Radware DefensePro Reviews

I set this solution up for a company who was using it as their edge security solution. It was used to secure the entire infrastructure for the company and helped to protect against DDoS attacks. It was being used in conjunction with a load balancing solution and an open-source firewall running on CentOS.

I was working with them at the time that this solution was deployed, but I have now moved.

This solution has given us protection against our network being compromised. All of our customers are depending on services that are offered on our network, and DefensePro makes sure that it is protected and customers have access to these services at every point in time.

The most valuable feature is the DDoS protection.

The reporting is very good and provides us with a comprehensive description of where attacks are emanating from. The solution mitigates against these attacks in real-time and you can see where their base path is routing from.

If for any reason, DefensePro goes offline, it doesn't prevent your infrastructure from functioning or your customers from reaching you. Obviously, the protection will not be there, but your customers can still reach the services that you are hosting internally. This is a good feature because otherwise, it would be a single point of failure for your entire infrastructure.

This solution may not cover all of the requirements in situations for which I am unfamiliar, and there is always room for improvement.

We implemented this solution in 2015 and it is still working.

This solution is quite stable. If the device is ever offline then you can still have everybody access the entire infrastructure. This is important in Africa, where power is not always stable. You can just wake up in the morning and discover that the power provider has made a mistake and the entire infrastructure is down. Once the power is restored, this solution boots up and simply begins working again.

Radware DefensePro is highly scalable. You have to imagine the high volume of packet inspection. As you add more links, you want the inspection capability to be able to handle more packets. It is just a matter of buying more licenses that allow you to inspect more packets.

This solution is part of the security wall that is protecting between 600 and 700 users in a call center services environment. Several call centers across the country are relying on DefensePro as part of their edge security.

The technical support is okay. They are very accessible and they have different levels of services, depending on your plan.

We did use another solution prior to this but we were getting a lot of attacks. This meant that we were paying a lot for bandwidth and our customers were complaining that our services were not happening in a timely manner. Based on this, we felt that our solution was insufficient to protect the infrastructure, which is why we switched to Radware.

The initial setup was straightforward. The deployment took about three days and the plan was executed such that there was minimal disruption to the business services.

We had been satisfied with the outcome of the simulation and everything we did before actually migrating to the production environment.

Two staff members, both system administrators, are handling maintenance. The same two people focus primarily on the edge protection devices.

The company had two consultants visit from Radware and assist with the deployment. They were very helpful, supportive, and trained us in such a way that we were confident in handling the solution on our own and no longer needed to depend on them.

All the way from the testing phase to the deployment stage, the Radware consultants were there to support our efforts and everything was successful.

The pricing is based on the amount of network traffic and the number of packets being inspected.

Before choosing Radware DefensePro, we did an extensive evaluation of all of the solutions that were available. This is a fantastic solution and it met all of our requirements at the time, which is why it was chosen.

The reporting provides us with a lot of interesting and rich data. It allows us to have total control over what is being protected.

When I first started using this solution, I wondered why it was that the DDoS protection could not be coupled with other edge protection features that I have on my firewall. I questioned why it was that I couldn't have all of the protection in a single box. However, I now realize why it is, from a strategic perspective, and it just makes more sense to have DDoS in its own box.

The biggest lesson that I have learned from using this solution is that you can't assume that everything is right unless you have insight as to what is currently going on within your infrastructure. You can't just relax and think that everything is okay. It is not a good policy to assume that customers are simply complaining about the services and their experience for the sake of complaining. Rather, consider that something is not right and look into it. This begins with getting the proper solutions in place.

Overall, I'm happy with this solution and what it has offered so far. The suitability of using DefensePro depends on your budget and your requirements. My advice is to make sure that you have your requirements right and then compare against the other products that are out there. I tend to believe that this solution is fit for all institutions and in my opinion, anyone who implements this will not regret it because it will serve them well.

While this solution has worked well, I can't say it is perfect because there might be requirements out there that I am unfamiliar with and are not currently being met.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We primarily use the solution for web application firewalls and as hardware.

I can only distinguish Radware DefensePro from Netscout AED, which doesn't have such a protection network, behavior analysis, intrusion prevention, and maybe anti-bot modules. This product is more advanced than Netscout AED. However, I haven't the knowledge of how it looks in comparison, for example, to F5 or Fortinet appliances or others, as I didn't do RFI and RFP. The most important thing for me right now in the Radware portfolio, is that Radware went to the cloud and has a flexible model based on virtual machines that can be delivered in our data center model, which could be delivered via the public cloud. That’s the big advantage of Radware, from my perspective.

Its functionality is very good.

The behavioral analysis is of very good quality.

I started from scratch, from medium customers to bigger customers, and then maybe smaller ones. I would like to have more granular steps according to protected bandwidth, so the granularity should be better. For example, one gigabit of protected bandwidth, two gigabits, three gigabits, and so on. Right now, it's two, four, and six, something like that. It depends on the appliance, of course, as Defense Code 6 is the smaller one and next is 10 or 12. However, in general, the granularity could be better.

I’ve used the solution for five years.

The solution is quite stable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn’t crash or freeze.

The product is scalable.

We have 12 to 15 people on the solution.

I don’t directly deal with technical support. That is the responsibility of others.

I'm not a technical guy. From my perspective, the initial setup is not easy. However, it's not hard. Someone who would like to have a good security policy should have enough knowledge to configure it using the security policy. The knowledge is essential since it's not possible to implement a security policy without knowledge about the traffic, including what kind of traffic, what kind of application, what kind of parameters, et cetera. It's not a hammer. It's a security appliance. For our people, it's not as hard since we use it. We know how to use it. It's maybe more important to integrate it with additional systems like a CM.

The solution offers good quality for the price.

I prefer low investment expenditures. I prefer paying less at the beginning of the project. After the customer base starts growing, I can pay more.

This solution is moderately priced. I would rate it three out of five.

To deliver to our current customers, we had to buy something new. However, in the future, we would like to check what kind of opportunities are on the market.

We are in the middle of buying the newest DefensePro. We switched to the new technology as the old one is the end of life and end of support. That's why we have to buy a new DefensePro.

It's in our internal infrastructure, so it's in our network. It's not a data center, for example, Amazon, Azure, or Google Cloud.

With this model, it's all one. We would like to extend it in the near future, maybe to be more flexible. I am in the middle of the project and in the middle of how to distinguish protection against DDoS attacks and have Layer 7 and web application firewalls. In our offering, we combined these two areas into one service. One part is DDoS protection against 7th layer DDoS attacks, and the second is web application firewalls. Right now, I would like to work on how to distinguish to maybe separate it. I don't know what it will look like right now.

I’d rate the solution overall an eight out of ten.

I'm a security engineer.

In terms of the environment that I work in, the SSL, DNS, and HTTP are all valuable features. This is a very technologically simple and effective solution. 

There are no issues on the hardware front, but on the management front, the APSolute Vision needs to be more granular so that it's possible to get real-time information. If I want to check on TCP traffic or any kind of traffic flowing between a source and a destination, I should be able to access it in real-time. For now, I have to check four or five options, then go for a TCPDUMP, download it, and then open it. It takes too long and is a complex process. There should be an option in the management server or on the GUI, to simplify things for users. It should just be a matter of putting in the source and the destination IP, to see the latency for that particular destination and what's going on.

Because Radware does not have its own control plane software, it can only integrate with specific products. They should aim to integrate with third parties such as Genie, Nokia, and Arbor DMS. It's currently very limited.

I've been using this solution for three years. 

The solution is stable.

Scalability is not an issue because the product comes with a scalable license. 

The customer support wasn't great but it was reasonable. 

The initial setup was very straightforward. Maintenance requirements depend on the size of the environment. If it's deployed in an ISP environment then it requires one or two administrators. If it's a single appliance for an enterprise environment, then one person is enough for maintenance.

I rate this solution seven out of 10. 

This solution is used to to block and mitigate cyber attacks. We have a lot of clients that use this solution including banks, corporates, and governments.

This solution is extremely scalable and has the highest level throughput (100G) which complies with Telco deployment.

The solution is also very secure and reliable and can be integrated with many different platforms. The configurations are very easy when considering the graphical user interface.

I would like to see more graphics within the dashboard. Right now, you are required to buy tools in order to have a graphical representation for your monitoring.

I have been selling this solution for a few years.

This solution is stable.

This solution has an entry level throughput that is extremely scalable. 

The support provided is very knowledgeable. We do not need to use them much since, as a distributor, we are trained and certified on the platform.

The initial setup was straightforward and much easier than the AppWall. You are able to install this solution on-premise in three to five days. There is a baseline that is based on the traffic of your network that can be adjusted and configured to your specific needs.

The whole process can be completed by a single engineer.

The price varies by use case and there are monthly and annual licensing options. If you deploy on-premise, there is an annual license with the amount dependent on the throughput you need and which features you will be using - i.e. IPS, behavioral, etc.

This is a great product for any organization looking to be protected from cyber attacks or hackers.

We use the solution for the protection of websites and institutional services. 

The product is very effective and performs well on devices. 

It's got a very intuitive graphical interface, very deep detailed information on attacks, and has the possibility of scheduling updates.  

They need to increase the limit of devices that we can manage (currently it is 100). I manage a huge network and I am forced to use two and this is very uncorfortable. 

In the event of a power failure, it would be nice for the device to turn on again automatically. When managing a very large network it requires to have to contact the offices for a manual restart.

I've used the solution for ten years. 

We've had good impressions of stability.

Sometimes it is useless in the analysis, especially if you specify that the device turns off or restarts by itself. It would take a quick way to bypass the initial analysis process and go directly to sending a new DefensePro.

Positive

We did not use a previous solution.

The initial setup was easy.

The technicians I have contacted over the years for various problems have all been very helpful and qualified.

We did not evaluate other options. 

We use Radware to control close to the most sensitive areas of our network and as protection against significant external attacks.

The important features include automated protection and defense against many attacks, it's important that our networks are protected in the Radware cloud.

As price increases based on the volume of net traffic, it can get expensive. 

The NetFlow security could be improved too.

More customization options would be a welcome addition. 

We have been using the solution for three months.

The stability is good at the moment.

The solution has scalability. 

Technical support is good, I would rate it a five out of five. 

Positive

Initial setup is easy.

We implemented Radware deployment through a reseller. 

We use about 10 engineers for the deployment and maintenance of this product.

It's very important for us to have well-analyzed and protected traffic within our network, that's why we use this solution.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

The solution is stable. 

It has a high level of scalability. It is reliable. 

The initial setup is easy.

Technical support is satisfactory. 

The features are good. 

We would like to have seven-layer functionality.

I've been using the solution for four years. 

The solution is stable and reliable. There are no bugs or glitches, and it doesn't crash or freeze. 

The solution can scale well, and it is easy to expand. 

We have about 1,000 people on the solution. 

Technical support has been good in general. We are satisfied with their level of assistance. 

Positive

It offers an easy initial setup. It's not overly complex. You shouldn't have an issue with the implementation process. 

I'd rate it 4.5 out of five in terms of ease of implementation. 

The licensing cost is about $50,000.

We are Radware partners. 

I'd advise potential new users to go with a hybrid mode and move to the cloud. That should be the approach.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.