Palo Alto Networks Panorama Reviews

We are still on Palo Alto Networks products because it is delivering value to our organization. We are using the products ourselves, so we function as a customer. We do not have much cloud presence, so most of our solutions are on-premises. We utilize the traditional features such as GlobalProtect and are not using anything from Cortex. We have two PA-850 firewalls that are being managed by Palo Alto Networks Panorama.

I utilize Palo Alto Networks Panorama's centralized view for monitoring. Palo Alto Networks Panorama serves as our log collector, with all logs from the firewalls being pushed to it. Palo Alto Networks Panorama has an ACC tab that I use to conduct monitoring.

We do not currently have a SIEM solution, so we are heavily relying on the monitoring features of Palo Alto Networks Panorama to conduct our investigations and log reviews. It is really heavily used because if you want to get visibility into the telemetries coming in and out of our network, Palo Alto Networks Panorama is what we rely on because we do not have a SIEM solution.

I do utilize Palo Alto Networks Panorama's advanced reporting, which comes with out-of-the-box features. I do reporting using Palo Alto Networks Panorama as part of my day-to-day activity. Every month, I need to send a report to my boss, and I use the Palo Alto Networks Panorama reporting feature to do that.

I think Palo Alto Networks Panorama's application and threat visibility features are solid because the App-ID feature is excellent. It helps me to better understand the kind of traffic that I am monitoring by providing details of the protocol and application type. The threats monitoring feature is great, and comparing Palo Alto Networks to other competitors, while Palo Alto Networks is quite expensive, I am really satisfied with the threats monitoring features because I feel my company is getting value for what we are paying for.

Palo Alto Networks Panorama's ability to manage multiple firewalls is solid as long as you ensure that you have the required resources for it, depending on the number of firewalls that you want to place under Palo Alto Networks Panorama. My Palo Alto Networks Panorama is a VM version, not a physical box, so from time to time, I have to ensure that the ESXi host hosting Palo Alto Networks Panorama has better capability in terms of IOPs, CPU, and memory. Once the resource requirement is adequate, Palo Alto Networks Panorama does a very good job because the log syncing ensures that the firewalls being managed by Palo Alto Networks Panorama are in sync and communicate with each other very well. Having Palo Alto Networks Panorama makes life easier because we cannot afford downtime, not even minimal downtime. With Palo Alto Networks Panorama, it helps you achieve high availability, whether active-passive or active-active, with ease.

I would say that while Palo Alto Networks Panorama reporting capability is functional, it is not really intuitive. The presentation is not really as advanced as what an advanced solution would have provided.

I would like to improve the dashboards on Palo Alto Networks Panorama, especially because I work in an environment where my managers are not really that technical. They do a great job leading us, but they do not have a technical background. If the dashboard could be improved to suit more executive use cases when it comes to reporting, that would be excellent. It is basic as far as I am concerned, and from an executive standpoint, it is not really that good.

I would rate Palo Alto Networks Panorama as a product nine or 9.5 out of ten because there is always room for improvement, especially on the dashboard. I think if they could improve the dashboard, I would give them ten out of ten because from a technical standpoint, the dashboard is good, but at an executive level, it is not really that good. I usually struggle when doing presentations to my bosses because the dashboard and reporting from Palo Alto Networks Panorama are not as polished as they could be.

I have been using Palo Alto Networks Panorama personally for the past five years.

I think the technical support by Palo Alto Networks is great because the response time is solid. Palo Alto Networks is so reliable that we hardly actually raise a ticket. It almost never breaks, so we rarely rely on technical support.

I get advisory from Palo Alto Networks from time to time if there is a new Pan-OS or if there are vulnerabilities on the existing Pan-OS. We also conduct a BPA to address any security gap by ourselves. So we hardly actually rely on their technical support.

We have had some issues related to SSL decryption. The SSL certificate we used had expired, so we renewed it. However, implementing it on Palo Alto Networks still presents pending issues. We raised support for that, and it has not been closed yet, but it is not entirely a Palo Alto Networks issue. I think it is more about the certificate. It is a pending issue, but it is not really critical, so we have not revisited it.

Positive

Palo Alto Networks firewall is expensive as a whole product.

In my region, which is Ghana, West Africa, most people usually use Sophos and FortiGate firewalls, so the price comparison was actually on Sophos and FortiGate.

Sophos and FortiGate do not have any advantages over Palo Alto Networks Panorama because their machine learning capabilities are not top-notch as compared to Palo Alto Networks. That is why we are so satisfied to stay with Palo Alto Networks.

We do not have Palo Alto Networks' threat intelligence platforms or data loss prevention features in our subscription. We have other ways of dealing with DLPs, but on the firewall, we do not have that feature activated.

We are dealing with DLP by other vendors, not Palo Alto Networks. We utilize Microsoft Office 365, which has a feature called Purview for DLP capability. We are dealing with Microsoft products, specifically Exchange. Our Microsoft licensing includes E5 and E3, which come with certain features, and we utilize all those features.

We go through a dealer regarding our partnership with Microsoft and Palo Alto Networks. We are not directly partners.

We also use CyberArk PAM, and it is great to hear that Palo Alto Networks acquired CyberArk. My overall review rating for Palo Alto Networks Panorama is nine out of ten.

My main use case for Palo Alto Networks Panorama is to manage our firewalls. We have around 450 firewalls, and we manage them through Panorama. Configuration entry is the primary focus of our use.

The best features Palo Alto Networks Panorama offers include the ability to manage multiple firewalls at one time. This was our main concern, as we previously had to manage a couple of firewalls with one template, and this capability is the best feature they have.

This feature has impacted my daily workflow positively. We can change our template at the same time and apply it for all the firewalls because most of the firewalls have the same configuration from our side, which is better for us and makes our work easier.

The main feature that stands out to me is the ability to manage multiple firewalls easily. Palo Alto Networks Panorama has positively impacted our organization by allowing a couple of network engineers to use Panorama simultaneously with different templates or device groups, which helps us save time and reduce the complexity of the network.

From a monitoring perspective, if we could improve on data retention and keep it for quite a long time, such as 90 days of data retention, that would be good for us to manage our CPU usage, as we can see CPU usage from Palo Alto Networks Panorama. Better improvements in monitoring would be beneficial for us.

I would like to see improvements in monitoring. For example, if a firewall has been disconnected, having a dashboard or a monitoring tab for that would be beneficial without using third-party tools.

I have been using Palo Alto Networks Panorama for more than one year.

Palo Alto Networks Panorama is stable in my experience.

In terms of scalability, Palo Alto Networks Panorama handles growth and increased demands well for now.

My experience with customer support has been good, as most of the TAC cases are handled by me, and they are very good.

I did not switch solutions, but I previously used FortiManager at a different company.

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing has been good.

I do not have any statistics about the return on investment since we did not conduct any kind of survey regarding configuration or time saved.

We did not purchase Palo Alto Networks Panorama through the Azure Marketplace. We purchased it directly through Palo Alto.

Before choosing Palo Alto Networks Panorama, I did not evaluate other options, as it was already deployed before I joined this company.

My advice for others looking into using Palo Alto Networks Panorama is that if you have more than 10 firewalls, you should use Panorama as it saves your time. My company is a partner with the vendor. I would rate this product a 10 out of 10.

I use Palo Alto Networks Panorama for the management of all the firewalls. Apart from that, I use Cloud Prisma for VPN management, as well as connectivity to the production, non-production environment. I use three flavors of Palo Alto Networks: Panorama, Cloud Prisma, and the on-prem, physical Palo Alto firewalls in the data centers.

I use Palo Alto Networks Panorama for all our production, non-production firewalls, which are onboarded on Panorama. Whatever changes I make in the individual firewall, I push that to the Panorama, and Panorama pushes to the individual devices.

The granular control of Palo Alto Networks Panorama stands out for me, as you have centralized management or a centralized view for all the firewalls. It's easy to create security policy, easy to create NAT policy, and easy to do any configuration. Second is easy troubleshooting, so rather than going to all the firewalls, I can centrally troubleshoot. If any issue occurs, I have a centralized monitor tab, and centralized logs are there, so I can easily troubleshoot any issues from the Panorama itself.

In terms of logging and reporting capabilities, there is centralized logging with Palo Alto Networks Panorama. In terms of ease of configuration and ease of troubleshooting, all individual firewalls forward logs to the Panorama, and Panorama forwards logs to the Syslog server. That is ease of configuration. The second thing is ease of troubleshooting, as all the centralized logs are present in the Panorama itself. Based on any issue occurred, I can troubleshoot it on the Panorama itself rather than going to the individual firewalls.

It's very easy to integrate with infrastructure and other systems.

I do see some disadvantages with Panorama. If your staff is not technical enough, you have to be very careful if you have production devices on Panorama because once you push any changes, those get pushed on the individual firewalls. In terms of operation, it is quite important that the staff managing the Panorama should be technically sound enough, and they should know exactly what they are doing. If you break anything in terms of config push, that could lead to an outage. That is one of the most important things I would say. Apart from that, I don't see any disadvantages as such.

I have been using it for more than five years.

Earlier we were using bare-metal hardware devices in the data center. Now we migrated to the AWS cloud, so we deployed the Palo Alto Networks Panorama firewall in the AWS cloud, and we manage it from there.

I'm not at that position to comment on ROI since I started using Panorama.

If you go with the cloud-based deployment, it is pretty much affordable. If you go with the physical bare-metal hardware, then it is quite expensive.

This solution receives a rating of 10 out of 10.

I am still working for Lotus. We work with Palo Alto three series, Panorama, and Firewall Banu, specifically Firewall three series and five series.

I find this solution valuable for full monitoring, centralized control for reporting, and centralized management. These features are instrumental in achieving effective results.

The solution requires more flexibility and quicker response times. High-speed replies are crucial. 

Additionally, the AI module should be on-premises, not in the cloud. It should support more flexibility and OpenShift Direct, not just the basics. 

The virtualization feature needs to be more advanced.

I have been using it for about one year.

It is very good in terms of scalability.

I would rate customer service as seven out of ten.

Neutral

The setup cost is too high.

Consider the environment, as it is very high priced. If you have money to spare, it's a good option. I would rate it a nine out of ten. 

The primary use case for this solution is the management of the entire firewall portfolio across various branches.

Palo Alto Networks Panorama has simplified management by providing a unified interface for firewall management and configuration.

One of the key advantages of Palo Alto Networks Panorama is its unified platform that is quite similar to the firewall interface, making it easier for tech consultants to manage.

The integration between Strata Cloud Manager and Panorama could be enhanced to allow customers to stay on Panorama for many years while still utilizing Strata Cloud Manager for deployment.

I have sold Panorama for four years.

To my knowledge, the solution is very stable. There are always some issues, however, I haven't heard any major complaints from the consultants.

Scalability is primarily enhanced by Strata Cloud Manager as it is much easier to scale in the cloud than in an on-premises installation.

The tech support I've encountered has been good, prompt, and fast. However, some consultants have mentioned it can be cumbersome, particularly if the issue is not well-documented before contacting support.

Positive

The installation process is pretty straightforward. It's possible to have one technician handle the setup.

In large installations, it can be expensive with hardware appliances, however, virtual Panorama is well-priced and is sold every time there's a solution.

Palo Alto Networks Panorama could benefit from some integration improvements with Strata Cloud Manager, to maintain customer efficiency without selecting between the two.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

Positive

Panorama is primarily a management solution to manage Palo Alto firewalls. Customers with a large number of firewalls need this solution for efficient management.

Panorama has the capacity for SD-WAN configuration, which is appreciated alongside its capabilities for firewall management and firmware upgrades. The SD-WAN capability is particularly valued because it allows for easy management of firewalls remotely. It also provides a single pane of glass to manage its entire portfolio, offering cost savings as less manpower is needed.

From a storage perspective, I would like to see an improvement where logs can be compressed to make some space available. Such a feature could enhance performance.

I have been working with Panorama for more than five years now.

The technical support from Palo Alto is rated around nine out of ten. The response time and quality are satisfying.

Positive

The initial setup of Panorama is pretty simple. The appliance itself is easy to set up, and it isn't complex to execute. It does require some experience for managing other firewalls.

For setup, the customer and engineer needed to collaborate, but for configuration, our help was definitely required. The setup involves downloading a Hyper V file and providing it to a virtualization expert. Management requires good experience.

Commercially, compared to Fortinet, Palo Alto is more expensive, however, it has remarkable features like SD-WAN capability that make it worth its price.

Overall, I rate Panorama a nine out of ten. I would recommend it for medium to enterprise-level companies, however, not for small businesses due to its cost and features.

We have multiple firewalls in our infrastructure. Palo Alto Networks Panorama serves as the management interface for all our Palo Alto firewalls. As our organization has grown, there has been one company initially, but now three companies have merged into one, and we have increased the number of firewalls. For instance, we have a Palo Alto firewall in our Azure stack and a core firewall from another company that we’ve integrated into our data center. We use Palo Alto Panorama to manage all our Palo Alto firewalls across our infrastructure.

We have centralized management for all Palo Alto firewalls. With the merger of three companies, each previously operating their own Palo Alto firewalls, we can now manage them efficiently through our operations using Panorama. Our network has become more complex as we run various services, including SD-WAN, across three sites. While the SD-WAN operates through a separate firewall, our core firewall remains Palo Alto. Additionally, we use Palo Alto as a perimeter firewall for our Azure stack. In total, we manage four firewalls with Panorama. We monitor various traffic types, including FTP, browser traffic, applications, and unified threat management. We also have SSL inspection enabled and are actively managing and monitoring SSL tunnels and threat management.

Palo Alto Panorama offers robust logging and reporting capabilities, allowing us to extract reports in a user-friendly GUI format with graphical representations. For example, we can track bytes sent and received for specific applications and users since we use Palo Alto XDR for analysis, reporting, and forensics.

We benefit from a certain level of customization in our reports, utilizing predefined templates and tailored reports. This includes user activity reports, application reports, and SaaS platform reports. We forward logs to a separate SIEM solution, enabling us to monitor TCP and inspect SSL traffic.

The logs from our virtual appliances show potential for improvement, particularly regarding their deployment in hypervisors like VMware, Proxmox, or Azure Stack. Monitoring the internal traffic between hosts with these hypervisors could be enhanced. While predefined reports are available, we often require customized reports tailored to the specific areas involving hypervisors. 

I have been using Palo Alto Networks Panorama for five years.

We use Palo Alto as a perimeter firewall for our public network, which can support nearly 40,000 users daily. About 7,000 to 10,000 users connect to the Internet through this firewall.

In addition, we utilize Palo Alto Global VPN for remote access. We have around 869 VPN users, primarily for remote work or when a government advisory requires the entire staff to connect. This solution integrates seamlessly with our Palo Alto firewall.

I rate the stability an eight out of ten.

It's important to reference authoritative sources like Gartner. We selected the product based on their ratings and assessments. In terms of capability, Palo Alto remains one of the top solutions for on-premises security, XDRs, and cloud security posture management. 

I rate the scalability a nine out of ten.

The support team is very knowledgeable. We only contact them when our partner support or integrated support cannot resolve an issue. They respond quickly, joining within an hour if there’s a critical situation.

Positive

We deployed our Palo Alto solution four years ago for the Azure Stack implementation. The complete deployment took around three months, as it's a comprehensive cloud solution similar to Azure or AWS.

If I were to replace my Palo Alto firewall today, I estimate it would take at least seven days to implement. Given our complex infrastructure, which includes SD-WANs and connections between three different data centers into one main center, this timeframe excludes the planning phase.

We are aligned with Palo Alto, as they are our partners. At times, we need to engage Palo Alto support directly due to our subscription with them, which was also established during the initial deployment.

Managing multiple firewalls across three large identities was becoming quite challenging. To address this, we implemented Palo Alto Panorama, which allows us to manage all our firewalls from a single interface. This has significantly improved our efficiency and manageability. It also helps us better use our current human resources; otherwise, we would need to hire several experts in Palo Alto to oversee the three data centers, which would be a cumbersome task.

Palo Alto solutions are more expensive than other products, but this often depends on an organization’s specific requirements. The level of security and features needed will influence the decision. For example, VPN access is essential for our corporate users and consultants, as company policy mandates that they connect via VPN to access the corporate network. When purchasing bulk licenses, we receive discounts, which makes the cost comparison with other solutions more favorable.

When it comes to security, complexity often accompanies it. With advancements over time and the integration of AI and new technologies, we're seeing improved features in the GUI compared to some online solutions. 

The ongoing improvements with the latest firmware updates are a positive sign. Still, virtual firewalls or appliances face a challenge: They could provide more comprehensive information than what is currently available in the reports.

We also use the VPN functionality, which became crucial during COVID-19. Initially, we had around 610 users, and now that number has risen to about 890 users who connect remotely through Palo Alto GlobalProtect VPN. We've never considered switching to another solution because it is stable and reliable for our needs.

You encounter news about zero-day vulnerabilities and firewall firmware updates when browsing the internet. We've been using our Palo Alto solution for the past four years, and during this time, some devices were procured five years ago, while others, including our Palo Alto firewall, were acquired around three years ago. Each identity had IT staff coordinating individual updates, which was inefficient. Now, with a unified approach through Panorama, we can monitor and manage zero-day vulnerabilities more effectively. Panorama plays a crucial role in ensuring timely updates. The features we utilize depend on the complexity of our network and the number of applications hosted in our environment.

Suppose your infrastructure is extensive, and you need a reliable, secure SDR, UTM, and firewall solution. In that case, choosing a product with comprehensive capabilities that you can rely on for at least the next five years is crucial. Proper planning is essential; if you purchase something that isn’t reliable or only plan for six months to a year, it may not be appropriate for your needs. Palo Alto is one of the best secure solutions for organizations with complex infrastructures, such as multiple sites in different regions.

Overall, I rate the solution a nine-point five out of ten.

The solution is primarily used for firewall management. It is required for clients who want to manage a large number of firewalls in multiple locations. Otherwise, it is not too useful. It makes sense to use the product when the clients want to manage several branches.

Managing the firewalls in the branch locations from a central management console is easier. We can schedule tasks like firmware updates and send rules or policies to all the firewalls in a single stretch. Palo Alto is one of the best firewalls we can have in our environment. It has one of the best back-end databases for signatures and behavior-based analysis. Recently, the vendors integrated it with a lot of AI for threat prevention. Palo Alto is a leader in the market.

If we implement Cisco or Fortinet's firewall for the first time, anybody with a basic knowledge of firewalls can set the policies and rules. The implementation is not that easy. Though Palo Alto is much better and more efficient than many other products in the market, we need some skilled resources to manage the initial installation and configuration. It leads to an increase in service costs.

The tool is relatively stable. It has a good security portfolio in the market.

The support charges are pretty high. The subscription renewals are relatively much higher than those of the peers. However, the vendor is working on the pricing. They are also getting competitive because Fortinet is taking over many Palo Alto clients due to the cost.

Initial implementation is challenging to an extent. The setup takes time. Once it is implemented, then it's very straightforward. Once the person managing the setup gets a good experience with the product, it's pretty easy to manage and relatively smooth.

The high price gets compensated with the piece of mind of having Palo Alto in the environment.

Palo Alto is costly compared to Fortinet and Sophos. However, the vendor is working on cost-effective models. They are working on the back end to make it more attractive for SMBs.

Palo Alto and Check Point are the top products in the market. Fortinet and Cisco also have some good solutions.

Palo Alto has one of the best portfolios in the market if we need a very stable environment to manage the information security space for our organization or our client's organization in firewalling, application-level firewalling, and contextual-based firewalling. We can also look at Check Point as an option.

The vendor has AI incorporated into their new offerings. Generally, behavior analysis has to be more automated rather than manual. With AI incorporated, the back-end OS can understand and easily detect certain vectors, like the zero-day attack. It's in a very early stage. It'll take quite some time for Palo Alto to scale AI to the level where the entire thing can be automated.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Our company uses the solution for monitoring and policies. We monitor data, make rules for firewalls, and allow source IPs to destination IPs with respect to ports and services. 

We also use UR filtering to allow or block things. We have a Prisma Access Firewall that we allow or block for remote users. 

We use the solution in a hybrid model with multiple on-premises instances plus the cloud-based version. 

The solution doesn't need a proxy for the Prisma Access Firewall. 

We can maintain our own policies within the solution and block things from the proxy perspective. 

When creating remote access for users, it would be beneficial to be able to base the object on on-premises or the cloud. We should be able to push policies based on a segregation or as a whole. 

I have been using the solution for one year. 

The solution is stable and satisfies my use case. I rate stability an eight out of ten. 

The solution is scalable. 

My focus is limited and I have not needed technical support. 

We are replacing Cisco and our Forcepoint Proxy with the solution. Since we will be using the solution's proxy, it doesn't make sense to have two filtering instances. 

The setup is simple. 

We implemented the solution in-house. 

The solution is priced a bit higher than competitors and could be a bit more flexible for customers. I rate pricing a six out of ten. 

There are multiple platforms available that include XDR and the Proxy. 

The solution is very easy to use in comparison to the Forcepoint Proxy. 

Based on my limited use of the solution, I rate it an eight out of ten.