Which fundamental features need to be re-engineered on Sophos XG

DPI feature is a step forward. Nothing to say about. Well done to the Sophos unit that worked hard on that. Appreciated it! From my point of view Sophos is putting features and features on top to stay updated with the market but we need that some pillars work. I would say:

  • Logging. Logging module is very bad. Compared to other competitors and to Sophos UTM, in most cases, tcpdump and drop-packet-capture are still needed.
  • Reporting: still reporting is bad. Check the reports you can generate on UTM9 compared to XG and you see the difference
  • Screen resolution: trial the product with an IT manager in his room where a big screen is installed and you lose already points to convince him
  • Proper command line: when admins go in the console or they need to access the advanced shell, commands are spread around without sense. Some are under systems, some under set, some under show. Please consider to have proper menu. Copy command-line style from other vendors. Now cli does not make sense
  • Delete objects: to delete an object, still need to understand where the object is used. Imagine with hundreds of rules...
  • DHCP and DNS mapping

The list can be lenghty with other small improvements but in my case, this is the desired list and the features that people, partners are waiting for. For other improvements like Kerberos, NAT (to be reviewed), DKIM, BATV and other small improvements, well done. I am very critical, you know but when I have to say "well done"  I am the first.

Hope for a better collaboration from Sophos staff and specially PM, keep going.

@Community users: add your own comments.

Thanks

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  • I guess this is something that XG will fix when they will move from the current UI framework to a new one.

    Thanks for your input, Christian. My customers have the same frustrations. The search shall work like *somethingtosearch* otherwise remembering all objects created is very difficult.

    Thanks again.

  • I haven't used XG in about a year so it was not completely new to me but still the GUI is too confusing. I think a GUI upgrade is probably coming in the next version or two. I would like to see the basics fixed. Like kb and KB used correctly. kb as kilobits is always used when measuring throughput like the speed of my internet connection is in kb (or megabit not in KB or megabytes).

    Along with logging improvements, maybe we can reassess the way the logs are presented. I don't mind the full screen layout, I don't like the fact that if you use a filter to lets say look for a certain IP address for example 8.8.8.8 you can't edit that filter and have to remove the filter and have to retype the whole IP for example 8.8.4.4.

    I don't like the way the logs are updated. They should be available quickly like UTM when you are looking at live log as soon as the packet is processed without refreshing. I also don't like that we still have to use refresh rates when looking at diagnostic->connection list. The whole current activities section needs to be redone with dynamic updating and not static refreshing. 

    The main dashboard gives a lot of info but its old and stale info. What categories and apps that were used a while back are not as important as who is using them currently. I want something that shows the current bandwidth on each interface and maybe the top users/ firewall rules using that bandwidth that I can then click on and see more info on what applications and web categories are being utilized.

    Looking forward to most of the basic stuff being corrected that is being asked in this thread and also on ideas website.