SonicWALL
WAN Acceleration Appliance (WXA) Series
Significantly enhanced WAN performance and user experience
Overview:
In today's distributed enterprise, applications such as Microsoft® SharePoint and Windows® File Share transmit an increasing number of files and data sets over Wide Area Networks (WANs), overburdening available WAN bandwidth. To make matters worse, these collaboration applications can inefficiently retransmit entire files (rather than just incremental changes) multiple times, unnecessarily increasing WAN traffic. IT often responds by expending budget on more bandwidth or enhanced services. Alternatively, WAN acceleration technology can resolve the problem by allowing more efficient utilization of the existing network bandwidth.
The SonicWALL solution.
The SonicWALL® WAN Acceleration Appliance (WXA) Series reduces application latency and conserves bandwidth, significantly enhancing WAN application performance and improving the end user experience for small- to medium-sized organizations with remote and branch offices. After initial data transfer, the WXA Series dramatically reduces all subsequent traffic by transmitting only new or changed data across the 
network. Deployed in conjunction with a SonicWALL E-Class Network Security Appliance (NSA), NSA or TZ Unified Threat Management (NGFW) Firewall and Application Intelligence and Control Service, the WXA offers the unique combined benefit of prioritizing application traffic and minimizing it between sites, resulting in optimal network performance.
Conserving network bandwidth.
When integrated with a SonicWALL NGFW Firewall, the WXA Series remembers data that has been transferred previously, and through data de-duplication, replaces repeated byte sequences with an identifier to reduce application latency and conserve bandwidth.
A variety of acceleration techniques.
In addition to data de-duplication, the SonicWALL WXA Series provides acceleration features such as data caching, metadata caching, data-in-flight compression and application traffic prioritization using QoS or bandwidth management on the managing NGFW Firewall.
Seamless integration.
Unlike standalone WAN acceleration products, SonicWALL WXA solutions are integrated add-ons to SonicWALL NGFW Firewalls. This integrated solution streamlines the placement, deployment, configuration, routing, management and integration of WXA with other components, such as VPNs.
Flexible deployment.
To fit a wide variety remote, branch and central office deployments, the WXA Series is comprised of software and hardware based solutions including the SonicWALL WXA 500 Live CD, WXA 2000 and WXA 4000 hardware appliances, and WXA 5000 Virtual Appliance.
Model Lineup:
Designed to reduce application latency, conserve bandwidth and significantly enhance WAN application performance.
SonicWALL WXA 4000
Designed for small- to medium-sized organizations with remote and branch offices, the WXA 4000 significantly enhances WAN application performance and user experience for up to 240 users, with 1,200 concurrent flows.
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Ideal for small- to medium- sized organizations with remote and branch offices and up to 240 users. |
SonicWALL WXA 2000
Designed for small- to medium-sized organizations with remote and branch offices, the WXA 2000 significantly enhances WAN application performance and user experience for up to 120 users, with 600 concurrent flows.
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Ideal for small- to medium- sized organizations with remote and branch offices and up to 120 users. |
SonicWALL WXA 5000 Virtual Appliance
As a hardened, performance-optimized virtual server, the SonicWALL® WAN Acceleration Virtual Appliance (WXA) 5000 eases migration and reduces capital costs while significantly enhancing WAN application performance and user experience for up to 360 users.
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Ideal for small- to medium- sized organizations looking to simplify migration for remote and branch offices and up to 360 users. |
SonicWALL WXA 500 Live CD
As software that is easily deployed on dedicated hardware, the SonicWALL® WAN Acceleration Live CD (WXA) 500 allows organizations with small offices of up to 20 users to enhance WAN application performance while leveraging existing infrastructure.
Compare Models:
| WXA Series Specifications: | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Model | WXA 500 LiveCD | WXA 2000 | WXA 4000 | WXA 5000 Virtual Appliance |
| Platform | Software/CD | Hardware Appliance | Hardware Appliance | Virtual Appliance (VMware) |
| Maximum Users1 | 20 | 120 | 240 | (see footnote 3 below) |
| Maximum Flows | 100 | 600 | 1,200 | (see footnote 3 below) |
| Byte Caching | Yes | |||
| TCP/File Compression | Yes | |||
| Management | Requires SonicOS 5.8.1. or later | |||
| TCP Visualization | Yes | |||
| WFS Acceleration | Yes2 | Yes | ||
| SNMP | Yes | |||
| Syslog | Yes | |||
| Operating System | Hardened SonicWALL Linux OS | |||
| Rack-mount Chassis | - | 1U Rackmount | - | |
| CPU | - | Intel 2.0 GHz | Intel Dual Core 2.0 GHz | - |
| RAM | - | 2 GB | 4 GB | - |
| Hard Drive | - | 250 GB | 2 x 250 GB | - |
| Redundant Disk Array (RAID) | - | - | RAID 1 | - |
| Dimensions | - | 17.0 x 16.4 x 1.7/in 43.18 x 41.59 x 4.44 cm |
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| Weight | - | 16 lbs/7.26 kg | - | |
| WEEE Weight | - | 16 lbs/7.37 kg | - | |
| Power Consumption (Watts) | - | 86 | 101 | - |
| BTUs | - | 293 | 344 | - |
| MTBF (Years) | - | 14.27 | - | |
| Hypervisor | - | - | - | ESX ESXi (version 4.0 and newer) |
| Operating System Installed | - | - | - | Hardened SonicLinux |
| Minimum CPU | - | - | - | 2 x 1.6 GHz |
| Allocated Memory | - | - | - | 4 GB |
| Applied Disk Size | - | - | - | 250 GB |
1 Maximum users may vary depending on the number of flows being generated per user.
2 WFS Acceleration is available only when the Live CD image is installed on the provided hardware.
3 The virtual appliance hardware outlined above supports approximately 120 users with 600 flows. Max users and flows for the Virtual Appliance may vary depending on the provided hardware configuration.
