XG Firewall - Roadmap?

I understand that there could be some more communication about the road map and active development from Sophos, but it's also not very useful to constantly complain in the forums. If you're a Sophos partner, you can get some information from your rep at anytime. If you're not, then contact your partner regarding this information.

I'm a Sophos Partner myself and some updates were given during the Sophos Discover Partner Conference last week. Since I don't think any of this has been shared yet publicly, here is some info to give you a bit of an insight:

- No major features are going to be developed for v17.5 since all focus is on getting v18 ready for release (bug fixed will still be rolled out in MRs as needed)

- There will be an early access program for v18 in July

- GA for v18 is planned for November

- there is no full feature list for v18 available yet, only internally at Sophos but v18 contains TONS of new features and improvements

- v18 will separate NAT from firewall rules and have more configuration options (which some users have complained about)

- v18 will improve overall performance by 30%+ and new XG hardware (optimized for new packet processing engine) will be released in early 2020 to bring even more performance

Hope this helps a little. I'm sure there's more to come as we get closer to the July EAP release.

Thanks - that's helpful.

However, I think the key point of this discussion is that Sophos does not communicate these details to the larger community. Perhaps that's by design (or by contract), but there are many IT-departments that need to get an idea of the capabilities and features (current and planned) before engaging a reseller.

Having worked for a technology vendor in the past, I know something of the legal constraints that they are under.   We could only discuss unannounced products or product features under a non-disclosure agreement, using a standard script and PowerPoint slides that had been approved by the legal department, after a formal approval process.   Approvals were not assured.  Product announcements were only made when a delivery date was pretty certain.

Development is an imperfect process.   When it goes badly, delivered features or delivery dates get deferred.   If a vendor sells a product based on a promise to have feature X by date D, then the vendor cannot deliver for any reason, the vendor is at risk of a fraud charge. 

The other person's post is correct.   If you need a feature today, or will need it within your planning horizon, buy a product that has it today. 

Having worked for a technology vendor in the past, I know something of the legal constraints that they are under.   We could only discuss unannounced products or product features under a non-disclosure agreement, using a standard script and PowerPoint slides that had been approved by the legal department, after a formal approval process.   Approvals were not assured.  Product announcements were only made when a delivery date was pretty certain.

Development is an imperfect process.   When it goes badly, delivered features or delivery dates get deferred.   If a vendor sells a product based on a promise to have feature X by date D, then the vendor cannot deliver for any reason, the vendor is at risk of a fraud charge. 

The other person's post is correct.   If you need a feature today, or will need it within your planning horizon, buy a product that has it today. 

DouglasFoster said:

The other person's post is correct.   If you need a feature today, or will need it within your planning horizon, buy a product that has it today.