How Smart Sync will make it easier to roll-out new H Series firewall appliances

Smart Sync is the new feature we’ve now introduced on Nebula and our newest H Series USG firewall appliances that replicates any changes made locally or on the cloud on the other platform, automatically. As well as making life easier and less complicated for MSPs and network admins and giving them more flexibility, Smart Sync will also make it easier to roll out multiple H Series devices with the very latest features.

Zyxel Networks is constantly updating its products and services and we’ll be introducing all kinds of new features to the H Series over the next few months. When we do this, the new capabilities will always appear on the device itself first. So, for example, if we add a new feature for AI-driven intrusion detection alerting, it would be available on the device itself first and appear within Nebula later.

Testing and refining

It happens like this because we need to test and refine the feature on the device itself before we can adapt it for use and then implement it within Nebula. The reason we’ve never delayed releasing new functionality until we’ve successfully put it into the cloud platform is that we want customers to have access to the new feature as soon as possible.

Now that we have Smart Sync, there’s another good reason for not delaying as it gives customers who are thinking of rolling out the device, access to the new feature early, allowing them to pre-configure the firewall settings ahead of a planned roll-out of multiple devices.

This is something we expect quite a lot of customers and MSPs will be doing. This latest wave of H Series firewalls represents a major new release and we anticipate many customers upgrading across their estates. By giving them access to the very latest features and updates with the initial shipment of an H Series USG appliance, they will be able to do all the pre-rollout configuration work in advance.

Careful planning

With a little careful planning, those new features will also be available in Nebula when the time comes to deploy the whole set of firewalls and Smart Sync will be able to pick up on the initial settings applied locally and replicate them across all devices. This will make the deployment much easier, faster and secure, and ensure that a consistent set-up is used across all devices.

From that point on, it will be possible to manage all the firewalls via Nebula, or to use the local web console to make more detailed changes – or to test out newly-introduced features. Either way, with Smart Sync, the changes made on one platform will always be synchronized, securely, in the other.

To find out more about Smart Sync, please contact us or get in touch with your nearest Zyxel Networks partner.