What is most valuable?
The blocking feature is great. It acts as an in-line blocker. Any malicious traffic that you see or anything, really, it can block the traffic. That feature has an intelligent way of detecting. It has a good software embedded in it, and it goes well integrated with the IBM product. It's an intelligent device that you can write in a simple way and tries to block malicious traffic.
The configuration definition and the policies are very simple. It's very user-friendly.
The XGS 5000 series is suited for our data center and that is really good in terms of the traffic that it can handle and the throughput it can handle - including the volume of traffic, the inbound and outbound that it can handle. The XGS feature for the 7000 series is really good.
The initial setup is simple.
What needs improvement?
Defining the new security rules and policies sometimes becomes a challenge.
Integration with other platforms becomes a challenge as well. I'd like to see more integration with other tools and technologies.
XGS 7100 has an end of support for the 30th of December 2022. Many are losing support. All the products of the XGS, including XGS 3100, 4100, 5100, and 7100, support is ending in December 2022. We need to know what is the plan post that? Do we need to spend money on them? Will that be extended? There has been no communication on the website either.
It's an expensive device.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've used the solution for more than five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It's stable. Stability-wise, there are absolutely no issues. There's no major issue that I have come across after the deployment. It's reliable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It can scale. There are product-related limitations there, however. For example, as the data center grows, the product needs to be replaced with another set of products. If it is a small data center, it may use a 3100 series. Then, over a period of time, if the data center scales up, more equipment gets onboarded onto your data center, then you have to upgrade it to a higher device. The hardware modules have to be increased and there are limitations for certain series. The 3100 series has certain limitations and only a certain volume of traffic can be handled. The 4100 has a certain volume of traffic it can handle. Et cetera. The biggest data center will need to scale up to an XGS 7100.
How are customer service and support?
With the solution mostly coming to end-of-like in 2022, we'd like more details in terms of what users can do after that date and if support could be extended. They are not sharing any details.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup of the solution is easy. If you are talking about the in-line, it's not so complex, however, for QRadar, it is a little complex. The integration and configuration are a little complex on that end.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The solution is quite costly. It's high in comparison to other devices.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I've compared Palo Alto and this product. I would say Palo Alto and XGS are very similar. They are equal.
What other advice do I have?
We have a partnership with IBM and we are consumers also.
The solution is on-premises. There are a lot of reasons the adoption was not onto the cloud. There's a lot of cost angular attached to it. All the events would be correlated and would be passed on and then there would be bandwidth constraints. Events that get generated in these data centers have a huge chunk of data. Passing that on that to the cloud for security concerns and also for cost-related issues would be too much, and therefore, the reason it is deployed for the on-prem solution is to protect data and to save on costs.
I'd rate the solution seven out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
