Founder CCIE
Reseller
Adds value and helps organizations avoid problems and mistakes
Pros and Cons
  • "What I found the most valuable about Cisco Secure Firewall is that if a client is educated about the solution, it can help him or her avoid many problems and mistakes."
  • "Cisco's inspection visibility could be better."

What is our primary use case?

Our primary use case for this solution is to use it as a firewall. This product secures the internet from internal and public users.

How has it helped my organization?

Cisco Secure Firewall helped add to my organization's value. It is a selling product for us here. They have great support and documentation, which makes the solution easy to sell to customers. The Cisco name has a lot of value and high brand awareness.

We are selected partners now but are looking to grow to become a primary partner for Egypt. 

Cisco Secure Firewall definitely saved us time. However, security is never 100% with any product, even Cisco. So, you will have to spend some time securing your IT regardless of which solution you use.

I would say that it helped my company cut time by 50%.

The solution cautions us against threats via email notifications and internally in the web interface of the product itself on the dashboard.

What is most valuable?

What I found the most valuable about Cisco Secure Firewall is that if a client is educated about the solution, it can help him or her avoid many problems and mistakes. 

What needs improvement?

I think Cisco would benefit from comparing its solutions to other products. There is a lot to learn from solutions like Palo Alto or FortiGate. These are top security products. For example, Palo Alto has better inspection visibility than Cisco. When we ask customers about Palo Alto, they say "I like Palo Alto. It helps me see problems on time. I can audit everything through it." Cisco could improve in this regard. Cisco's inspection visibility could be better. 

Buyer's Guide
Cisco Secure Firewall
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about Cisco Secure Firewall. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for a long time; since the PIX version in 2003. This adds up to almost 20 years now. I have had a plethora of experiences with this solution as both just an employee using it and also as the owner of a company. We also have a range of customers using the solution. 

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We did not use any other solutions. Our strategy from the beginning has been to grow with Cisco. However, our customers have the final say in which solutions they choose and sometimes that's not Cisco. That has much to do with their previous beliefs and brand loyalty and trust. The customer's opinion matters and if the customer is loyal to Palo Alto, we are going to have a hard time getting them to make the switch. 

How was the initial setup?

I am not involved in the deployment of the product. I have a sub that deploys Cisco Secure Firewall. I'm involved in guiding the deployment on the management side and making sure it's done in line with the customer's wishes. 

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I did evaluate other options but ultimately went with Cisco because of the support they offer. You can reach their tech support engineers at any time. That's important. Their documentation is great as well. Their site is wonderful. 

What other advice do I have?

I rate the solution a seven out of ten.

Cisco Secure Firewall should be consolidated with routers, switches, or VOIP.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
VSO at Navitas Life Sciences
Real User
Top 20
Good encryption and decryption with decent dashboards
Pros and Cons
  • "We found the initial setup to be easy."
  • "Maybe the dashboard could be a bit better."

What is our primary use case?

This is an SSL that can decrypt and encrypt SSL traffic. 

What is most valuable?

The ability to encrypt and decrypt is great.

The dashboards are excellent.

We really like the reporting aspect of the product. 

It is stable. 

We found the initial setup to be easy.

What needs improvement?

Maybe the dashboard could be a bit better. There are some reports where we don't get it. We need a deep dive into a particular URL, however, it provides the URL and the IP address, and there is no more information that can show more details. Basically, the report models can be improved.

With their console, we have to build a separate VM. In some of the products, the management console comes along with the box itself. It'll be one solution to take the backup and keep it. Even if you want to build a DR, it'll be easy. However, the challenge we had is if that VM is down, my team may not able to access the Firepower remotely. Therefore, the management console itself should be built within the Firepower box itself, rather than expecting it to be built in a separate VM.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for more than four years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We have not, as of now (touch wood) faced any issues. It's stable, and we don't face any performance issues as well. It's reliable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

At this moment, we have not thought through scaling. The model which we use is less than 60%. What I heard from them is you can cascade it to another box, and scaling can be done.

We have between 400 to 450 concurrent users on a daily basis accessing this box. Overall, we have 2,000 devices that could be easily communicated via Firepower.

How are customer service and support?

Technical support is good. We've found it to be quite good in general. 

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is great. It's very easy and quite straightforward. If you understand the process, it is very easy. I'd rate it a 4.5 out of five in terms of ease of implementation. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I don't manage licensing. I can't speak to the actual cost of the product. 

What other advice do I have?

We're a customer and end-user.

I'd recommend the solution to organizations that have around 1,500 people that need to access the solution. 

I would rate the solution a nine out of ten. 

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Cisco Secure Firewall
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about Cisco Secure Firewall. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Sergiy Ovsyannyk - PeerSpot reviewer
VP Network Engineering at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees
Real User
As both perimeter and internal firewalls, they provide traffic inspection, packet analysis, and decryption
Pros and Cons
  • "It just works for us."
  • "Cisco is still catching up with its Firepower Next-Generation firewalls."

What is our primary use case?

We use it for perimeter and internal firewalls. We wanted a firewall with traffic inspection, packet analysis, and decryption.

Our deployment is on-prem and hybrid. We don't use it in the cloud as we use other vendors for that.

How has it helped my organization?

I'm not sure the firewall has improved our organization because a firewall is a must. It's something that you pick up and then trust. It just works for us.

What needs improvement?

Cisco is still catching up with its Firepower Next-Generation firewalls. It's naturally growing and getting better.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using Cisco ASA Firewalls for 15 years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's used around the world. We have 20 data centers and each data center handles six offices. We have Cisco in every single location. If something new comes up, we'll increase our usage of the product.

How are customer service and support?

Cisco's technical support is good.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We're a multi-vendor shop when it comes to firewalls, and we use Check Point and Palo Alto in addition to Cisco. We used to have Fortinet but that amounted to too many vendors.

When the Cisco product changed from legacy traffic inspection to the new Firepower it became a next-generation firewall. It was just a new product. That's why we decided to try it and stay with Cisco. It's like two different products: the legacy product and the new one. The legacy product was much simpler and the new one is, obviously, more complex.

How was the initial setup?

I'm a designer, so I don't do racking and stacking, but I'm hands-on when it comes to configuration. I have used this product for years, so for me, it's not like adding a brand new product. It is just a matter of adding features, a hardware refresh. I wouldn't call it a challenge.

For maintenance, we have two to three network engineers involved.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The pricing of Cisco firewalls, in the security market, is fair. Their pricing of other products is questionable, but for firewalls, it's fine.

What other advice do I have?

Compare Cisco ASA with other vendors' products and compare the features one-on-one. Pay special attention to the security portion, such as traffic inspection. That's probably the most important aspect. And then look at performance.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Network Engineer at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
Real User
Gives us remote connectivity and helps workers connect remotely
Pros and Cons
  • "It has definitely improved our organization. It gives us remote connectivity, helps workers connect remotely, and also gives us good connectivity to our other branches."
  • "I would like it if there was a centralized way to manage policies, then sticking with the network functions on the actual devices. That is probably the thing that frustrates me the most. I want a way that you can manage multiple policies at several different locations, all at one site. You then don't have to worry about the connectivity piece, in case you are troubleshooting because connectivity is down."

What is our primary use case?

We use it for basic firewalling, building VPN tunnels, and for some remote VPN connections.

We have two ASAs servicing external remote connectivity sessions for about 300 users.

How has it helped my organization?

It has definitely improved our organization. It gives us remote connectivity, helps workers connect remotely, and also gives us good connectivity to our other branches.

What needs improvement?

It would be nice if it had the client to actually access the firewall. Though, web-based access over HTTPS is actually a lot nicer than having to put on a client just to access the device.

For Firepower Threat Defense and ASAs, I would like it if there was a centralized way to manage policies, then sticking with the network functions on the actual devices. That is probably the thing that frustrates me the most. I want a way that you can manage multiple policies at several different locations, all at one site. You then don't have to worry about the connectivity piece, in case you are troubleshooting because connectivity is down.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using ASA for about three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is stable.

We just run updates on them. I don't know if we have had to do any hardware maintenance, which is good.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have been just using ASAs for a smaller environment.

I don't know if I have ever worked with ASA in a highly scalable environment.

How are customer service and support?

I haven't really gotten involved with the technical support for ASAs.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I work with a lot of different companies and a number of different firewalls. A lot of times it is really about the price point and their specific needs. 

This solution was present when I showed up.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The pricing is pretty standard. 

I wish there was an easier way to license the product in closed environments. I have worked in a number of closed environments, then it is a lot of head scratching. I know that we could put servers in these networks and that would help with the licensing. I have never been in a situation where we connected multiple networks, i.e., having an external network as well as an internal network, as those kinds of solutions are not always the best. I think licensing is always a headache for everyone, and I don't know if there is a simple solution.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We can build GRE tunnels. Whereas, Firepower can't route traffic nor do a bit more traffic engineering within the VPN tunnels. This is what I like about using ASAs over Firepower.

Firepower Threat Defense has a mode where you can manage multiple firewalls through a single device. 

I really like how Palo Alto does a much better job separating the network functions from the firewalling functions.

I would consider if there is a need to centralize all the configurations. If you have many locations and want to centrally manage it, I would use the ASA to connect to a small number of occasions. As that grew, I would look for a solution where I could centrally manage the policies, then have a little more autonomous control over the networking piece of it.

What other advice do I have?

Know specifically what you want out of the firewall. If you are looking for something that will build the GRE tunnel so you can route between different sites, I would go with ASA over Firepower Threat Defense.

I like the ASA. I would probably rate it as eight or nine out of 10, as far as the firewalls that I have worked with.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Michael Mitchell - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Engineer at Utah broadband
Real User
It is secure and very reliable
Pros and Cons
  • "The TAC is always very helpful. We pay for Tier 1 support, so we get whatever we need from them. They always give us a solution. If they can't give us an answer that day, they get back to us within at least 24 hours with a solution or fix. I have never had a problem with the TAC. I would rate them as 10 out of 10."
  • "We wanted to integrate Firepower with our solution, but it didn't have the capability to accommodate our bandwidth since they only had two 10 gig interfaces on the box. We run way more than that through our network because we are a service provider, providing Internet to our customers."

What is our primary use case?

We use it as a security solution. It is our firewall.

We run three data centers and have three ASAs at each data center.

What is most valuable?

It is pretty user-friendly and straightforward to use.

It is secure and very reliable.

I like the heartbeat between the two devices that we have. Because if something fails, it immediately fails over.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using ASAs for 15 years at two different companies.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Cybersecurity resilience has been outstanding because it is very stable. There are not a whole lot of upgrades that we need to do for the firmware.

Four engineers support it. From time to time, there are firmware upgrades that we need to keep up to date with. Sometimes, we need to run debugs to figure out what's going on with it, and if it needs a patch, then we will figure it out. Usually, Cisco has been really good about getting us that.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability is actually pretty exponential. In the grand scheme of things, we are a small network. We only have 15,000 subscribers. However, if we need to expand, it is reasonable.

How are customer service and support?

The TAC is always very helpful. We pay for Tier 1 support, so we get whatever we need from them. They always give us a solution. If they can't give us an answer that day, they get back to us within at least 24 hours with a solution or fix. I have never had a problem with the TAC. I would rate them as 10 out of 10.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We haven't really used anything different. The only thing that we run inline with Cisco ASAs is Barracuda Networks. We kind of run that in tandem with this firewall, and it works really well.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We wanted to integrate Firepower with our solution, but it didn't have the capability to accommodate our bandwidth since they only had two 10 gig interfaces on the box. We run way more than that through our network because we are a service provider, providing Internet to our customers.

What other advice do I have?

Do your homework and know what you are doing. Know how to use your product, stay current, and hire smart people.

I would rate the solution as eight out of 10.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Engineering Services Manager at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Reseller
The ability to implement dynamic policies for dynamic environments is important, given the fluidity in the world of security
Pros and Cons
  • "One of the most valuable features of Firepower 7.0 is the "live log" type feature called Unified Event Viewer. That view has been really good in helping me get to data faster, decreasing the amount of time it takes to find information, and allowing me to fix problems faster. I've found that to be incredibly valuable because it's a lot easier to get to some points of data now."
  • "The change-deployment time can always be improved. Even at 50 seconds, it's longer than some of its competitors. I would challenge Cisco to continue to improve in that area."

What is our primary use case?

It's deployed in multiple ways, depending on the use case. Generally speaking, we have them as edge firewalls, but I have some customers who use them as data center firewalls, and some customers who use them as VPN firewalls. And in some places, they're the east-west firewalls, as they would be called in a core network. We do have some that are for cloud firewalling, that we're using in Azure and AWS. But generally speaking, they're deployed as edge firewalls and on-prem.

How has it helped my organization?

In some cases that I'm aware of, when moving from specific platforms like Check Point, Firepower has offered a much easier way of working with the platform and deploying changes. For the customer, it's a lot easier in the newer platform than it was in the previous one.

I've done network assessments, where we wanted to get visibility into all flows. I used Firepower boxes for some of those, where we tapped a line and let Firepower see all the traffic. It was incredibly helpful in picking up all of the flows of data. As a result, I was able to give information to the customer, saying, "This is what it's doing and this is what it's seeing in your network." I find it very helpful to get all that type of data. It's got a lot more information than NetFlow-type systems.

There have also been use cases where I'm doing east-west and north-south in the same firewall box. That is possible with SGTs and SD-Access and Firepower. That ability has been critical in some of the designs we've done. A scenario would be that we have an underlay, a corporate network, and a guest network VRF-routed zone; big macro security zones. We are doing micro-segmentation at the edge with SD-Access, but the macro-segmentation between the zones is handled by the firewall. Because we didn't want to split up our east-west and north-south, because there really wasn't a budget for it, they're on the same box. That box is able to do both flows that go towards the internet and flows that go between the different interfaces on the firewall. We're using SGTs in those policies and we're able to extend the logic from the SD-Access environment into the firewall environment, which creates a very unified approach to security.

We're also able to implement dynamic policies for dynamic environments with 7.0. That's becoming more and more important every day. IPs are becoming less important; names and locations and where things live in the cloud mean things are becoming a lot more fluid in the world of security. It's very helpful to have objects and groups that can follow that fluidity along, as opposed to me trying to do it old school and static everything up. No one has time for that. Dynamic policy capabilities enable tight integration with Secure Workload at the application workload level. The IP is less relevant and the application or the VMware tag can be tied to a specific ruleset. It's very helpful to be able to have it be so dynamic now. We're using more and more of those dynamic group concepts.

When it comes to the solution’s tags for dynamic policy implementation in cloud environments, VMware is the primary one I'm seeing these days, but I expect Azure to pick up significantly. The use of these tags for dynamic policy implementation in cloud environments simplifies things. We don't have to have so much static stuff pinned up. We can just have a single rule that says, "If it's this tag, then do this," as opposed to, "If it's this IP and this IP and this other IP, then you're allowed to do this thing." By disconnecting it from the IP address, we've made it very flexible.

What is most valuable?

It may sound a bit strange, but one of the most valuable features of Firepower 7.0 is the "live log" type feature called Unified Event Viewer. That view has been really good in helping me get to data faster, decreasing the amount of time it takes to find information, and allowing me to fix problems faster. I've found that to be incredibly valuable because it's a lot easier to get to some points of data now.

Also, the new UI is always getting better from version to version. In the beginning, when it came to managing Cisco Secure Firewall, it wasn't always the easiest, but with 6.7 and 7.0, it's gotten easier and easier. It's a pretty easy system to manage. It's especially beneficial for people who are familiar with ASA logic because a lot of the Firepower logic is the same. For those people, they're just relearning where the buttons are, as opposed to having to figure out how to configure things.

I've used the backup VTI tunnel and that's a feature that lets me create some redundancy for my route-based stuff and it works pretty well. I haven't had any issues with it

Firepower 7.0 also has fantastic Dynamic Access Policies that allow me to replicate a lot of the configurations that were missing and that made it difficult to move off the old ASA platform for some customers. The addition of that capability has removed that limitation and has allowed me to move forward with implementing 7.0. 

Snort 3 is one of the biggest points on Firepower 7.0. I've been using Snort 3 for quite a while and, while I don't have a ton of customers on it, I do have some who are running on it and it's worked out pretty well. In their use cases, there wasn't a lot of risk, so that's why we started with it. Snort 3 has some huge advantages when it comes to performance and policy and how it's applying things and processing the flows.

Dynamic Objects have also been really critical. They're very valuable. Version to version, they're adding a lot more features onto Dynamic Objects, and I'm a big fan. 

I've also used the Upgrade Wizard quite a bit to upgrade the firmware. 

And on the management side, there are the health modules. They added a "metric ton" of them to the FMC [Firepower Management Center]. In version 6.7 they released this new health monitor which makes it a lot easier to see data and get to information faster. It's quite nice looking, as opposed to CLI. The new health modules really do stand out as a great way to get to some of that health data quickly—things like interface information, statistics, drops—that were harder to get to before. I can now see them over time, as opposed to at just a point in time. I've used that a lot and it has been very helpful.

In addition, there is the global search for policy and objects. I use that quite a bit in the search bar. It's a great way to get some information faster. Even if I have to pivot away from the screen I'm on, it's still great to be able to get to it very quickly there. 

In a lot of ways, they've addressed some of the biggest complaints, like the "housekeeping" stuff where you have to move around your management system or when it comes to making configuration changes. That has improved from version to version and 7.0 is different. They've added more and have made it easier to get from point A to point B and to consume a lot of that data quickly. That allows me to hop in and do some data validation much faster, without having to search and wait and search and wait. I can get to some of that data quicker to make changes and to fix things. It adds to the overall administrator experience. When operating this technology I'm able to get places faster, rather than it being a type of bottleneck.

There is also the visibility the solution gives you when doing deep packet inspection. It blows up the packet, it matches application types, and it matches web apps. If you're doing SSL decryption it can pinpoint it even further than that. It's able to pull encrypted apps apart and tell me a lot about them. There's a lot of information that 7.0 is bringing to the forefront about flows of data, what it is, and what it's doing. The deep packet inspection and the application visibility portion and Snort are really essential to managing a modern firewall. Firepower does a bang-up job of it, by bringing that data to the forefront.

It's a good box for visibility at the Layer 7 level. If you need Layer 7 visibility, Firepower is going to be able to do that for you. Between VLANs, it does a good job. It's able to look at that Layer 7 data and do some good filtering based on those types of rules.

What needs improvement?

I'd like to see Cisco continue its approach to making it easier to navigate the UI and FMC and make it easier to get from point A to point B. Generally, the room for improvement is going to be all UI-related. The platform, overall, is solid.

I'd also like them to continue to approach things from a policy-oriented perspective. They are moving more and more in that direction. 

Also, the change-deployment time can always be improved. Even at 50 seconds, it's longer than some of its competitors. I would challenge Cisco to continue to improve in that area. It's very reasonable at 50 seconds, it's not like it used to be in early versions of Firepower, where it was around seven minutes. Still, it could be quicker. The faster we can deploy changes, the faster we can roll back changes if we have messed something in the configuration. Low deploy times are really good to have. 

I would also like to see more features that will help us connect things to the cloud dynamically, and connect things to other sites dynamically. There should be more SD-WAN features in the boxes. If I can use one box to solve cloud connectivity problems, and not have to do stuff so statically, the way I have to do things today on them, that would be helpful.

For how long have I used the solution?

I am a Cisco partner and reseller and I actually beta test for the Firepower team. I work on Firepower boxes and have done so since the beginning. I have customers on Firepower 7.0 and I have been using Firepower 7.0 since its release.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I haven't really had any major complaints or issues with Firepower 7.0 stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It scales, but it depends on the growth rate of the customer and the amount of bandwidth. It's usually a speed and feed problem: Is the firewall box big enough to handle the traffic? Snort 3 has made some improvements there and it's even given some life back to older boxes because of improvements in code and in how Snort processes data. But, overall, the box just has to be big enough for the amount of traffic you're trying to shove through it.

How are customer service and support?

I've been doing this a long time and I don't usually need to call tech support. But when I do need to call TAC, after working with a lot of the other vendors out there, Cisco TAC is still one of the best technical resources in the market. I do like TAC. That's not to say that every TAC engineer is great, but comparatively, they're one of the best support organizations.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is straightforward, with the caveat that I've been doing this for a long time, so for me it is simple and makes sense. But it is pretty straightforward. You have overall policies that wrap up into your access policy, which is the base policy. You have DNS policies that will roll right up into it. Likewise, platform policies get attached to devices. Generally speaking, it's a lot of working through the logic of the rules: How do you want to block stuff, and how do you want to permit stuff? A lot of that is normal firewalling. When I say the setup is simple, it's because it involves normal firewalling issues. You have to deal with routing, NAT rules, ACLs, and VPNs. It's a matter of just kind of working through those same things that every firewall has to solve.

The deployment time depends on the customer and how many rules. If we're building out all their rule sets, it could range from 40 hours to hundreds of hours. It also depends on what we're coming from. We're not generally walking into environments that are green, meaning there's no box there today. It's almost always that there's something else there that we're replacing. We have to take what we're coming from, convert it, and then put it on Firepower. Small businesses might have a couple of rules, enterprises might have hundreds of rules.

Our implementation strategy is to go in, document the current state of the environment, and then work on a future state. We then work through all the in-between stuff. When we have the old firewall configuration, we determine what it will look like on the new firewall configuration. Does the firewall configuration need to be cleaned up? Are there things that we can optimize and improve or modify? A lot of it involves copying configuration from the old platform to the new one. We're usually not trying to change a ton in a firewall project because it increases the risk of problems arising. Usually, customers' networks are operating when we get into them. We prefer to do a cleanup project after implementation, but sometimes they coincide.

In our company, one person can usually do a firewall cutover. And maintenance of Firepower 7.0 usually requires one person. Maintenance will usually involve a firmware upgrade.

What was our ROI?

There is a lot of value with SecureX. Other customers struggle to bring all the data back to one place, the way you can with SecureX, across a product portfolio. The value of that capability is incredible. I don't know how to put a monetary value on it, but from an operational perspective, it's very helpful to have it all back in one place because you're not having to hop around to multiple UIs to find the data you're looking for.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

With any vendor, prices are often a little bit negotiable. There are things like discounted rates. There's a list price and then, as a partner, we get a discounted rate based on how much product we're purchasing and our relationship with the vendor. 

But on the list-price side of things, there are three big licenses on an FTD [Firepower Threat Defense] box. There are the malware license, the threat license, and the URL filtering license. You can license them in one-year, three-year, and five-year increments. Each license will enable different features on the box. The malware license will enable AMP filtering or AMP detection. The threat detection enables use of the IPS solution, which is really Snort's bread and butter. And the URL filtering enables filtering based on URL categories.

Sometimes we use URL filtering and sometimes we don't. It depends on the customer and on whether they have a different URL filtering strategy, like Umbrella. The two big ones that we sell are malware and threat detection, with threat detection probably being the license we sell the most.

SMARTnet, the technical support component, covers the box. When you purchase the hardware, you buy it with SMARTnet. Licenses cover features, SMARTnet covers support.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We continue to support, integrate, and sell three out of the major four vendors: Palo Alto, Fortinet, and Cisco. Every vendor has been a great partner with us, so I don't want to showcase one firewall platform over another.

Palo Alto is arguably the most mature out of the group when it comes to the firewall in general, but they've also been developing on the same platform for quite a long time.

FortiGate, on the other hand, is great in a lot of use cases.

Cisco's strength is how it integrates with the security portfolio at Cisco. When you have a lot of other security products or integrations, Firepower really stands out above the rest. Palo Alto and Fortinet, although they can integrate with SDA to some degree, they don't integrate to the same depths as Firepower. You really start to see the benefits of Firepower in your organization when you're looking at the Cisco security stack. That's what I would argue is one of the biggest benefits of Cisco in general, that stack of products.

With Cisco, it's not necessarily about a single piece, it's definitely about how they all can communicate and talk to each other, and how information is shared between the components, so that you can create a unified approach to security. Their SecureX product is an integration point. It brings together a lot of that information from different product lines in one place. That's really Cisco's game. Some of the other security vendors struggle to keep up with the breadth and depth of what Cisco is doing in all those different spaces.

In terms of ease of management, Firepower is an enterprise product. While FDM [Firepower Device Manager] is really easy to use, FMC has a lot more knobs to turn. Comparing FortiGate to FMC, a lot of the capabilities of FortiGate are still at the CLI level only. Palo Alto is 100 percent UI-based, not that you can't configure a Palo Alto from CLI, but I don't think anybody does that.

What other advice do I have?

My advice is that you need to know your flows. If you're upgrading to Firepower, you should know what traffic matters and what traffic doesn't matter. If you really want to be successful, you should know all the flows of traffic, how they function, what they do. That way, when you get the box up and running, you know exactly how it should operate.

You can split Firepower users into two buckets: help desk and admin. Help desk will usually be read-only and admin will be read-write. If there's one engineer at a customer, he might have admin rights. If there's a help desk and one senior firewall guy, he might have admin rights where his help desk has read-only. It varies by the size of the customer. Most midsize organizations have one or two firewall guys. When you get into the big enterprises, the number goes up.

Regarding Firepower's Snort 3 IPS allowing you to maintain performance while running more rules, the "book answer" is yes, it's supposed to. We're not really running Snort 3 a ton on those yet because of some of the risk and because some of those customers haven't upgraded to 7.0 yet. Those that are on Snort 3 are just not running policy sets that are large enough that to notice any major or even minor improvements. I have seen an uptick in performance improvements with Snort 3, even on firewalls that are not 100,000-rule firewalls. We are seeing improvements with Snort 3. It's just that Snort 2 performance hasn't really affected the box overall, it just runs a little hotter.

When I mentioned the risk for Snort 3 for our larger clients, what I meant is that with new things come new risks. Snort 3 is one of those new things and we have to evaluate, when we upgrade a customer to it, whether the risk of the upgrade warrants doing it for the customer. In some cases, the answer is no, because of burn-in time. With some of our riskier locations or locations that require 24/7, it makes more sense to run Snort 2, which has been out there since forever on the Firepower platform. It's a lot more stable on Snort 2 and the problems are known problems, from a design perspective. We've mitigated those and worked around them. With Snort 3, there could be new bugs or problems, and in some environments, we want to mitigate that risk.

My expectation is that by 7.1 or 7.2 we will upgrade more generally to Snort 3. It's not that it's far away. It's just that with 7.0 being the first release of Snort 3, and 7.0 only having one or two patches under its belt, we thought it better to remove some risk and just use Snort 2.

Cisco Secure Firewall helps to reduce firewall operational costs, depending on the firewall vendor it's replacing. In some cases, customers are coming from old platforms where the security wasn't nearly at the same level as a next-gen firewall, so the advantage of moving to a next-gen firewall is the increase in security. But that comes with an operational burden no matter the firewall type. There is a lot more visibility and capability out of the NGFW platform, but it comes at a cost. There's more data to work through and more things to configure. Still, in most cases, Cisco Secure Firewall is going to decrease operational usage with the caveat that it has to be an "apples-to-apples" situation, which is very hard to come across these days. 

Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor. The reviewer's company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Reseller
PeerSpot user
Network Engineer at LEPL Smart Logic
Real User
One-time licensing, very stable, and very good for small companies that don't want to do deep packet inspection at higher layers
Pros and Cons
  • "We find all of its features very useful. Its main features are policies and access lists. We use both of them, and we also use routing."
  • "The virtual firewalls don't work very well with Cisco AnyConnect."

What is our primary use case?

I have used the Cisco ASA 5585-X Series hardware. The software was probably version 9. We implemented a cluster of two firewalls. In these firewalls, we had four virtual firewalls. One firewall was dedicated for Edge, near ISP, and one firewall was for the data center. One firewall was for the application dedicated to that company, and one firewall was dedicated only to that application.

How has it helped my organization?

Dynamic policies were useful in the data centers for our clients. They were making some changes to the networks and moving virtual machines from one site to another. With dynamic policies, we could do that easily.

What is most valuable?

We find all of its features very useful. Its main features are policies and access lists. We use both of them, and we also use routing.

It is very stable. It is a very good firewall for a company that doesn't want to look at packets higher than Layer 4. 

What needs improvement?

The virtual firewalls don't work very well with Cisco AnyConnect. 

There are two ways of managing it. You can manage it through the GUI-based software or command-line interface. I tried to use its GUI, but I couldn't understand it. It was hard for me. I know how to use the command line, so it was good for me. You should know how to use the command-line interface very well to make some changes to it. Its management through GUI is not easy.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is very stable. It has been five years since I have configured them, and they have been up and running.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is not much scalable. It is only a Layer 4 firewall. It doesn't provide deep packet inspection, and it can see packets only up to TCP Layer 4. It can't see the upper layer packets. So, it is not very scalable, but in its range, it is a very good one. What it does, it does very well.

How are customer service and support?

I have not worked with Cisco support for this firewall.

How was the initial setup?

It is not straightforward. You should know what to do, and it needs to be done from the command line. So, you should know what to do and how to do it.

From what I remember, its deployment took a week or 10 days. When I was doing the deployment, that company was migrating from an old data center to a new one. We were doing configurations for the new data center. The main goal was that users shouldn't know, and they shouldn't lose connectivity to their old data center and the new one. So, it was a very complex case. That's why it took more time.

What was our ROI?

Our clients have seen an ROI because they paid only once, and they have been using their firewalls for five years. They didn't have to pay much for anything else.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I like its licensing because you buy the license once, and it is yours. We don't have to go for a subscription. So, I liked how they licensed Cisco ASA Firewall. Our clients are also very satisfied with its licensing model.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

You cannot compare Cisco ASA Firewall with any of the new-generation firewalls because they are at a higher level than Cisco ASA Firewall. They are at a different level.

What other advice do I have?

It is a very good firewall for small companies that don't want to do deep packet inspection at Layer 7. It is not easy, but you can manage it. You should know how to use the command-line interface. Otherwise, it would be difficult to work with it.

For Cisco ASA Firewall, there will be no improvements because they will not make these firewalls anymore. They want to make changes to the next-generation firewalls, and they are killing the old ones.

I would rate Cisco ASA Firewall a 10 out of 10. I like it very much.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
Deputy Manager at Star Tech Engineering Ltd
Reseller
Automated policy application and enforcement free up time for us
Pros and Cons
  • "The dashboard is the most important thing. It provides good visibility and makes management easy. Firepower also provides us with good application visibility and control."
  • "One issue with Firepower Management Center is deployment time. It takes seven to 10 minutes and that's a long time for deployment. In that amount of time, management or someone else can ask me to change something or to provide permissions, but during that time, doing so is not possible. It's a drawback with Cisco. Other vendors, like Palo Alto or Fortinet do not have this deployment time issue."

What is our primary use case?

We use it for malware and IPS.

How has it helped my organization?

The automated policy application and enforcement have freed up time for us, on the order of 30 percent.

Also if one Cisco antivirus implementation is the subject of an attack, all other Cisco implementations get that information rapidly, in real time. All the other firewalls are in sync when it comes to malware attacks, through the update of the database. That is good.

The visibility it provides into threats is good. Every day we find lots of malware attacks targeting our network, but they don't get through to the network.

What is most valuable?

The dashboard is the most important thing. It provides good visibility and makes management easy. Firepower also provides us with good application visibility and control.

Cisco Talos is well known around the world and everyone trusts Talos for malware intelligence. It is number one. It is also the most secure for Snort rules. It is more secure than others because its real-time analysis is better.

In addition, Firepower Management Center is helpful. 

We also use Cisco ISE and the integration between it and Firepower is okay.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using Cisco Firepower NGFW Firewall for four or five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's a stable product.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is good.

How are customer service and technical support?

Their technical support is good. When my NOC or my engineers have needed support the feedback I've had is that tech support has been good at critical moments. They have given us good service.

How was the initial setup?

There was no issue with the initial setup. It's straightforward because Cisco gives us lots of documentation. It's not a big deal, for me. In four or five years I have deployed 35 to 40 Firepowers for financial organizations and corporate offices.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We also use Palo Alto, Fortinet, Sophos, and Check Point.

One issue with Firepower Management Center is deployment time. It takes seven to 10 minutes and that's a long time for deployment. In that amount of time, management or someone else can ask me to change something or to provide permissions, but during that time, doing so is not possible. It's a drawback with Cisco. Other vendors, like Palo Alto or Fortinet do not have this deployment time issue.

The other issue is the upgrading process, with Cisco. Sometimes, if we use a standalone device we need to create maintenance windows at that time and we need to restart Firepower. But with other vendors, like Palo Alto, there is no need to update in that way.

If they mitigated these two things, Cisco would be number-one in the world in the security domain.

What other advice do I have?

We have not integrated Firepower with Cisco SecureX because it needs IOS 6.6. It's a limitation. If we have an external device, we would need downtime and in a financial organization, management will not allow us the downtime.

In my experience, the deployment procedure with Cisco is not the easiest, it's not plug-and-play. I hope that Cisco will give us that type of implementation.

Overall, I would rate Firepower at eight out of 10.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Reseller
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Cisco Secure Firewall Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: March 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Cisco Secure Firewall Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.