Upgrading SonicWALLs

Hi All,

Every time I go to upgrade from a SonicWALL to another the process goes something like this:

• Check compatibility matrix to see if the two models are fully compatible. Pray. Sometimes they are sometimes they aren't. I'll even try a partial sometimes.

• Upload config. Pray. Check nothing is nothing is lost in config conversion. Usually there is, so I go to the manual method.

• Manually go through each GUI menu and copy config by hand, recreating every object, group, policy, etc. via GUI and hope I don't miss anything.

• Swap firewalls and test.

I've even converted the .exp file to readable text, but the configuration text is close to impossible to be human readable and definitely wouldn't be easy to do a diff of two configs. Any sort of configuration analysis program I've found is either out of date or does not support many models.

Most of my experience is with Cisco configs which are very readable, both Catalyst and ASA. Even FortiGate has human readable configs and a decent CLI. SonicWALL has neither. Does anybody here deal with this or have a better method of upgrading SonicWALLs than having to go through page after page of GUI config?

I'm working in a Dell shop, so I'll have to deal with these for a while. At least their switches are close enough to Cisco to be usable. Ugh.

Thanks in advance!