NSM details
djhurt1
Enthusiast ✭✭
We got a bunch of NSM alerts via email for this previous Sunday, "Connection to Device Primary SonicWall failed" "Please check your NSM dashboard for more details". We don't have a syslog or anything setup so the logs don't go back far enough. That's an issue we're working on but is there anything useful to be found in the NSM dashboard? I've been clicking around and can't seem to find anything except the alerts from Sunday. Clicking them just acknowledges them and they disappear. The interface seems very confusing and difficult to find anything useful regarding the alerts it sent.
On another note, what is the purpose of the NSM? I didn't purchase this so I'm in the dark why we even have it. It doesn't seem very intuitive at all and I question if this is something we even want to be messing with?
Answers
There have been discussion here about NSM before and many of us agree its not worth it for small to medium business customers.
Think though, if you have a contract to manage all the firewalls for all McDonalds locations in your state...
We have just 3 firewalls, with 2 more in the near future so maybe it's not for us. Regarding the notification, is there any more details NSM would show or log? It appears our WAN dropped but our upstream provider who monitors the connection reported nothing. Just trying to determine if this was a legit WAN down moment of NSM was having issues at the time.
No idea, haven't used NSM in almost a year.
@djhurt1 if you log in to your MySonicWall account and pull up the device's Licenses tab, you will be able to determine the version of NSM you have.
In SonicWall's inimitable attempt at humor, the Essential Protection Service (formerly CGSS) does not contain an NSM license. The Advanced Protection Service (formerly AGSS) contains an NSM Essential license.
The NSM Essential license is for device management and 7 day's worth of reporting.
The NSM Advanced license - a separately purchased option - provides a full year of reporting and 30 day's worth of analytics.
According to a webinar I attended this week, NSM 2.3.5 is live and purportedly fixes a number of gaping holes in the product.
But I am steadfast in my belief that if you only have a handful of devices, this product does not add value. You'd be better off taking the time to manually make your changes across your fleet, than trying to fight through the quirks and flaws inherent (and remaining) in NSM.
I would go so far as to suggest that if you have no need for NSM, disable on-cloud management and go with on-box. That approach would definitively answer your question as to whether your device encountered legitimate down from your ISP or an NSM hiccup...