Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls Reviews

We're slowly migrating our on-premises solutions to the cloud. We implemented the next largest size VM for the PA-7050s because we're using 7050s on-premises, due to the bandwidth requirement of 100 GBS.

After changing our firewalls to 7050s last year and this year, both our internal firewalls and our border firewalls are 7050s.

Having embedded machine learning in the core of the firewall to provide inline real-time attack prevention is something that will greatly enhance our abilities and some of the things that we're doing. We deal with it daily now, versus a time when an incident only occurred every so often. In fact, we see incidents all the time, which include things like phishing attacks. Having some of the functionality inside the firewall  

I would rate Palo Alto's machine learning capability, which secures our network against rapidly evolving threats, pretty high. We own a product that I want to get rid of by Cisco, called Stealthwatch. It generates alerts and it's really built for East-West traffic. Of the alerts that we get, 99.9% of them are already blocked by the firewall. I'm not really worried about my North-South traffic because Palo Alto is there. For what they have in the box and the different subscription models, I'm not worried because Palo Alto does such an excellent job of catching stuff.

The biggest improvement to our organization since implementing Palo Alto is that there are a lot of things I no longer have to worry about. There are a lot of things that I used to do, that I don't have to do anymore. For example, I don't have to worry about putting up a honeypot. It's superfluous now because I've got default deny and there is no sense in opening up the border to allow people to come onto my network just to go to the honeypot.

The basic IDS/IPS is taken care of, so I don't need to purchase a product like FireEye. I'm not worried about my core, critical systems.

This next-gen firewall platform has definitely helped us to eliminate security holes. Comparing it to Cisco, which is port-based, a port can be spoofed. This is something that we see every day. When going from a port-based paradigm to an application-based paradigm, there is no comparison. It is more granular, which allows me to be more specific about, for example, port 80 traffic. Port 80 has any number of applications that it can be but if I specify applications, I can pick up all of the port 80 traffic. This means that I can make sure that they cannot spoof an SSH connection as a port 80 connection.

As a growing shop, we have been trying to integrate and get something that we can use as a single pane of glass, and we're getting there. Palo Alto has helped a lot. For example, the new feature for us is the data lake, which allows us to send logs anywhere. This is something that we couldn't do before, so this solution has enabled us to do a little bit more and get rid of some tools.

I don't feel that there is much of a trade-off between security and network performance. Our layer-two network is very robust and I build around them. The architecture is based on what our networking can do, capacity-wise. We haven't had to adjust anything, even when we were running the smaller Palo Alto units, to make things function.

Wildfire has been a very good feature. It allowed us to get rid of our honeypot machines, as well as our IDS/IPS solution. When we put it on the border, it was blocking everything that we were getting ahead of time, and we weren't getting any hits. This includes URL filtering, spam prevention, and anti-virus.

We are using a data lake for our log storage. Because our Splunk license is only so large, we couldn't do a lot of logging. Palo Alto does not create small logs, like a Cisco box. In fact, with Palo Alto, you can't capture all of your logs.

From a layer three network perspective, Palo Alto is a workhorse that gives us the best value.

This solution provides a unified platform that natively integrates all security capabilities, which is 100% important to us. This is a great feature.

The user interface is beautiful. They've done their homework on UI design. There are small little tweaks but that's really a preference more than functionality.

One of the downsides of logging with Palo Alto is that we do not capture the beginning of a session. It only captures at the end of the session. This means that if we're trying to mitigate something, such as an incident that happened, we can't say definitively that it happened at a particular time. The reason is that Palo Alto keeps track of every session that happens and if it were set up to do that, we would overload the firewall and overload the logging of anything because we do terabytes worth of data every day.

Having a single pane of glass, where we can see all of the stuff that we have to be able to react to, would be very helpful. We're a small shop but we have to cover the entire security spectrum. It makes it hard because we have to wear many hats. A single pane of glass where we can put alerts and other information would make our life a lot easier. As a small EDU, we just don't have the resources that the private companies have, so we have to try to find the best bang for the buck.

From a documentation standpoint, there is room for improvement. Even Palo Alto says that their documentation is terrible. It may be true for any company, where you're going to find documentation that is outdated or has not been kept up to date, but that's my main complaint.

I have been using Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls for between 10 and 15 years.

The stability is fire and forget. You don't have to worry about it. I've had to babysit Cisco devices in the past but I've never had to do the same with Palo Alto.

I've always had really good assets over the years and in all, they have changed perhaps two or three of them. Overall, they've been wonderful.

The scalability is wonderful. In the last iteration that I did, I folded 12 different firewalls into one box, across campus, without any problems with network degradation.

Without our two boxes, we have 16 firewalls set up. There are two of us responsible for maintaining the system, and our job titles are cybersecurity network engineers. 

The way the interfaces are set up makes it really easy to use. Also, the different routing protocols that you can use within the box make life easy when it comes to setting them up. 

The product covers the entire university. We use it at the edge for one of the departments, and it acts as their edge firewall. They pay for their solution and we maintain it for them.

We have deployments in other campuses, as well.

As we segment the network, depending on the zoning, we will be adding new interfaces to do certain things, such as setting up DMZs.

The support has been wonderful. I have not had any bad support that I can think of over the years. They've always been there.

Prior to Palo Alto, we used a combination of solutions. This included honeypot machines, and products for IPS/IDS.

We used to be a Cisco shop and I'm glad that we are no longer one. I've been trying to get rid of Cisco for years. The problem with them is that it's unwieldy. It's an old-school way of doing things. For example, everything is port-based. They tried to get into the next-gen firewall space, but the way they grow is that they buy other companies and try to combine technologies to make them work. That doesn't work.

One thing that I've never liked about Cisco, and still don't like, is that if I did an OS upgrade, I was guaranteed that I would be there for at least three to five hours. This was for a simple OS upgrade. Palo Alto has made my life a lot easier from that perspective, which is something that I really appreciate.

Outside of the problem with the OS upgrade, security was becoming more prevalent at the time because of hackers. Cisco was just port-based, and we wanted to move to something that was mobile and more granular. We wanted something that would give us better security and Cisco just didn't have it. 

We don't use the DNS security capability with Palo Alto because we use Cisco Umbrella for that, and it works great.

The initial setup is very easy. I can do it in my sleep. The process will take between 15 and 20 minutes for a new deployment. If it's an existing system that you're moving stuff over from, it depends on whether it's Palo to Palo or from something else to Palo. It can take between two and three hours, depending on how many rules there are, and the other things that you have to set up. Once you're up and running, it takes no time to debug it.

Comparing the initial setup to a Cisco device, Palo Alto is much easier. With Cisco, you can't do a simple reset to factory default settings without breaking it. The time I did this, it took me two weeks to finally get it up and running, and I had to call the Cisco SEs to come in and fix it. That's how bad it was. Setting up Cisco is a nightmare.

In comparison, setting up a Palo Alto is child's play. It's like ABCs versus a university course when it comes to getting something set up in Cisco. We have run into problems with Palo Alto in the past but for the most part, it's an easy process.

When we first implemented Palo Alto, we hired a consultant, ProSys, to assist us. They know our network. They've been with us for years and they've got some Palo Alto experts. The reason we asked for their help is that we didn't know anything about Palo Alto until after we took the courses.

One of the problems at the university, in general, is that we don't do a lot of these processes every day. This makes it hard for most universities to be able to do a lot of these more complex setups on their own without getting outside help. The people who are in big businesses that deploy these things on a daily basis get to see this stuff all the time. Universities don't, so we normally have to rely on outside help.

Overall, our experience with ProSys was good. We like working with them.

Palo Alto is not a cheap solution but it is competitive when it comes to subscriptions.

The hardware is something that you can buy all day long, regardless of the vendor. It's when you start adding in all of the subscriptions that it is either going to make or break the budget. All things considered, Palo Alto is comparable.

There are several extra features available and what you use depends on what you want to do with the firewall, and how it's going to be deployed. AV is an option, the Threat Prevention app is extra, along with URL filtering, and WildFire. You won't have all of the options on all of the servers. For example, the internal servers won't be doing any web surfing, so the requirements are a little bit different.

I'm more worried about my building to building, East-West traffic because I can't afford to put a Palo Alto in every building. Instead, I put a Palo Alto in front of me to deal with the North-South traffic.

We knew about Palo Alto and that's what we wanted, so we did not evaluate other vendors or products.

I've worked with my SE on this with at least four or five other schools that did not use Palo's, but since turned to use them. I speak with my SE often, and I also speak with my colleagues at other schools about my experiences. I generally explain what my experience with Palo Alto is compared to what I've had with other firewalls.

I don't want to become a Palo Alto-centric shop. We can use certain cloud features that they have, such as SaaS products. However, I choose not to, so that we can have a little bit more flexibility in what we do.

When we were a pure Cisco shop, we saw the problems with doing that. Palo Alto does a really good job at everything they do but, I just want to make sure that from my university's perspective, we don't get stuck. If all of a sudden, somebody else comes out with another product, we don't want to be stuck with a specific vendor, unless they are definitely the best solution.

We use other products in addition to Palo Alto to help along the way. For example, we use Corelight from Bro Zeek, Terracotta, and other things that I can stream together and send to our SOC to look at. We also have XDR, although it's not a fully functional one because we don't have the endpoint component. That is what is killing a lot of EDUs because we just don't have the budget or the money to be able to go out and buy all of the products that help us to function the way we need to.

In the NSS Labs Test Report from July 2019 about Palo Alto NGFW, 100% of the evasions were blocked. For a C-level person, that's great news. They read those types of things. As a technical person, it's important to me because it makes my life easy.

Palo Alto sells a next-generation firewall called the PA-400 series, and depending on what a company's bandwidth needs are, it would be a good choice. For example, if they're not doing anywhere close to a gig worth of traffic, such as in a small office, home office, or small business, then it would be a good solution. It also depends on what the business does. If there isn't much traffic then a PA-400 would be fine.

If a colleague of mine at another company were to say that they are just looking for the cheapest and fastest firewall, based on my experience with Palo Alto, I would tell them that they get what they pay for. Palo Alto is not cheap but at the same time, their product is not really comparable with others. It's like comparing apples to oranges.

If you consider Fortinet, for example, they call themselves a next-generation firewall but they really aren't. They are what you call a GPO, which is related to policies. It is important that you look at what other people do and how they do it, but for the most part, there's not anybody out there doing what Palo Alto is. 

Another one is Cisco. They do the same thing that Palo Alto does, although it takes three Cisco boxes to do what a single Palo Alto box does.

I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.

It is a data center firewall solution and a centralized management for remote office firewall solutions. We have 30-odd remote offices where we are putting firewalls in to replace the standard routers that we used to have. This solution will give us a little bit of routing and firewall capabilities.

We are deploying the PA-440 Series in our remote offices.

Historically, DNS would have been from local providers. Now, having a centralized DNS allows us to make sure there are no issues of DNS cache poisoning and DNS exfiltration. 

The solution has definitely helped us with the security holes around visibility and uniform policy deployments across the estate. Unified, centralized configuration management definitely helps us reduce the risk by having a central place where we can create a policy, and it is deployed everywhere, without the risk of human mistakes creeping in, e.g., typo mistakes creeping into configurations.

The firewall feature is great because we didn't have specific firewall capabilities beforehand. The anti-malware features and the ability to plug into our mail scanning are valuable as well, so we can share data between our email antivirus scanning solutions. That integration has been quite useful.

Palo Alto NGFW embeds machine learning in the core of the firewall to provide inline, real-time attack prevention, which is another string to the bow of our layered security approach. So, it is important. It is not the big reason we bought it, but it is a useful component to our layered security approach. Security best practices push for a layered approach because there are so many different factors that you need to cover: 

• Email threats
• Malware
• Viruses
• Accidental human mistakes made internally to your network.
• Malicious humans in your network and outside your network. 

Therefore, a multi-layered approach really is a security best practice way of attacking security. You can't just worry about the parameter; you need to worry about what's inside your network and how things come in.

The key thing is that we don't have to try and play Whac-A-Mole. The machine learning-powered firewalls do that for us. As a recruitment company, we can never have the necessary technologies available to us to try and do this ourselves, so leveraging the machine learning power from Palo Alto reduces the risk for us.

Palo Alto NGFW provides a unified platform that natively integrates all security capabilities, which is very useful. This prevents us from having to go to a lot of different systems, and in some cases, many different systems in many different regions, because we are a global company with 60 remote offices around the world in 30 different countries. Its centralized platform is really what we look for in all services, whether it be security or otherwise.

When we looked at it originally, we needed to host the Panorama environment ourselves. I would prefer it if we could take this as a service. It might be that it is available, but for some reason we didn't choose it. The downsides of hosting are that we need to feed and water the machines. We are trying to move to a more SaaS environment where we have less things in our data centers, whether they be in our cloud data centers or physical data centers, which can reduce our physical data center footprint.

We started with a couple of firewalls about 18 months ago. We started them in our data centers and are just about to deploy them in our remote offices.

It has been very stable.

On the maintenance side, we haven't increased our team at all. One of the great things that we have been able to improve is the capability of our team without increasing the number of heads who are using Palo Alto.

It is scalable with what we need. I am not looking at thousands and thousands of devices, so it is well within what we need for our few hundred devices.

We often didn't deploy tools because it was too hard to try and manage them with our small team. This solution has enabled our small team to be way more effective than they were before. It gives us the visibility and control that we need.

We have a senior network administrator and about five operational guys. There are also some service desk-level guys and about 12 of them have visibility into activities, but they don't actually change things. Change control is quite closely guarded.

We have deployed the solution in a couple of data centers. We are deploying it across 30 offices this year and plan to do the next 30 to 30-ish offices in the next 12 to 18 months, as some of their hardware retires or has expired. We are not pushing it out too fast. We are going with the cadence of the business.

The technical support is very good. We had some nasty questions, but they were sorted out quite quickly. The problem that we had, because it was live, was it took us a little bit of time to deploy stuff. We also have a good relationship with their pre-sales engineers who offered advice and guidance, specifically as part of the deployment.

We previously had Cisco ASA Firewalls in some locations and Cisco Security PAK Routers in other locations that gave us a base level of firewall. So, we didn't previously have any next-generation firewalls. These are our first real next-gen firewalls.

We switched solutions because we didn't have enough of the network security covered. Also, we wanted centralized visibility and control, which was key for us.

When we did some red team testing, we found that there was a way to get some data out through our existing DNS environment. We knew we had to fix the centralized DNS management, visibility, knowledge of the DNS queries, and the visibility of the DNS queries as a result of some testing that we did. Whereas, before they were all geographically disparate, having a centralized place to look at to be able to do some analysis and visibility really are the key things for us.

The initial setup was not simple, but it is simplified. What was really good was the free training beforehand. As an architect, I don't get my hands that dirty, but I was able to go through a number of the free courses beforehand, or workshops, that were done online. Their training platform was very useful in helping me get an understanding of the product and how we would deploy it in our own environment. The actual deployment, as with anything network-related, is fairly complex because we have a very connected network with a lot of different entry points. While it takes time, it was very useful to get the training beforehand.

The deployment took about three months, but it was in the midst of a data center migration. It probably only took us a month to deploy it properly, but then we had to migrate services over, which took another six months. Again, this was part of our data center migration project. To actually get the solution installed was very quick, it took only a couple of days to get it up and running. However, to move services onto it, you need to be a bit careful when you start to move the live services onto it.

Our implementation strategy was really focused around our data center migrations and moving stuff out of one data center into another. As we moved services from one data center to the other, we brought them onto Palo Alto's in the new data center rather than onto the existing old routers and firewalls. So, it was really governed by the business, applications, and what we could move when.

We used Palo Alto directly for the deployment. Our experience with them was great.

To deploy it, we didn't employ any more staff. We did send a few people out remotely. With COVID, travel is a little bit tricky. So, we have some remote agreements with some suppliers who will go out for a day, plug a device in, and help us with the initial out-of-the-box config. That is normally two to three hours per site that we have to do, which is what I would expect from this kind of device.

Look at Palo Alto because it is a bit modular, so you can take the components that you need when you need them. You need something that will do the job. It doesn't matter if it's cheap and fast, if it quickly lets through vulnerabilities. You need something that will be reliable.

We were very happy when they released the PA-440s. Previously, we had been looking at the PA-820s, which were a bit of overkill for us. Price-wise and capability-wise, the PA-820s hit the nail on the head for us.

Go for a three-year deal, then Palo Alto will bring in some discounts. We also deployed them as HA Pairs to make sure we had resiliency.

We looked at Cisco and Fortinet. The reason that we went with Palo Alto was they were fairly cost-effective. They were also a bit easier to manage. The central management and control of Palo Alto was a little bit nicer than the Cisco side of things. I think everyone achieves the same things in slightly different ways. The way Palo Alto achieves their centralized management and control resonated a bit better with us and our requirements.

We haven't actually deployed Palo Alto NGFW’s DNS Security yet, but we will be doing that.

It is great that 100% of the tested attacks were blocked in the NSS Labs Test Report from July 2019 about Palo Alto NGFW. It is a great story, but I never trust 100% because that's why we have layered security. However, it definitely provides a great level of comfort in our security structure.

I never give anyone a 10, so I will give the solution a nine (out of 10).

The solution is to provide protection for our cloud-based server resources.

We don't have to spend as much time monitoring or configuring the solution. We just feed the alerts into our stock and we don't have to manage it regularly.

The configuration and stability are great. The solution offers many good features. Palo Alto has by far the best firewall in the world.

Palo Alto NG Firewalls embed machine learning into the core of the firewall to provide real-time attack prevention. Of course, that's just expected these days. Anyone worth considering is doing this. Low-end firewall devices out there do not provide that. However, they're not enterprise-ready.

The machine learning in Palo Alto's Next-Generation Firewalls is excellent for securing our networks against threats that are able to evolve and morph rapidly. It's a ten out of ten.

The product provides a unified platform that natively integrates all the security capabilities. That's very important to us.

The product has zero-day signature features implemented.

There are no trade-offs between security and network performance with Palo Alto.

We haven't had any issues so far.

I've used the solution for the last three years, although the company has used it for longer. 

Technical support is proactive in letting us know when there are updates that need to be made to the system. We've not had any issues with any of the maintenance activities.

Positive

We are customers of Palo Alto.

I'd rate the solution ten out of ten.

We protect certain applications in the data center with Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls.

Application layer security and integration with other components that we have in our networks are valuable features.

Compared to other firewalls from Check Point, Fortinet, and Cisco, for example, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls use the most advanced techniques. They have sandbox integration and others in the orchestrator. Palo Alto's security features are at a higher level than those of the competitors at the moment.

It's very important that we be able to integrate all security capabilities within the firewall. This is one of the key reasons why we chose to go with Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls.

We are heavily investing in technology that uses machine learning. Thus, it is important for us that Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls embed machine learning in the core of the firewall to provide inline, real-time attack prevention.

Palo Alto needs to provide more support during the design phase and with proposals. They need to be more proactive, try to anticipate issues, and then help us to implement the transformation quickly.

I have been using Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls for five years now.

We have not had any issues with stability. I have not heard from our SOC about issues with devices either.

The scalability has been good. We are the biggest bank in Italy with 100,000 employees.

Palo Alto's technical support is extremely good and responsive. The ticketing system, however, is a little bureaucratic especially when you are in a hurry or are dealing with an emergency. On a scale from one to ten, overall, I would rate technical support a nine.

Positive

The deployment was quite easy.

We have seen a return on investment in general. Our company is moving to the cloud and toward digital transformation in the financial sector. Palo Alto plays a key role in this return on investment.

My advice to you, if you're looking for the cheapest and fastest firewall, is that the cheapest firewall is not the best for security.

We use firewall solutions from multiple vendors, and from a security point of view, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls are one of the best in comparison. Also, you get the best value from Palo Alto with application layer security, machine learning, and integration.

Overall, I would rate Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls a nine out of ten.

I find it valuable to attend an RSA Conference because I get the opportunity to participate in several seminars, share, and learn from other people as well.

Attending RSAC also impacts our purchasing decisions because what I see at the conference will end up in the budget the following year or the year after that.

We use the solution to protect our internal network from external threats.

Up until recently we were not using multilayer firewalls and were using several solutions that are combined in Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls.

We are required to provide our network test results to our central bank, and Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls offer a robust report for this purpose that would otherwise be a cumbersome human task.

The performance of Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is the most valuable feature.

The analytics could be improved. I would like to have a unified analysis tool within Palo Alto, as we currently use Perimeter 81 and Fortinet FortiGate, which makes the analysis process take a long time.

I have been using the solution for almost four years.

The solution is stable.

The solution is scalable. We have three people that monitor the solution and maintain it.

The initial setup is straightforward. We had to secure our parameter network. We required two engineers from a reseller and two from our organization.

The implementation was completed with the help of a partner.

The solution is worth the price, as it can be utilized without the need for high-processing CPUs and resources, thus saving us overall.

I evaluated Check Point and decided to use Palo Alto because of its performance. Palo Alto can be used with fewer CPUs. 

I give the solution a nine out of ten.

Before using Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls you must first know what our requirements are.

We use the solution as a firewall for our network. We can manage our traffic between internal traffic and external traffic handling. The solution protects the traffic and we manage the standard firewall issues.

The solution's embedded machine learning in the core of the firewall that provides in-line real-time attack prevention is important and provides good insight for us. The machine learning actions and learning activities provide some useful information. 

The solution's machine learning for securing our networks against rapidly evolving threats is good. We utilize an IoT tool that comprehends IoT devices, such as webcams, and can therefore interpret their behavior and send information on their activity. The tool also applies appropriate firewall rules to these devices, taking into account the clearance level of each device based on its traffic.

Before implementing Palo Alto, we had to rely on a management company to handle our firewall security. However, now that we have Palo Alto, we can manage our firewall security in-house.

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls unified platform helped to eliminate security holes.

The zero-delay signature feature helps keep our security updated against new attacks.

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls provides a unified platform that natively integrates all security capabilities which is important to our organization.

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls' zero-delay signature feature is important, and it receives daily updates.

At times, server capacity can result in issues. While Palo Alto is a top firewall company, it's crucial to properly size the firewall to meet our needs. In the case of larger attacks, the capacity of our current firewall may not be adequate, requiring us to obtain more advanced and expensive versions to ensure network protection.

There is a tradeoff between security and network performance, as security is always top-notch, but performance can sometimes lag and has room for improvement.

The cost of the solution has room for improvement.

I have been using the solution for one year.

I give the stability an eight out of ten.

The solution is not very scalable. We need to define our requirements and purchase the correct product for our needs.

We are an enterprise company with over 3,000 people. All the network traffic goes through the solution but we have five people that work directly on the solution.

The technical support is great.

Positive

We previously used Check Point NGFW and switched to Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls because of the stability.

I give the initial setup a five out of ten. The deployment took one month.

Implementation was completed in-house by a consultant.

Compared to other firewall solutions, this is an expensive solution.

I give the solution an eight out of ten.

We use Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls to protect small businesses that work within the defense industrial base.

By using Prisma Access, we can easily connect to our network from different locations around the world without having to deploy multiple firewalls. This not only makes it more convenient but also saves us a lot of expenses.

Prisma Access is the most valuable feature of Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls.

The ability to provide secure access to people without having to carry an additional device around really benefits us in the defense industrial base.

The training provided is satisfactory, but there is certainly room for improvement. It would be great to have more comprehensive training at a lower cost, or even for free.

I would say that Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls provide a unified platform for many, but not all.

Having everything in one pane of glass is important to me because I have a lot of responsibilities. It would be really nice to have everything in one place, so I don't have to switch around between different applications and can stay focused on one platform.

It's important to have machine learning embedded, but it's equally important to not solely rely on it. We still need human interaction to ensure proper security measures. Nonetheless, machine learning is a vital component of our security strategy.

I have been using Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls for five years.

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls have been instrumental in reducing our downtime as we moved away from less robust devices. By implementing Palo Alto firewalls, we have significantly improved our network stability.

If I had to estimate, it has saved us 10 to 15 hours per year.

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is a very stable solution.

I haven't encountered the need to scale the solution yet. Our current setup meets our requirements and has been working well for us. Given that we are a small company, we have not felt the need to look into scaling it at this point.

The technical support provided by Palo Alto Networks is excellent. Although I have only needed to contact them a few times, they have always been quick to respond, and their team is very knowledgeable.

I would rate the technical support a nine out of ten.

Positive

Before, we used SonicWall, but we decided to switch to Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls because they offer a much better solution and are leading the market.

I was part of the deployment team, but since I was new to Palo Alto devices, the deployment process was more complex for me. That's where the training came into play.

I had to familiarize myself with their user interface and terminologies since I was used to using a different system. It took some time for me to learn and compare it with what I've used before.

We purchased from a reseller.

It was a straightforward process. We made the purchase online and they shipped it to us. After that, it was a matter of getting it up and running.

It's difficult to determine. When looking at the ten to fifteen hours a year, it's unclear whether or not I would consider that as part of the return on investment. It's a bit challenging to assess from an IT perspective.

Reducing costs is important, especially since Prisma can be expensive. It would be great if it were more affordable.

Although the hardware can be expensive, the quality of Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is excellent. While a lower cost would be desirable, we recognize the value of investing in a reliable and effective solution.

When we were moving away from SonicWall, we evaluated FortiGate and Meraki's solutions.

In my opinion, I was impressed with FortiGate's system on a chip. It was really fast compared to Palo Alto's, but I think Palo Alto has a better feature set and interface. As for SonicWall, we had several reasons for leaving. Regarding Meraki, I find their management interface not suitable for my needs, and they seem to be more of a consumer-grade or prosumer-grade product.

I am not in a position to comment on the solution's ability to secure data centers consistently across all workplaces, from the smallest office to the largest data centers since I have only used their smaller solutions.

My advice to those who are seeking a firewall solution is not to prioritize the cheapest or the fastest options, as it could be risky. Instead, it is important to invest in the best quality firewall that is within your budget. This is something that I have experienced with Palo Alto Networks, which provides a high-quality solution that is worth the investment.

I would rate Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls a nine out of ten.

The experience has been amazing, with a few sessions resulting in new services that I can offer my company directly. The best part is that I can do it without having to invest in an expensive tool that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars.

It does impact the purchases we will make throughout the year.

If I can perform 95% of the work at a lower cost, we are unlikely to consider Mandiant and spend a significant amount of money. 

We have had use cases for defending our resources against external access or authenticating particular traffic or appropriate traffic for access.

The key factor here is reliability. In my previous company, we had a different vendor's firewall before switching to Palo Alto network devices. 

Unfortunately, during that time, our security team was on vacation and had to be called back urgently due to a severe incident. This experience led us to switch to a more dependable, reliable, and robust system, which turned out to be the Palo Alto network device. 

Fortunately, the transition from our old system to the new one was relatively seamless, and we now have a reliable and robust security infrastructure.

In my opinion, Palo Alto has consistently been one of the best firewalls for enterprise security. 

We have encountered numerous instances where we have observed threats and attacks targeting our systems, and Palo Alto has proven to be highly reliable in blocking any malicious activity.

I would like to see some Machine Learning because I have observed new types of attacks that are able to bypass existing security rules. It is possible that implementing some form of continuous learning or education could be beneficial in addressing this issue.

Some way to learn what is normal it isn't, you know, something like that, I think that would be probably the most beneficial thing to me.

To say it's a set-and-forget system wouldn't be entirely accurate, but it is an incredibly stable and reliable system. Once it's set up and configured properly, you really just need to keep an eye on it for any necessary updates or new rules. In my experience, it's one of the most reliable systems available.

The original installation we were considering was for a small organization, and we had to take into account the fact that we were going to expand the endpoints to our entire user base, not just a select few like marketing.

We were assured that the system would have no issues handling the additional workload as we added more devices or upgraded the device.

The firewall solution that I have referred to the most during this conversation is one that I have implemented for small to medium-sized organizations.

I found the initial setup very straightforward.

I recall that the setup process for the device was straightforward and could be completed quickly. However, while the device did come out of the box, it wasn't as secure as it could have been, and I had to go in and tighten up the security settings. Despite that, compared to other firewalls with complex and cryptic interfaces, Palo Alto's firewall interface was relatively easy to use and comprehend.

There were certainly benefits in terms of time-saving and ease of learning for the user. The straightforward setup process and user-friendly interface of the Palo Alto network devices made it easier and quicker to implement, thus saving time. Additionally, the easy-to-use interface also helped in reducing the learning curve for users, enabling them to become proficient in using the device more rapidly.

Using Palo Alto has reduced the amount of downtime considerably.

Determining the impact of blocking threats is not straightforward because it depends on the severity of the threat. For example, if a threat only affected one server, the downtime would be minimal. However, if it caused an outage in the entire environment, the impact would be much greater. It is challenging to quantify the amount of downtime prevented by blocking threats.

Usually, when setting up a new firewall, it's common to get around 80% of the work done within a few days. However, with the Palo Alto network device, I recall that we were able to achieve 95% to 99% completion within just a couple of days. The device's user-friendly interface and straightforward configuration process made it easier to accomplish more in less time.

Technical support was helpful during the deployment process.

During the deployment process, I thought they were great. I had no complaints they were very knowledgeable, and we were able to resolve everything very quickly.

The organization has seen a return on investment with Palo Alto firewalls as we haven't experienced any significant breaches.

When when we first looked at Palo Alto, it came in as the top recommendation from a source that we trusted. We didn't actually look at other vendors at that time. 

At the time, we had the full support of our CEO and team, who recognized the urgency of the situation as our entire system was down. This rare backing from everyone helped us to quickly implement a solution.

We frequently recommend Palo Alto to others as we believe it is a highly effective solution for network security. It is one of those things where if someone does not have a Palo Alto, we advise them to consider it as a worthwhile investment.

For those seeking the cheapest or quickest solution, I would advise that while it may seem like a good idea in the short term, you will likely encounter issues that will require you to replace the solution soon after. Investing in a reliable and reputable solution like Palo Alto Networks may require a larger investment upfront, but will ultimately save you time and money in the long run.

The biggest value that I gain from being here is networking and finding out what other products are out there without having to go to, like, a search engine and wait or rely on the results of the search engine. I can literally wander around. And if something catches my eye, I can be like, well, that's really cool. Let me go get some more information about that.

It's really easy to just look at all the different vendors, looks at the various talks, looks at everything that's here, and get information tailored to what I wanna learn about.

I definitely can make recommendations on various products they get based on my experience, but I don't have a say in it directly.

I would rate Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls a nine out of ten.