Sophos Firewall: New XGS Series Desktop Firewalls and SFOS v21

Today, we’re announcing the launch of two highly anticipated Sophos Firewall releases.

Available now:

Our new XGS Series desktop models unlock best-in-class performance, power efficiency, and price per protected megabit per second (PPPMbps), or in other words, unbeatable value for SMB and branch office environments.

Available in EAP – expected GA October 17:

Sophos Firewall OS v21 introduces support for third-party threat feeds to bolster Active Threat Response, adds several scalability and high availability enhancements for the distributed edge, and delivers some top-requested features, including Let’s Encrypt certificate support.

What’s new

Second-gen XGS Series desktop appliances

Today, we’re launching nine new desktop firewalls with a highly efficient architecture to deliver industry-leading performance and power efficiency.

Best-in-class performance and efficiency

All new models offer an up to 2x improvement in overall performance.

By leveraging the enhanced acceleration capabilities of the virtual FastPath in SFOS v21, along with the streamlined architecture in eight of the nine new models, Sophos achieves an improvement of up to 3X in IPsec VPN throughput compared to the previous generation.

This enhanced performance ensures your networks are protected from the latest encrypted and zero-day threats.

For improved total cost of ownership (TCO), these new firewalls provide this added performance and protection while consuming half the power of our previous models – which were already very efficient. Additionally, an improved thermal design and the introduction of four fanless models allow whisper-quiet operation in highly noise-sensitive environments.

Threat protection improved by up to 4X

In addition to the performance enhancements for our new hardware models, all Sophos XGS Series firewalls have been through thorough testing using the latest industry-standard test methodology to ensure a fair comparison with our competitors. This results in a 2.7X to 4X improvement in threat protection throughput versus our previously published data and firmly places us as a frontrunner in the competitive landscape.

High-speed connectivity

Empowering customers to reap the full potential of multi-gig speeds across their wired and wireless networks, all models come with a range of high-speed interfaces and connectivity options, including:

• 2.5 GE interfaces on every model
• Wi-Fi 6 on all w-models with support for concurrent 2.4/5 GHz
• Dual 10G SFP+ fiber interfaces on the XGS 138*
• An optional 5G module* for models with a modular bay provides a cost-effective redundancy or failover solution for SD-WAN

Further information is available on our website.

Watch this short video for an overview of the new hardware:

Sophos Firewall OS v21

Sophos Firewall OS v21 is also launching today and is available for all partners and customers as part of our early access program before general availability later this month.

Sophos Firewall OS v21 includes:

• Active Threat Response with third-party threat feeds, extending our automated response capabilities to include threat intelligence from specialized third-party feeds for specific regions or verticals such as healthcare, education, and operational technology
• Enhanced scalability, performance, and resiliency for IPsec VPN, high-availability deployments, authentication, and web protection
• Seamless upgrade support from your existing XG or XGS Series device to the latest hardware with any-to-any backup and restore and port-mapping support

Streamlined management and quality of life improvements to many areas, including a refreshed and more responsive management interface, network object management, and Let’s Encrypt certificate support

• Zero-touch deployment was also added in v20 MR1 and is now shipping on the new second-gen XGS Series desktop models. It enables easy setup in Sophos Central and drop-ship deployments of new firewalls to your branch office locations.

XG Series not supported

Customers running SFOS on an XG or SG Series appliance will need to upgrade to the XGS Series to benefit from this release. The new any-to-any backup/restore functionality makes upgrading from XG to XGS a simple and seamless process using our port mapping assistant.

Read the What’s New Guide for a complete overview of all the great new capabilities, and check out our blog series that takes a deep dive into many of the great new enhancements in Sophos Firewall OS v21 with demo videos covering many of the new features.

Summary

Whether you’re an existing Sophos customer on the cusp of your next firewall upgrade or currently using a competitive firewall and looking at your renewal options, Sophos Firewall consistently achieves top-rated status in customer reviews and continues to add value through the full product lifecycle.

For further information, please reach out to your local Sophos partner or representative or get in touch via Sophos.com/Firewall.

Footnotes:

* Not available in Japan