About SonicOS

SonicOS refers to the web management interface used for configuring, managing, and monitoring the features, policies, security services, connected devices, and threats to your environment. SonicOS runs on top of SonicCore, SonicWall's secure underlying operating system. SonicOS management interface facilitates the following:

• Setting up and configuring your firewall
• Configuring external devices like access points or switches
• Configuring networks and external system options that connect to your firewall
• Defining objects and policies for protection
• Monitoring the health and status of the security appliance, network, users, and connections
• Monitoring traffic, users, and threats
• Investigating events

SonicWall offers two different modes of operation in SonicOS; the modes differ mainly in the areas of policy, object configuration and diagnostics. Policy Mode provides a unified policy configuration work flow. It combines Layer 3 to Layer 7 policy enforcement for security policies and optimizes the work flow for other policy types. This unified policy work flow gathers many security settings into one place, which were previously configured on different pages of the management interface. The Classic Mode is more consistent with earlier releases; you need to develop individual policies and actions for specific security services. The Classic Mode has a redesigned interface. The following table identifies which modes can be used on the different SonicOS firewalls:

Firewall Type	Classic Mode	Policy Mode	Comments
TZ Series	yes	no	The entry level TZ Series, also know as desktop firewalls, deliver revamped features such as 5G readiness, better connectivity options, improved threat, SSL and decryption performance that address HTPPS bandwidth issues; built-in SD-WAN, and lawful TLS 1.3 decryption support.
NSa Series	yes	no	+
NSsp 10700, NSsp 11700, NSsp 13700	yes	no
NSsp 15700	no	yes
NSv Series	yes	yes	Set the operation mode when your first set up the NSv firewall. You can switch between modes, but some configuration information from extra interfaces is removed.

In addition to the management interface, SonicOS also has a full-featured API and a CLI to manage the firewalls. For more information, refer to:

• SonicOS 7.1 API Reference Guide
• SonicOS Command Line Interface Reference Guide