60 Days to a More Secure Future: How STF Consulting Migrated 200+ Users Away from SonicWall with OpenVPN

For STF Consulting, a New Jersey-based managed IT services firm with over 25 years of experience, the announcement triggered an immediate, organization-wide response. Within 60 days, STF Consulting had successfully migrated more than 200 users to a new, more secure remote access platform built on OpenVPN.

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The Challenge: A Compressed Timeline and a Critical Vulnerability

SonicWall's SMA 100 series had long been a go-to solution for secure remote access. But the product's track record with security vulnerabilities had become impossible to ignore. Throughout 2024 and into 2025, CISA flagged multiple actively exploited flaws in SonicWall products, including CVE-2021-20035, a vulnerability in the SMA 100 management interface that allowed remote authenticated attackers to inject arbitrary commands with potential for code execution. By April 2025, CISA had upgraded its severity score and expanded its listed impact, underscoring just how serious the threat had become.

Then came the accelerated end-of-life announcement. The SMA 100 series was officially set to be deactivated on October 31, 2025, not simply unsupported but actively decommissioned. While the original end-of-support timeline had been expected to extend to 2027, the revised announcement left STF Consulting with less than two months to identify, validate, and deploy a replacement solution across their client environments. For a firm that manages IT infrastructure on behalf of multiple businesses, that was not a window for deliberation. It was a call to action.

Who Is STF Consulting?

Founded in 2000 and headquartered in Fair Haven, New Jersey, STF Consulting is a trusted managed IT services partner for businesses across Monmouth, Ocean, and Middlesex Counties. The firm specializes in managed services, cybersecurity, cloud solutions, and network infrastructure, serving clients in industries ranging from construction and legal services to financial advising and real estate. STF Consulting's philosophy is built around proactive, layered defense: the team continuously refines its processes, maintains up-to-date vendor certifications, and approaches every client engagement as a long-term strategic partnership.

That approach, methodical, security-first, and client-centered, is precisely what made the SonicWall situation so urgent. STF Consulting didn't just have its own infrastructure to worry about. It had to protect the continuity and security of its clients' remote access environments as well.

Why OpenVPN?

STF Consulting evaluated the available alternatives carefully and with clear criteria: any replacement solution needed to fully replicate their existing SonicWall deployment model, improve the overall security posture, and offer greater flexibility in authentication and access control. After a thorough evaluation, OpenVPN emerged as the only solution capable of meeting all three requirements.

Access Server stood out for several key reasons. Unlike SonicWall's forced migration toward a cloud-only model, Access Server offers true deployment flexibility across on-premises, private cloud, and public cloud environments including AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud. This flexibility allowed STF Consulting to maintain control over their deployment architecture and tailor it to client-specific needs. Equally important, Access Server has no known exploited vulnerabilities according to CISA, a sharp contrast to the platform they were leaving behind.

The Migration: 60 Days, Zero Disruption

With the deadline looming, STF Consulting launched a cross-organizational project that left nothing to chance. The team built a proof of concept, trained internal staff, developed standardized documentation, and prepared production-ready OpenVPN appliances for deployment, all in parallel. Working closely with the OpenVPN team throughout the evaluation and implementation phases, they validated the architecture and operational model needed to support their client environments.

The OpenVPN team's responsiveness proved instrumental throughout. They extended the trial period to allow for comprehensive testing and a fully built-out proof of concept, and their technical staff provided timely guidance that helped refine the deployment model and accelerate the rollout. STF Consulting President Sean Furman credited that collaboration as essential to the project's outcome:

“When SonicWall accelerated the end-of-support timeline for the SMA 100 series, we had less than two months to find and deploy a secure replacement. That kind of timeline forces you to move quickly, but it also means the solution has to work the first time. OpenVPN worked with us throughout the trial period so we could build a full proof of concept. That gave our team the confidence that we could deploy the platform at scale across our clients."

Sean Furman, President, STF Consulting

Within 60 days, STF Consulting had deployed new OpenVPN appliances, migrated more than 200 users to the new platform, implemented improved authentication and access management controls, and created client-specific documentation to support a smooth user transition, all with minimal downtime and virtually no disruption to end users.

A Partnership That Made the Difference

The speed and smoothness of the migration reflected not just strong internal execution, but the quality of the partnership with OpenVPN. And for Furman, the outcome exceeded what the project originally set out to achieve.

“At the end of the project, we didn't just replace SonicWall SMA. We ended up with a more flexible, more secure remote access platform that will scale better for our clients long term."

  Sean Furman, President, STF Consulting

Key Takeaways

STF Consulting's experience offers a compelling model for managed service providers and IT teams navigating similar transitions. A few lessons stand out:

• Start early and move decisively. Even with a compressed timeline, STF Consulting succeeded because they treated the migration as a strategic project rather than a reactive scramble, building documentation, training staff, and developing a proof of concept before deploying to production.

• Vendor partnership matters as much as product capability. The flexibility OpenVPN offered, including extended trials, responsive technical support, and willingness to validate architecture together, made a measurable difference in the project's success.
• Security posture can improve through a migration, not just survive it. Rather than simply replicating what SonicWall provided, STF Consulting used the transition as an opportunity to implement stronger authentication and access management controls across all client environments.
  
  

A Partnership That Made the Difference

The October 31, 2025 deadline for SonicWall SMA 100 deactivation has passed. If your organization is still running on unsupported hardware, or if you're evaluating options for a more secure and flexible remote access solution, OpenVPN Access Server is ready to help. Like STF Consulting, you don't have to compromise between speed, security, and control.

Learn more about migrating from SonicWall to OpenVPN, reach out to a partner (and you know STF Consulting can help!), or contact our team to get started with a free trial of Access Server.