while ensuring that business assets and the organization have the level of security needed to fend off today’s shapeshifting threats. The new, easy-to-use policy-enforced management tools in the Dell SonicWALL SMA 100 Series OS 8.5 allow IT to make quick adjustments that enforce authorized access to enhance productivity ‒ rather than create a barrier to the business ‒ allowing IT to become the “Department of YES.”
The SMA 100 Series OS 8.5 upgrade will be available for download from www.mysonicwall.com starting July at no cost to customers with active support contracts in place.