Check Point Security Management Reviews

We use Check Point Multi-Domain Management (Provider-1) to manage several customers with their firewalls as well as handle our internal administrators based on their rights.

Each domain (CMA) contains the customer's firewalls that are managed by us. Bigger customers with more than one domain use global objects as well as global rules so that administrators do not have to implement a local object for each domain.

Since this environment is bigger, we also use a dedicated log server for each domain. That way the logs reside in a different virtual log server.

When using global rules and objects it is possible to push changes to several domains at the same time without touching each individually.

Administration of all users within a single environment makes it easy, instead of connecting to management individually. Using templates for rights helps a lot too.

Last but not least, by only using one VM (or 2 if you include the log server), upgrading and patching are easier. You have a bigger maintenance window, but do not have to upgrade several Security Management Servers by themselves.

Using a single GUI with a single management IP makes things easier if you have to administrate several customers. In the Multi-Domain Environment, you are able to see an overview of all the different customers.

Several health checks are shown for the gateways in an overview so you don't always have to use a monitoring system in parallel since you see some states at a glance after logging in.

Having the possibility to use Smart Event to check for threats on a broader scale helps after a security incident and also makes it easier to check - instead of looking through different logs.

Troubleshooting is quite complicated within multi-domain management. If an issue arises, the local administrator has to keep in mind that there are other domains that could be also affected.

For each version, you have to download a new GUI. Sometimes the GUIs have fixes in them. If you need a new one, you have to inform and update all administrators too.

Some features still use the legacy GUI, however, as far as I know, it is planned to include this in newer versions (R81+). 

Unfortunately, there is still not a rule checker in place where you can insert SRC/DST/Port and it shows you which rule it matches.

I've used the solution for over 10 years.

The solution can scale, depending on the VM environment.

The installation process is quite easy.

Throughout my professional career I have operated, implemented, and designed solutions with Checkpoint's NGFW for clients of all kinds - public and private, small and large.

For all scenarios, there is a suitable solution with this manufacturer. Its decades of experience make it one of the undisputed leaders in the industry.

In recent times, the platform has evolved significantly to meet the latest threats. I would recommend at least valuing it as an option whenever an opportunity arises to cover cybersecurity needs.

Having a central point to manage all its capabilities makes it much easier to react quickly and accurately to a threat, which is essential in this day and age where attacks can be lethal to our network if not dealt with quickly.

I have actively participated in the defense of very important customers who were able to overcome the challenge thanks to the great visibility that the console offered them. The other additional capabilities that we can integrate into the platform are also a very important added value.

One of the features that attract me the most is being able to activate different functionalities through its blades, having centralized point access to all of them, and being able to activate and deactivate them as needed.

In addition, the fact that everything starts from the same unified management console makes it very easy to integrate new equipment or functionalities once the operator has become familiar with it, as everything will follow similar management or operation mechanisms.

This is one of the aspects I value the most.

In my experience, the place they can improve the most is in the technical support where I have had some serious problems that could not be solved in time due to a lack of knowledge of the assigned engineer.

It would be a good policy to try to assign senior engineers when it has been verified that an incident is critical and urgent for a client and not to resort to less-experienced technicians that can put at risk the recovery of the attacked assets.

Apart from that, at the architectural level, it is a very competent and versatile solution.

I've used the solution for more than 15 years.

Overall, it is a very mature and stable solution.

With the arrival of Quantum Maestro, the platform's expansion capabilities have increased tremendously. Its new architecture is promising.

In general, they work very well, however, it should be prioritized and they need to assign senior technicians when the issue has been verified that it is very critical for the customer.

Due to working in an international MSSP, I have worked and continue to work with all manufacturers.

We always try to do the implementation work with our own SOC of experts.

It depends a lot on each case and on the customer's needs and capabilities.

It's not the cheapest solution, but one of the most advanced and competent.

We always evaluate alternatives and try to see what fits the client best. Fortinet, PaloAlto, Checkpoint, Cisco, et cetera.

I work for one of the biggest Australian banks that rely on Check Point firewalls for security enforcement across several points in the infrastructure environment.

The Security Management platform is a key component for our operation, in that it enables efficient central management for configuration and security troubleshooting. This centralised component facilitates and adds value to our daily operations, creating a single place for configurations and a platform that can present security logs that are used for the troubleshooting of security issues.

Check Point Security Management improved the speed at which security access permissions are granted across our environment through its centralized and easy-to-use nature. The possibility of re-using objects across different policies and also having the drag and drop capabilities are great. 

Moreover, having one single platform managing multiple firewalls reduces the time (and cost) of the provisioning of infrastructure services. This boosts the productivity and efficiency of teams across the board.

The Check Point Security Management platform provides a central location for the management of domains and firewalls in the environment. The nature of the product brings valuable returns to the operation, increasing efficiency when configuring and troubleshooting.

The intuitive interface also allows new team members to adapt to the technology if they are not familiar with it initially. It doesn't take much for one to familiarize themselves with the product.

Another great feature is to have available logs in a central location, enabling the troubleshooting of security issues anywhere in the environment.

One possible improvement for the platform would be the import of security policies via CSV or CLI. Even though the platform is simple, and creating security policies is a fairly quick task, creating a bulk of policies at once (ie. for a migration) could be a useful tool. This is probably possible through scripting, however, having an easy-to-use "import CSV" button would be beneficial.

Another feature that could be improved is the export of configurations to CSV. This is often useful to map current firewall policies or NATs. I understand that this feature is available currently, but would CSV bring objects with names (but not IPs) and groups (but not the members). The improvement of this feature would surely be welcomed.

I have been using Check Point Security Management for around 4 years.

The most recent software versions are very stable and trouble-free.

We have a very good impression of it so far. The possibility of adding firewalls to the fleet and keep a central management point makes it simple to grow the operation.

The experience with the Check Point Professional Services team, and TAC, couldn't be better. The team that works with my organization is extremely knowledgeable and is always willing to go the extra mile in order to find the best possible solution for any kind of goal we need to achieve. The TAC team is also always helpful and provides us with many valuable inputs in hard times. 

I have used different solutions from other vendors, but not on the exact same places. The Check Point Security Management platform was mostly used alongside others.

Perhaps because I lack experience setting it up from scratch, the initial setup seemed quite complex.

We had a vendor team assist with the setup.

Overall, the ROI is great. It is a solid and easy-to-use platform that adds a huge value that justifies every penny.

I most definitely recommend this platform when it comes to cost. The available list of add-ons creates great flexibility to the technology and is also easy on the budget - since you only pay for the features you use.

This is not applicable to my role.

As part of the Bank's Network Security Infrastructure team, it is our responsibility to manage different security products and devices that lay the foundation of the Bank's Security Infrastructure Network. Part of that responsibility also includes the implementation and policy update requests arising from different business and support teams to make sure that application services comply with the security standards to protect all services of the bank and maintain the reliability of the services across an environment.

With a centralized Check Point Security Management solution, it makes it easier for our day-to-day operations to manage all Security Gateway Firewalls across the bank. 

The Check Point Security Management has improved the management of all our Security Check Point Gateway Firewalls across the bank. 

With Security Management we are able to simplify our response and support for all our security network devices, which, compared to other products that need to be managed individually, the Check Point solution is far better and less daunting. 

The Security Management also includes the management of logs far that are more efficient, as it provides all the needed information required to investigate and understand how the gateways are accepting or blocking traffic. 

The Main Domain Log Management Server is what I find to be the most valuable feature for the Security Management of our environment. With the Main Domain Log Management Server, support teams are able to check and verify the information required to determine if any traffic is getting blocked or denied due to specific policy rule implementation. It can even identify any traffic getting spoofed or any other related events on the gateways. It has a central management log server that helps us to easily identify faults and issues in the environment, especially during outages and incidents during the implementation of policy rules.

It would be great if the SmartView Monitor could become integrated into the SmartView Console Platform. As it stands, it will still open the old R77 SmartView monitor session, which is a bit flaky and slow. If the SmartView monitor could be integrated into the R80.40 and R81 versions, that would be great. It would help us in unpacking the trends and graphs and see how traffic is observed when hitting the different Check Point Firewall Gateways that the Security Management controls. It will help support teams to identify capacity limitations and have oversight into what's happening in the environment at any given point in time.

I've been using the solution for one year.

The solution is very stable and manageable as there's a centralized management server that takes care of the rest of the Check Point Gateways across our infrastructure.

The solution is very scalable since you can increase the number of gateways in your infrastructure and still manage them in just one centralized SmartView Console.

The technical support team is very knowledgeable and supportive of all our issues and incidents in the bank. Their expertise and reliability are what bring the products of Check Point under complete lifecycle support, which aims to maintain our infrastructure reliability and stability.

At the moment, we have a co-existing infrastructure with other security network devices, and we can definitely see the benefit of having the Check Point Security Management application in our infrastructure.

The setup and operational management of Security Management is very easy. This helps us to train people quickly in terms of managing our bank infrastructure in order to maintain reliability and stability in the network.

We have a professional service provider that implements the solution and he is very knowledgeable in terms of his expertise of the product. I would rate our professional service provider to be a 9 out of 10.

I would advise others that it's definitely a great investment to have. It's great to have Security Management across your infrastructure. 

We have other options with other vendors such as Juniper, with their Security Director, and JSpace, but nothing can compare with how Check Point Security Management performs.

If you have a manageable security infrastructure, the cost, pricing, or licensing will be far outweighed by the reliability and stability. It's great in terms of what a properly managed environment can bring.

As part of the Bank's Network Security Infrastructure team, it is our responsibility to manage different security products and devices that lay the foundation of the Bank's Security infrastructure network. Part of that responsibility also includes the implementation and policy update request arising from different business and support teams to make sure that application services comply with the security standards to protect all services of the bank and maintain reliability of the services across environment.

With a centralized Check Point Security Management solution, it makes it easier for our day-to-day operations to manage all Security Gateway Firewalls across the bank.

The Check Point Security Management has improved the management of all our Security Check Point Gateway Firewalls across the bank. 

With Security Management we are able to simplify our response and support for all our security network devices, which, compared to other products that need to be managed individually, the Check Point solution is far better and less daunting. 

The Security Management also includes the management of logs that is far more efficient, as it provides all the needed information required to investigate and understand how the gateways are accepting or blocking traffic from the gateways.

The Main Domain Log Management Server is what I find to be the most valuable feature for the Security Management of our environment. 

With the Main Domain Log Management Server, support teams are able to check and verify the information required in order to determine if any traffic is getting blocked or denied due to specific policy rule implementation, or even identify any traffic getting spoof or any other related events on the gateways. 

It has a central management log server that helps us to easily identify faults and issues in the environment, especially during outages and incidents during the implementation of policy rules.

It would be great if the SmartView Monitor could become integrated into the SmartView Console Platform. As it stands, performing a smart view monitor will still open the old R77 SmartView monitor session, which is a bit flaky and slow. If the SmartView monitor can be integrated in the R80.40 and R81 versions, that would be ideal in understanding the trends and graphs of how traffic is observed hitting the different Check Point Firewall Gateways that the Security Management controls. It will also help support teams to identify capacity limitations and have a foresight of what's happening in the environment at any given point in time.

I've been using the solution for 4 Years.

The solution is ideal for use and deployment in a large infrastructure environment.

The solution is very efficient. You can add more gateways in the environment and manage on the same management server as it has a centralized design.

We have diamond support and they are very helpful and detailed during explanations for any issues we are facing. The diamond support that we get definitely provides full life cycle support. It brings reliability to the product when you have great support from Check Point.

At the moment, we have a co-existing infrastructure with other security network devices, and we can definitely see the benefit of having the Check Point Security Management application in our infrastructure.

The setup was straightforward as the SmartConsole associated with the Security Management is GUI-friendly and anyone can easily access and manage it.

One of the Professional Service members we work with is very attentive to detail and ready to support our team during difficult times - including the implementation and consultation of the Check Point Products. The professional service on offer is really great as you do not often get someone from a vendor that knows the inside and out of the product dedicated to your own infrastructure.

I would advise others that it's definitely a great investment to have Security Management across your infrastructure.

We have other options with other vendors such as Juniper, with their Security Director, and JSpace, but nothing can compare with how the Check Point Security Management performs.

If you have a manageable security infrastructure, the cost, pricing, or licensing will be far outweighed by the reliability and stability of how a properly managed environment is.

We are using it on the cloud for cloud segmentation and as a VPN for users. We have been implementing Checkpoint on Azure's cloud for configuring scale sets for internal and external firewalls and as a gateway group active/standby for the VPN. The solution is implemented using a Multiple Entry Point feature. This allows us to use the same URL deplyed for all users and let them connect to the nearest node. We use other features like IPS, Threat Control, and Antivirus/Antibot for protecting our servers. We wanted to implement the SCV feature but it's not working. We've been working with support for months without a resolution.

It has allowed global worldwide access to our cloud infrastructure. It gives us the possibility to improve security on the Azure cloud as well. 

It features NGFW provided by checkpoint with all of the capabilities that are required to protect for Next Generation protection from attacks at perimeter level The module and security features that are provided as part of the base license with Checkpoint include the VPN, IPS, Application Control, and Content Awareness which offers strong protection for the organization. The main problem is that the support in terms of solving any issue is not very good.

The unique management using Smart Console for all Firewalls is very useful. Also, the management of policies and the log page allows for easy troubleshooting and configuration using a single pane of glass. The new release R81 allows a very fast installation of policies on the firewalls.

The MEP feature had a lot of problems during the implementation, needing configuration of TXT file via the CLI, however, at the end of the implementation, it is working well and has given us a very good advantage on the VPN solution in our company. I hope to see other useful features in the next release.

I've found the solution was a bit unstable. It would be better to improve the stability of the service. Another thing that needs to be improved is the Checkpoint support. Very often they were not able to solve the problems that we had. Sometimes to solve problems you need to install a new Hotfix or Custom release - and that can generate some side effects that can create instability problems. It's necessary to improve the support - especially the one that is provided in India.

We had done an upgrade 2 months ago.

It's improving with new releases.

It's very scalable.

The experience has not been very good.

Yes, we were using on-prem products with Cisco Anyconnect VPN solutions. We switched to Checkpoint and moved the VPN solution to the cloud.

Yes, it was a bit complex.

We had a good level of expertise, and we also used Checkpoint professional services directly.

We hope to have ROI in 3 years.

Licensing is very granular. You can easily select the best solution and feature that fits to you.

We did not evaluate other options.

They should improve the support and the stability of the system. When there are issues, it is not very easy to solve problems using the support they offer. Other vendors like Cisco have better support. This is very important for Enterprise companies - even more than new features.

We use it for both perimeter and internal defense.

It is good when it comes to access control, which is the basic feature that we use in a firewall appliance or solution. Check Point is effective when it comes to security control and threat prevention.

Support is the main area that they need to improve. Our support experience is not very smooth. We are based in Africa, and we don't know whether it is because of our region.

I would like a feature where there is a workflow to provide authorization to some users before they're able to create and apply rules. Such a feature should be integrated with the management. It should not be in the box that comes with it.

I have been working on the protection network since 2014. It has been around seven years.

So far, it has been stable, but stability also depends on your design and deployment. You might have a performance issue, especially when you have to deal with a lot of traffic. You also need to factor in maintenance in terms of the upgrades, patches, and hotfixes that you need to do regularly. When you're able to do that and take care of the maintenance, you'll have stability.

Scalability depends on your design. You have to properly scope your environment to know the amount of traffic that is expected to go through, pass, or transmit through the firewall. After you have a proper scope, you won't have any problems. Otherwise, you'll definitely be experiencing issues.

Our support experience is not very smooth. We are based in Africa, and we don't know whether it is because of our region.

As compared to other security and firewall solutions, its deployment is not that easy. The deployment duration depends on your project plan. It also depends on whether you are working just on the deployment, and there are no distractions.

In terms of those who manage the rules and administer the system, we have about ten people. They are administrators, and they create rules, manage the system, and provide support.

I wasn't a part of the team that did the evaluation.

I would advise others to properly apply good design concepts by engaging professionals. They should properly scope their environment to ensure that they are deploying the solution to optimized standards. They should also ensure that they train their personnel to be able to handle the first level and even second level support when it comes to the management of Check Point.

I would rate Check Point Security Management a seven out of ten considering the skills that are required and the ease of use and management.

Our primary use case is to have a centralized server to manage all of our Check Point firewalls, which are around 30 clusters of firewalls. We also use it to have a place where we can see, call, and centralize the logs.

Every day we have new projects and new applications that need to be delivered. We need to open flows on the firewall from one point to the other. Check Point helps our security team to create the policies in a centralized way, where we can even copy policies from one firewall to the other.

It saves us a lot of time, and it's very easy to use. We can clone objects and drag and drop. It's much easier than a few years ago where we used to have Cisco firewalls and we needed to do it on the command line. Check Point is much easier. We can very quickly place trainees to work in policy creation.

The features we like and find the most valuable are the ways we can manage the policy, create objects, and drag and drop objects in our daily operation. It makes our daily operation on the firewall management much easier than going, for example, to one firewall, then going to the other. We have a centralized point of managing the firewall in terms of firewall policy and in terms of threat prevention policy where we can easily review the antivirus policy. It has a good description of which protection we are applying to the IPS on the antivirus. It's very clear and easy to use.

The SmartConsole chooses which application communicates with the manager and allows us to create the policies and also look at the log of the traffic that is crossing all the firewalls. We can manage and also see the logs of what is happening on the firewalls.

I would like for Check Point to add some features like the Smart Monitor on the R77 that are available on the SmartConsole of the R80. Now, we need to open a different application to have access to it. There are some applications that worked in the past but were not too integrated with a new application that communicates with the manager. There are some applications that should be integrated into the SmartConsole. I don't know if they will be, but everything should be on the SmartConsole and we shouldn't need to open another application.

The migration from R77 Manager to R80 is a major upgrade. It's not very easy to do. There should be some kind of Wizard for a direct upgrade from the R77 to the R80. There should be an easy way for the customers to do the upgrade.

We have been using Check Point Security Management for three years. 

It has been very stable. We don't have many complaints about stability. Once every three months or so, there are some processes on the management server that we get stuck on and we need to restart the services. After we restart, we get back to normal.

It's very scalable for our use case. We have two security managers. We have one primary and one backup to manage all of our firewall infrastructure, and we have no problem with it. We always have a new firewall. 

There are around eight people who work with this solution in my company. They're network engineers. 

My colleague and I are responsible for the maintenance. 

We have a 100% adoption rate for all of the Check Point Firewalls. We all use this manager to manage the Check Point infrastructure.

We don't have any issues with support. The support is very good, especially if you work with the Israel group, but on this specific product, as this is a core product of Check Point, I would say all of the groups work fairly well.

We also have experience with Fortinet but it's like comparing apples to oranges. 

The initial migration from R77 to the R80 was a bit complex. We had the help of a third-party company for the migration phase. We needed to export from the old manager and import it to the new one. There were some modifications we needed to do. It's not very straightforward. They had more experience in those kinds of migrations. 

We have already done some upgrades and they are very easy and straightforward. For this migration, we needed to prepare the servers side by side to the old one, and we needed to do the initial configuration. It took like at least one week to prepare and to migrate it that way.

We do see ROI because we save a lot of time and we can have new team members working with the firewall very quickly. We save at least eight hours a week.

The pricing is in line with its competition, like Fortinet. 

Sometimes applying licensing in products gets a bit messy. We will apply for a license on the manager, specifically for the firewall, but you still see the firewall complaining it doesn't have any rights. In this case, we need vendor support to fix this kind of situation.

We need to devise whether we need to have remote sessions with regard to why the firewall is complaining. There must be some kind of protection for the people not to flip licenses that they shouldn't. Sometimes when you buy a new firewall, the licensing is not straightforward to apply. After we fix it, we never have issues again.

This solution is overall our favorite Check Point product. It's a product that you need to have if you have a Check Point Firewall. If you have a Check Point Firewall, you need to have to Check Point Security Management. You cannot manage the firewalls directly, you need to have the manager.

I think it's the best product Check Point has and is the one that makes the difference. When you compare it to, for example, Fortinet, which has a manager that is web-based, it's not as easy to use and easy to drag and drop objects. The way to see the logs is not as good. It works better than web-based FortiManager, for example.

Palo Alto is also web-based, but me and my team, all of us prefer the SmartConsole over the way we have to manage FortiGate. It's very easy to search for rules on the policy, Check Point is much easier than the competition.

The competitors work well but Check Point works better.

If you refresh the page, you will lose what you did. Even the screen resolution is dependent on the browser. Drag and drop is not as good as with Check Point. It's by far the best product we have to manage firewalls. I think the thing that makes the difference on the other Check Point firewalls.

My advice would be to try the SmartConsole before deciding if you want to go ahead with buying Check Point Firewalls and the manager. You can install the application in any Windows, computer, or Windows server and try the SmartConsole in demo mode.

I would rate Check Point Security Management a nine out of ten.