Cisco Secure Firewall Reviews

I am a consultant and when clients ask for white papers or studies, I do the research. At that point, they do whatever change processes they have; I give them all of the numbers and other relevant data, but that's the extent of what we do in my organization.

They are just using it as a stateful packet inspection firewall, traditional firewalling.

At this point, my client is looking for their next solution so something may not be working.

The most valuable features for my client are the ASDM and monitoring.

They have familiarity with the Cisco CLI.

Cisco ASA is not a next-generation firewall product.

My client has been using the Cisco ASA solution for approximately five years.

They've been using it for five years and my assumption is that it's been good for what they needed it t do. However, they were consulting to move forward with something different.

The scalability is very limited because as a traditional firewall, it's a step behind. As far as the scale goes, my assumption is that you just buy a bigger model.

I was not consulting with this client when they implemented the Cisco ASA.

This is a hardware-based device, versus a virtual one, so it's maxed out.

My assumption is that it's a typical HA, basic setup.

My client is looking for a next-generation firewall solution to replace the Cisco ASA.

What they need is a step up from what they already have that includes application-controlled firewall rules, as well as other features that ASA doesn't currently have.

My suggestion for anybody who is looking at Cisco ASA is to work with the vendor, as they have newer products.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

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 configuration support is very good. You can find a lot of configuration samples and troubleshooting tips on the internet, which is very good.

You need to have a little bit of knowledge to be able to configure it. Otherwise, it would be very difficult to configure because there is no GUI. The latest software available in the market has a GUI and probably zero-touch provisioning and auto-configuration. All these things are not available in our version. You need to manually go and configure everything in the switch.

In terms of new features, we would definitely want to have URL-based filtering, traffic steering, and probably a little bit steering in the bandwidth based on the per-user level and per-user group. We will definitely need some of these features in the near future.

I have been using this solution for the last one and a half years.

Stability-wise, it is pretty stable. It is probably not very feature-rich, but whatever features we are using, they are pretty stable.

Scalability-wise, we did not have much problem because we have a single site. If we have two or more sites, and if we want to have a site-to-site VPN and more number of users, we are not sure about the scalability. We will have to go for an updated version of the new product line. 

We have close to 80 plus users. We anticipate a huge increase in the number of users and plan to increase the usage of Cisco ASA Firewall. We may have to open a new center in a different city, which will lead to more sites, users, and usage.

Their support is good, but the cost of support is very high. Next year onwards, we may not go for technical support because most of the time, they only do the configuration, and the configuration-related information is pretty much available on the internet.

Initially, we started with some open-source alternatives, like Opium, but eventually, we thought of moving towards a proven solution. We just did a study. We didn't put the open-source solution into production. One of our customers was basically suggesting us to go with this one, and we went for it. We did not get time to go through, study, and explore different options because we didn't have the bandwidth for testing the complete features of the open-source alternatives. Therefore, we thought of going for a commercial solution. A lot of alternatives are available right now for this solution.

The initial setup was not too complicated. It was good. 

We took the help of a reseller for the initial configuration. 

The product cost is a little high. It is a little bit on the high side, and it should be a little bit cost-friendly.

I would rate Cisco ASA Firewall a seven out of ten. It needs improvement in terms of a few features and cost-friendliness. 

It provides the firewall and security for our edge network.

We are using a really old ASA device that is at end-of-life, so we're replacing it.

The most valuable feature is the access control list (ACL). 

This is an older product and has reached end-of-life.

We have been using Cisco ASA for probably ten years.

This is a very stable product.

We're just a small company, so we have not had to scale it.

The technical support is definitely very good.

The initial setup was very straightforward.

Just one person is required for maintenance.

My advice for anybody who is implementing Cisco ASA is that it is not very difficult to deploy and not very difficult to understand how to continue adding more rules to it.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We are primarily using the solution to protect our network.

The security the solution offers is very good. Security-wise, it's the top in the world.

The product has excellent technical support.

The user interface is easy to navigate.

Everything is user friendly.

The annual subscription cost is a bit high. They should try to make it comparable to other offerings. We have a number of Chinese products here in Pakistan, which are already very cheap and have less annual maintenance costs compared to Cisco.

I've been using the solution for a few years now.

The solution is reliable. We have been using it for more than a couple of years and we haven't had any problems. There's been no downtime and no hardware failures. It's pretty stable.

We've never tried to scale. We have a pretty small set up in our country. It's unlikely we will have to scale.

Currently, we have between 200 and 300 people on the solution.

The technical support has been very good. They are helpful and knowledgeable. We're quite satisfied with their level of service.

This is the first product of this nature that we have implemented. We didn't previously use a different solution.

Initially, the preliminary set up took us some time. However, we did have some local expertise in Pakistan. Once, when we were stuck on something, we could manage to get help from Cisco online. It wasn't that tricky or complex. In the end, it was straightforward.

We had some assistance with a local expert as well as Cisco.

There's an annual subscription. It's not cheap. It's quite pricey if you compare it to other competitors in Pakistan. There aren't any extra costs beyond the yearly licensing.

We pay about $200 yearly and we have two firewalls.

We are the customer. We are in the oil and gas business. We don't have a business relationship with Cisco.

I'd recommend the solution to others straight away. It's more or less a very standard option here in Pakistan.

Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I'd rate the solution at an eight.

We are using Cisco ASAv in our company and have deployed it for many of our customers. They are in both government and the private sector.

The deployment method varies depending on the customer's needs. For the government, it's through the government cloud while others are on-premises.

It is very stable compared to other firewall products.

It has good security features.

The firewall features make it easy for the users to work on it.

The interface needs improvement. I would like a better interface for Cisco. Other solutions such as Palo Alto have a user-friendly dashboard.

They need a user-friendly interface that we could easily configure.

It would be beneficial to have some of the features that Cisco has, integrating with other types of security.

I have been using this solution for approximately eight years.

It's a very stable solution out of the box and we have not had any issues in our deployment.

We have 86% of the devices being used simultaneously.

It's scalable based on the type of license and modules that you require.

We don't have the option to update the box, but we can add features such as antivirus protection.

We have contacted technical support for some issues outside our technical expertise, mostly for updating the license.

We have a team that handles our issues.

We work on a case-by-case basis and are have good offers by Cisco.

It's very competitive with other products.

They should incorporate it with FortiGate, or Sophos firewalls. 

If they are looking for a layer 7 type of security then they need to go with another solution.

I would rate Cisco ASAv a nine out of ten.

We use Cisco ASAv as a firewall.

The best features are stability and scalability.

There are other solutions that are better such as Palo Alto.

The management test needs improvement. The ACM requires Java and you need to know which version of Java is compatible with your Cisco version. It needs a client.

The pricing could be reduced.

I would like to see the issue with the client resolved. You shouldn't have to use the ASDM to help manage the client. Also, it should be subscription-based similar to Palo Alto.

I have been working with Cisco ASAv for approximately eight years.

The stability is good, we have not had any issues.

Cisco ASAv is scalable.

We are satisfied with technical support. They are good.

We are also using Palo Alto. It's very easy to manage, especially the UI system. You can do anything you want.

Cisco is considered to be an expensive solution.

When comparing to other vendors, it's quite expensive.

I would rate Cisco ASAv a six out of ten.

The primary use case is to have full visibility over our Web & Application behavior on the local network and over the internet. On the other hand, reporting is one of the main needs so that we can monitor and evaluate our consumption and according to that, build up our policies and security.

Cisco NGFW had the needs that were required by us but unfortunately, was very primitive.

There was no added value and every feature requires license thus extra HIDDEN cost despite a large number of renewals. Paying that much compared to what other vendors can give is out of the negotiation. For this reason we dropped it.

Unfortunately in Cisco, only the hardware was good. As for the features and services it was less than the others. Having all of the features means higher specs of hardware and intelligence processing so that it can handle all the logs proactively. Now, what is needed from the Information security, is to be proactively aware of any threat that might expose our data and at the same time have full visibility over our information sharing endpoints.

In NGFW, Cisco should be aligned with the new technology and inspection intelligence because Cisco is far behind in this pipeline. Nowadays IoT, Big Data, AI, Robotics, etc. are all evolving and shifting from automatic to intelligent. All brands that do not follow will be extinct.

I have been using this solution for three years.

good

I was using a different solution prior to this one. I shifted because I found that it can heal my pain at least partially. By the end, it did the job and more.

Not that simple, but anyone who have the knowledge can configure it.

Through a vendor and they have good tech

Always look for the history of the products and their evolution, as this will reflect their prices. As for the licenses, be smart and choose the ones you are going to use AS PER YOUR NEED.

More features=More Licenses=More work time=Increase in Cost.

Always consider what you might need to reduce your wasted time and invest it in other solutions (i.e. "If it takes you three hours to do an analysis report and the solution you are getting has this feature to reduce your time to five minutes then you can consider this license. But, if there is a feature where you can have access to the machine from the cloud and you are always connected to the company by VPN, there is no need to buy this license").

Whenever I go for a new solution, I test many leaders "NOT RELYING ON GARTNER", yet going for sites that are related to technical evaluations and real case studies. The vendors were Sophos Cyberoam, Barracuda, FortiGate, Websense, & Check Point.

Think before you buy, as this solution can be your success or failure. Always work with professionals and not promoters.