Cisco Secure Firewall Reviews

We use it for our data center. We have clusters of the solution to protect the equipment in our data center. We also use it for site-to-site VPN hubs.

Cisco Firepower NGFW Firewall made our firewall response much faster when trying to respond to any services or networks that stand out. It makes us very responsive when any of the visualized logs are blocked in real-time.

The most valuable feature would be ASDM. The ability to go in, visualize and see the world base in a clear and consistent manner is very powerful.

The ability to better integrate with other tools would be an improvement.

I have been using this solution for six years.

It is highly stable.

It is highly scalable. It has some limitations, but for medium to large-sized deployments, it is excellent.

Technical support is outstanding. You can get same-day support.

We previously used Juniper SRX. We switched because we have a contract with Cisco. This was the cheaper option and was faster.

We have very much seen an ROI in terms of the saving on man time and the costs of standing up new equipment. Compared to what we had before, Cisco Firepower NGFW Firewall is faster.

I would rate this solution a nine on a scale from one to ten.

Our primary use case is as a data center firewall for internet firewalls and also as a VPN concentrator. I'm the chief technology officer and we are partners of Cisco. 

In terms of features there hasn't been much improvement but it's a very stable solution and a very good firewall with almost all of the features required for next generation firewall purposes. Almost all the firewalls on the market have the same features available, but if you take into account the integrations and reporting of Cisco, it's a little better than the others. In particular, the briefing reporting is better. With Fortinet we would probably have to use FortiAnalyzer as a separate reporting module for Fortinet, but here the reporting is good.

There needs to be an improvement in the time it takes to deploy the configurations. It normally takes two to four minutes and they need to reduce this. The deployment for any configuration should be minimal. It's possibly improved on the very latest version. 

An additional feature I would like to have in Firepower would be for them to give us the data from the firewall - Cisco is probably working on that. 

I've been using this solution for close to five years. 

The scalability is very good. 

We generally provide support but if we're not able to resolve an issue, we escalate it to Cisco and they're great. They are one of the best support services I've used and it's one of the reasons Cisco is doing so well in the market. 

I also work with Fortinet and Palo Alto. Fortinet is also a really good product but Cisco is a leader in next generation firewalls and now that they are catching up to Fortinet, they have provided a lot of features and flexibility. I personally see Cisco as being good for large enterprise companies and Fortinet is better for families as well as small and medium size businesses. When it comes to Palo Alto, the high price point is one thing that is an issue, some companies are unable to afford it. Palo Alto is good but Cisco is catching up to them and I believe in a year or two, Cisco will probably match Palo Alto as well and be much better. 

The initial setup is not too complex, but as with Fortinet, they have some detailed steps required which adds to the flexibility also. With flexibility comes a bit of complexity, but it's not too bad. Deployment time takes a few minutes. I am responsible for implementation and maintenance for our clients. We were previously deploying only for medium or large enterprise companies but Cisco has come up with the 1000 and 1100 series firewalls for smaller companies which is pretty good. They're a cost-effective solution and competitive in the market. 

Cisco falls somewhere in the middle in terms of pricing, it's not very expensive and it's not very cheap. There is an additional accessory fee associated with Cisco but normally they have a separate subscription cost for different types of security to protect the firewall. There are separate bundles available inside the pricing and that's probably true for all of the firewalls. 

Cisco is a large, good and reliable firewall. They are working on advanced features and catching up with the leaders in the market. I believe that's a score for them. A yearly subscription is cheaper than Palo Alto and Fortinet offer. They provide good support and once it's loaded, it doesn't give a lot of problems, that's very important.

I would rate this solution an eight out of 10. 

Our company sells Cisco Firewalls and the ASA is one of the products that we implement for our clients. The primary use cases are internet access, AnyConnect, and VPN.

The most valuable features are the provision of internet access, AnyConnect, and VPN capabilities. Because I primarily deal with the VPN functionality, I don't get very deep into the IPS or other capabilities.

I have worked with the new FTD models and they have more features than the ASA line.

We have been dealing with Cisco ASA since about 2002.

I am very happy with its stability and the product in general.

In our organization, we only have one in our data center that all of our people pass through. However, I've got clients that have thousands running through large Cisco firewalls.

Cisco's technical support has always been excellent. They have great support.

I have dealt with four or five others, but so far, I have the most experience with Cisco.

Recently, I worked with the new FTD 1000 or 1100 series, and they do a lot.

The complexity of the initial setup depends on the environment. Sometimes, it's brand new whereas other times, I install a replacement for an existing Cisco device or some other product.

I am in charge of installing and configuring our Cisco Firewall solutions.

I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.

The primary use case of for Cisco firewalls is to segment our network. We're using them on the perimeter network for traffic filtering. Since deploying them, we have seen a maturing of the security in our organization. 

We're using both the FTD 2100 and 4100. We have about 40 sites that are using our approximately 80 FTDs. We have about 2,000 users.

It has helped us to solve some problems regarding auditor recommendations. We used to have some audit recommendations that we were not able to comply with. With FTD deployed we have been able to be in compliance around our 36 remote sites.

Before deploying them we had a lot of incidents of internet slowness and issues with site access, as well as computers that had vulnerabilities. But as soon as we deployed them we were able to track these things. It has helped the user-experience regarding connectivity and security. 

In addition, it is giving us a better view regarding the traffic profile and traffic path. And we can categorize applications by utilization, by users, etc.

The solution has, overall, made us twice as productive and, in terms of response time for resolving issues or to identify root causes, we are three times more effective and efficient.

We can easily track unauthorized users and see where traffic is going. It is very useful.

FTD is also fully integrated with Talos. We are in the process of acquiring it and we will integrate it. That way we will have everything from Talos to do correlations.

We would like to see improvement in recovery. If there is an issue that forces us to do recovery, we have to restart or reboot. In addition, sometimes we have downtime during the maintenance windows. If Cisco could enhance this, so that upgrades would not necessarily require downtime, that would be helpful.

We would also like to have a solution on the cloud, where we could manage the configuration. CDO is in the ASA mode. If Cisco could do it in full FTD — the configuration, the administration, and everything — it would be very good, and easy.

The solution is stable. Last year, we deployed it in more 32 countries and it has been stable since the deployment. We haven't had any issues with the firewall. If we have any issues, it is usually due to the power. The solution itself is stable.

It's scalable.

Tech support is able to resolve 70 percent of the issues. In case of an emergency, we can open a case because we have a contract for Smart Net support on the devices. In case of an issue, we open a case and we get assistance.

Before FirePOWER we were using the ASA.

At the beginning, it was complex, but we were able to develop a step-by-step implementation. Now, we can deploy one in about two hours, including integration testing, physical testing, configuration, and applying the rules.

We have in-house engineers for the deployment. We haven't used external, third-parties. We are a big institution, based in 36 countries. The team that is focused on this deployment is a team of five. The person who is handling the implementation will be in contact with a local engineer at the remote site, and will assist him, remotely, to do the testing and follow the steps to deploy.

The one-time cost is affordable, but the maintenance cost and the Smart Net costs need to be reduced. They're too high. A company like ours, that has about 80 firewalls, has to multiple the maintenance cost per device by 80. Cisco should find a way to provide some kind of enterprise support. We don't want to buy support per unit of equipment. It would be easier for everybody.

We are using about ten different security tools, including analytics, monitoring, threat management, and email security. What we have integrated is the ISE and FTD but the third-party solutions are not fully integrated.

I primarily use it for my small company to protect 5-10 users.

The web interface was easy for me. The configuration is logical, so it's easy to use and easy to understand how to protect, how to open a port, how to manage and how to route a device. That's why I prefer Cisco. It's robust and I never have issues with the hardware. That's why I choose Cisco and not another vendor.

The service could use a little more web filtering. If I compare it to Cyberoam, Cyberoam has more the web filtering, so if you want to block a website, it's easier in other solutions than in Cisco. I think in Cisco it's more complicated to do that, in my opinion. 

It could also use a better web interface because sometimes it's complicated. The interface sometimes is not easy to understand, so maybe a better interface and better documentation.

My impression of the stability of the solution is that it's very good.

I don't have a sense of the scalability. I never extend the processes or usage.

My experience with customer service is very good in general. When I have a good person on the phone, or on the email, it's in general very fast and the reply is good. It's a good solution in general.

I previously used Juniper before Cisco, but only for one year. I switched because my company only used Cisco.

The initial setup was not complex, it's just difficult to find out how to do it. The FAQ is not clear. In terms of deployment, it depends on the client, but deployment takes about an average of six hours.

In general, I implement the solution myself.

I would advise that If you want something robust, a good hardware solution, I think it's competitive and you have a good warranty, you have to choose Cisco. 

I would rate the solution 8 out of 10.

The primary use case for this solution is on the client side. PCS stands for
Perfect Computer Systems. We are an integration company, we specialize in solution integration, bringing together component subsystems into a whole and ensuring that those subsystems function together.

Cisco ASA NGFW has improved our organization by providing more internet protection. Also, for the end user, it provides easy access from outside for users accessing the site.

The feature that I found the most valuable is the overall stability of the product. 

The two areas that need improvement are the URL filtering and content filtering features.

These features are both very crucial to the end user environment. One of my main concerns and an area that could use some major improvement is the need to pay for licensing in order to enable necessary additional features. Included in the next release, I would like to see these features integrated into the products' functionality without having to pay for them on an individual basis.  

My impression of the stability of this solution is that it's great, excellent! 

As far as scalability, I haven't had any performance issues so far. There really isn't high utilization coming from the operations environment, so I don't need to upgrade the tier at the moment.

I don't have much experience with technical support since contacting tech support incurs additional costs. I have been relying on my technical knowledge and experience so far.

The initial setup was straightforward, though I find as we proceed we need an extra feature or two to enable all the functionalities and protection of the tool. It's an ongoing process. We have to be quick and agile to provide client support.

We implemented through an in-house team. 

The stability is the greatest ROI for this solution. 

My advice, since I have to pay for licensing each feature that I need to enable, like URL filtering, is to look at a pfSense. That is what we are doing because you have to pay for greater protection, a total solution can be very costly. We are looking at a pfSense, to bring down the total cost. The correct price point, in comparison to other platforms, is the main factor here.

During our initial decision-making process, we evaluated other options but the distinctions between all the options were quite minimal.

I am satisfied with the current facility and the management environment of the Cisco ASA, it's great for me.

I think that the cost would be the main factor when evaluating solutions since some of the companies or some of our clients ask about costs upfront. Once the client has made their initial request and inquired about any subsequent subsystem connectivity integration ideas, they always want to know how much everything will cost. The deciding factor is mainly based on the price point of the total user solution.

Overall, the criteria that we consider when constructing an integration decision depends largely on the client company we are working with. We evaluate clients based according to their size, industry function, and the total budget that would be recommended for an effective solution.

I would give this product a rating of 9 out of 10!

We mainly use this solution for our firewall and it's one layer of our security. From the time that we've used it, the organization as a whole got a sense of security because Cisco is a known product. When we do need support locally or online, we get it instantaneously. We use this solution for a couple of things: for security, for their technical support, and in terms of the knowledge and skills of the team here that gave us a good grip and confidence in the use of the product.

It gives the organization a higher vote of confidence. When I joined the organization more than six years ago, we were using the old Cisco, and some of the products already reached their end of life. Some of the products were not in its latest state, in terms of security or license. We've learned a very good lesson there. Since then, when we upgraded we made sure that all the licenses and all the security facets are in place. It gives the organization a higher vote of confidence. There may have been one or two incidences of malicious threats, but it did not really bring down the organization to a level that we would all be sorry for. The greatest benefit for the organization is the confidence that we are secured.

Cisco is known as a popular and trusted product. Because of its constant RND, we're assured that all updates, all patches, all fixes are done instantaneously. As far as the feature is concerned, it gives us a certain layer of protection. As a CIO, my vote of confidence is in the product itself. After making sure that we always have all the updates on the licenses we're assured that we're getting all the necessary security protection.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten. Not a ten because I'm reserving the one point for whatever new surprises they are going to provide.

It's our firewall for our AWS VPC on the internal side that connects our VPC to headquarters.

I have been using the product for two years, but it has been installed in my company for four years.

Even on a smaller scale, people are finding you need HA pairs, and there's no way that the ASA can do that, at least in the virtual version. We needed the ability to failover to one of the others to do maintenance, and this is a glaring issue. However, it is one of their cheaper products, so its understandable. It is just that we would hope by now, because it has been in use in a lot of different environments, for even moderately sized companies, the ability to have HA pairs would be extremely useful.

It has been relatively stable, in the sense that it stays up. It doesn't die on us.

Scalability has been a pain point for us. 

It's great for what it does. Just make sure you know whatever environment you are using it in is not going to have to scale. Just use it for sandbox. As long as they stay competitive, use the ASA, but make sure you have a plan to grow out of it.

We have definitely made some calls to Cisco regarding issues. While it is time consuming, they are thorough. Sometimes depending on the urgency, if there is a real P1 problem going on, it would be more helpful to go straight to the chase than to have to go through troubleshooting steps that are mandated. A lot of times, it is understandable why they're there, but I wish they had a different, expedited process, especially when they're dealing with our senior network engineer who has already ruled out some things. Cisco tends to make you go through the steps, which is part of any normal troubleshooting. However, when you're dealing with an outage, it can be very frustrating.

The integration and configuration were pretty straightforward.

We purchased the product through the AWS Marketplace. While I wasn't part of the buying process for Cisco ASA, I have used it to purchase AMIs.

The AWS Marketplace been great, but it could be a bit more user-friendly from an aesthetic perspective. It is fully functional and easy to figure out once you are in it. However, the layout of the AMIs has a lot missing, e.g., you have to side click to find the area for community AMIs. It would be awesome if AWS Marketplace would put up a wider range of AMIs.

With the Cisco ASA, you do get what you pay for. What would really be awesome is to see Cisco blow out a real cheap version where you can use the sandbox, but leave it step-wise and go to another product relatively easily, like getting you hooked on candy. The problem is that we already paid for the ASAs, and we grew quickly. Now, we have found ourselves in a situation where we have to wait for next year's budget and everyone is using it. We've gone from a sandbox model to full production. If Cisco was a bit more on the ball with this type of thing, such as pay a smaller lump sum, then scale as a pay by use or have an option to switch models. This would be good because then we could actually leverage this type of model.

Right now, we want to go to the rocket stuff, and our people who make the decisions financially will just have a heart attack. They will choke on it. However, if we can roll it into our AWS bill, and slowly creep it in, it is usually more palatable. As crazy as that sounds, even if its more expensive to do it this way.

Our network guy looked at alternatives and settled on Cisco ASA. It was the cheapest available option, virtualized, and he was familiar with Cisco, like many people are because it's a great company. It made the most sense at the time, because our VPC was a sandbox at first. Now, it has grown, which is where the pain point is: the scalability of the ASA. We have sort of wedged ourselves into a corner.

We are now looking into Cisco Meraki, the CSR stuff, and the SD-WAN technology.