SECDO Platform Reviews

What is our primary use case?

A lot of people are using the solution to meet the compliance side of things, as opposed to using the genuine solution. A lot of people are saying, "Hey, this has a lot of brand behind it and has a lot of documentation." That, and you can hire someone out of the box to work with it, as opposed to say CrowdStrike which just purchased an XDR not long ago. In the case of that product, it's going to be a struggle for people to find someone who knows that XDR really well out of the box without training. I'd say a lot of clients are primarily looking for a product from the ease of use side.

What is most valuable?

The brand behind the product is quite useful. The solutions that are coming out, granted out of the box, typically work a lot better than SIEM tools. The solution is pretty in-depth. There's a lot you can do with it. Technical support is great. Palo Alto is extremely helpful and responsive.  The product is a good solution for enterprise clients.  There's a lot of training documentation provided by Palo Alto.

What needs improvement?

Many will try to use this as an out-of-the-box solution, however, it needs to be configured to fit what a company would like to do with it. Users must avoid buying it just for the brand name. they need to make sure it will do what they need it to do. Buying the brand does not fix your problems and does not cover all bases. The solutions themselves need to be properly architected. This isn't a solution that works for every company in every case. 

For how long have I used the solution?

We've been in business for three years and may have used the solution for about that long. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

In terms of stability, I haven't had any issues with them and I haven't heard anyone say anything about them having issues. So far it's been stable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I haven't run into any problems with scaling the product and I have not heard clients complain either. Scaling is possible, even though, I have to say, I personally have not scaled it a lot. 

How are customer service and support?

Technical support is great. A lot of the time, from what I know, people just don't use that support, which is too bad, as Palo Alto support is great. There's also good documentation and good security surrounding it as well. Everything is transparent and information is available. 

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup can be complex. I would advise users to leverage all of the access with Palo Alto, in terms of setting up with the technical account management teams. They need to ensure that what they have in mind for the product is actually going to be what happens. I have not run into any problems with deploying the product. Any of their security products are well-documented, either with open source intelligence or the documentation from Palo Alto.  We had a client with less than a thousand users that received a dedicated engineer and a technical account manager that was able to walk them through the first 90 days of ownership. The support is certainly there. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I do not deal directly with the pricing information. From what I've heard, smaller companies are able to purchase the product without blowing their budget. In comparison, with solutions such as Splunk or even Azure Sentinel, smaller companies are not able to leverage those tools properly due to costs. Companies with less than a thousand employees are able to purchase the products and use them effectively. I don't see cost being a huge problem.

What other advice do I have?

Palo Alto solutions to me are better left to an MSSP, as opposed to in-house, just because of the way they're developed. We tend to use the latest version of the solution. 99% of the time we won't interact with clients that don't keep their systems up-to-date. If you're not updating, then there's no point in even calling in a consultant as that's your number one problem. I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten. We're pretty happy with its capabilities.