What is our primary use case?
We primarily use the solution for endpoint security.
What is most valuable?
One of the strengths of McAfee in general, not only in the Endpoint, is the ePolicy orchestrator. It's a single management platform for all the solutions and also a single agent. From my experience, with all other products, it becomes easy to use with multiple deployments.
With McAfee, what you do is you just upload and download some packages for specific features. For example, with endpoint security, you get only the four features, the firewall, web control, the ATP, and then threat prevention. Should the client would want an additional feature, for example, device control, full-blown DLP, or application control, then we can add the packages for that and then easily deploy it with the client.
What needs improvement?
Looking at the current ePolicy orchestrator, and the transition of most vendors to the cloud, they need to do an improvement with the current dashboard or the overall aesthetic of their GUI. They need to just keep up with the current trends. It's still a bit old-looking. That said, with the CASB, their other solutions their cloud solutions, they're already on the way with that. They are working on improving things.
The initial setup can be a bit difficult.
They should offer further application control. The way of doing the application control is based on an inventory scan. It would be great and it would be at par with other solutions if they would be able to improve that into a category-based application control.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've used the solution for about three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
McAfee is one of my favorites. It's very stable and reliable. There are no bugs or glitches.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have been able to scale. For example, a client who wanted to migrate their on-premise solution and then move to the cloud found it to be pretty straightforward. With things like this, there is still room for improvement and there can be trouble doing that. However, with the experience that I had during the migration, it was pretty smooth and seamless.
How are customer service and support?
I haven't had any experience with technical support. I'm working as a presales engineer, however, I have colleagues who've had a few experiences with McAfee technical support. Usually, it's all about clarifications around the licensing or loading of the license. For example, we have had experiences with the license already loaded to the client's account and we haven't received the email yet. When that happens, we have no way of accessing the account of the client. In those instances, we'd reach out to support. Beyond that, we don't really need help.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have experience with Trend Micro, Sophos, and McAfee.
The main difference is their single solution. There's one single pane of glass you're looking at which gets easier with the maintenance. The utilization is also great. It takes away the customer of having to deal with problems with the utilization. There's a balance between the performance of the agent as well as the operation of the client. You won't hear a client complaining that a McAfee solution.
The threat intelligence with respect to endpoint security is great too. With the threat intelligence and McAfee having been in the industry for so long, it has a better capability of protecting our endpoints.
How was the initial setup?
For the setup, if you're not familiar with it, it can be a challenge. From my experience, when I just started working with McAfee, it was really hard to understand how the policies work, how the policies should be implemented and how would you assign them to certain groups. If you're just getting started, it's hard. However, if you're already familiar with how policy creation works and how you're supposed to assign it to certain groups or certain users, then it becomes easier over time.
For every 100 users, one person is enough in terms of handling maintenance tasks. Management is easy as you can manage everything from a single pane of glass. It doesn't require a lot of manpower.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
If you look from the Gartner perspective, and if we're only looking at the leaders' quadrant, McAfee is around five out of five in terms of price affordability. Among all other solutions, it has really a reasonable price. If you look at the entire Magic Quadrant, not only the leaders' quadrant, McAfee is even better. There are other solutions that have a more reasonable price, however, it also comes at the cost of the quality that we're offering.
What other advice do I have?
I'm a reseller and solutions provider.
It can be deployed in a virtualized environment or on the cloud. It depends on the client's requirements. I typically recommend the SaaS environment, however, in the Phillippines, it's mostly on-premises still. In that case, we may use a virtualized or physical server.
I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: