Symantec SSL Visibility Appliance Reviews

What is most valuable?

The ability to do SSL chaining is most valuable. It provides the ability to send decrypted traffic at close-to-line speed to products that can't decrypt. So, it can take the decrypted traffic and send it to your IPS or your other tools to be able to see what's inside of that traffic for DLP or malicious content detection. That's the whole beauty of it. It was probably the elephant in the room for the longest in terms of SSL decryption. It can get the high band, especially for places that had a lot of decryption to do, such as big finance companies, big telcos, etc. It is a really good product. It has different features and things built into it. Feature-wise, they're the elephant in the room.

What needs improvement?

They're working on being able to handle more traffic. They're working on bigger boxes full of throughput because now networks are going to 40 gigs and 100 gigs. So, trying to keep up with the bandwidth demands is where things are being pushed. 

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using this solution for years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It works well, and it is a workhouse. I haven't had anyone come back and say that they want to get rid of this product because it doesn't perform well. It tends to work. You just have to get it set up and configured, but it work as advertised.

How are customer service and support?

When it comes to tech support, they have challenges everywhere. There was a drop in the quality of technical support during the transition from Symantec to Broadcom, and they are trying to build it back.

How was the initial setup?

It is a hardware box, so it is always on-prem. You need training, and you need to understand the technologies for setting it up, but it is straightforward. We have installed most of their products within a week with configuration. They aren't terribly difficult to set up.

What other advice do I have?

I would advise understanding how your workflows go because with users being remote and on-prem, you probably have to come up with some type of a hybrid solution. If you're trying to provide protection for your workforce, you'll wind up with a hybrid solution. I'd give it a nine out of 10. It is hard for me to give something a 10. It is a really good product, and I don't have any problems with it.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises