Cato SASE Cloud Platform Reviews

We mainly use the Cato SASE Cloud Platform to provide internet and increase reliability. We have two links on each site, which gives us network security through the cloud and unified management from one portal. Any changes we make are automatically applied to the on-site device.

Unified management and internet duplication are our most valuable features. They provide a seamless experience for end users—if one link goes down, they can still work without noticing.

It has improved our efficiency because we don't need to configure individual devices, reducing configuration errors. It also provides additional security. Unlike our previous solution, the solution uses certificates to inspect all traffic, effectively blocking malicious content.

I have been using the product for four years. 

I'd rate the tool's stability a ten out of ten. We've never noticed any outages.

The Cato SASE Cloud Platform's scalability is great. You buy the license, and it's ready to go. I'd rate its scalability a ten out of ten.

Everyone in our organization uses it because it's our main gateway to the Internet. As for management, it's mainly me, as the IT manager, configuring it, with two IT specialists occasionally helping with smaller tasks.

We reach out to the support occasionally for minor problems. They're pretty quick, but if an issue needs to be escalated to a higher level, it can take two to three days to get a result.

Positive

The setup and onboarding process is very straightforward - I'd rate it a ten out of ten for ease. We use CatoCloud as our cloud provider. They have points of presence, and we connect to the nearest one to our physical location. All the routing, inspection, and logic for what to route, block, or allow happens in the cloud, not on the local device. Our deployment took a couple of weeks because we installed the sites manually.

If we had a team to help switch locally, it could have been done in a week. The deployment process is straightforward. We set up all the sites in their cloud system; then, they ship the sockets directly to the location or our main office. We connect the device to the internet, it gets activated, we assign it to a specific site inside the cloud, and it's online and ready to use. It's very easy.

We deployed in-house; Cato SASE Cloud Platform team members weren't required. Most of the work is done by configuring the portal, and connecting the physical device is very simple.

We haven't noticed any measurable ROI outcomes since implementing the Cato SASE Cloud Platform, but we've seen a significant improvement in our internet reliability. Previously, we had many complaints when the internet went down, as there were disruptions when it didn't switch over immediately. Now, we hardly have any issues or tickets related to this. We either notice problems on time and address them with the carrier, or end users usually don't notice any disruptions due to having two network connections. This has increased overall internet reliability across all our sites.

I'd rate Cato SASE Cloud Platform's pricing as about five or six out of ten. It's not the cheapest solution, but it is cheaper than Palo Alto and even VeloCloud. We've been working with them for a while and have significant discounts. Our licensing costs vary because we keep adding sites, but it's about 280 per month per site. This includes additional features beyond the base product, starting at around 200.

We tested the product to see if it worked in our environment, as each setup is different. It works well for us because we have many locations, and it helps greatly with managing all of them. It's an easy solution to connect everything instead of manually managing everything. It can suit small and enterprise businesses, but it might work better for businesses with multiple locations. It could even work for a large corporate building, but it needs to be tested thoroughly.

I rate the solution a ten out of ten. 

In construction, we have a company in the steel industries, where we are doing the POCs currently, and we have one exchange, Al-Jabr Exchange. We have a few others lined up, but currently, we manage this construction group.

Basically, we are providing the solutions for industries, such as the manufacturing industry, construction group, and a money exchange group. Additionally, we have another customer lined up, which is RPM, a rapid response team in the medical field.

My relationship with the Cato SASE Cloud Platform vendor is as a partner.

The Cato SASE Cloud Platform supports my customers' needs for connectivity and security by removing the throttling from the headquarters and putting a firewall in the cloud, instead of having to use a costly MPLS network to perform security inspection on all traffic from various branches. Now, with Cato SASE Cloud Platform solutions, branches no longer need to go to headquarters for inspection; they are picked up from the cloud, which increases efficiency and protection.

The most useful security feature of Cato SASE Cloud Platform for my customers is the Firewall as a Service (FaaS), which provides a single firewall solution that scales regardless of the size of the enterprise.

Cato's global SD-WAN capability impacts network performance positively by partnering with global tier-one networks, which increases efficiency, guarantees SLAs, improves speed, and reduces packet losses, making it a more efficient solution compared to traditional IPsec.

I don't see any areas of improvement for Cato SASE Cloud Platform since they have all their solutions in-house and implement suggestions rapidly, providing a continuous improvement process without any current challenges.

Having worked with the Cato SASE Cloud Platform solution for eight months and previously as a TAC engineer with Palo Alto and Cisco, I don't see any room for improvement as they provide everything we need for a SASE solution.

I don't have anything to mention regarding improvements at the moment, but I can contact you in a few months for any further observations as I continue to explore the solution.

I have been working with the Cato SASE Cloud Platform for eight months.

The deployment time is indeed quick, taking just two hours, and I have faced no significant challenges with Cato SASE Cloud Platform during this time; it has been easy to use.

Stability shows no complaints on my end.

The setup is straightforward from one to ten, and my customers are using it mainly in public clouds. For scalability, I would rate Cato SASE Cloud Platform as perfect.

Support is rated at eight out of ten.

Positive

The SD-WAN functionality improves network connectivity by optimizing traffic and reducing latency, which can lead to a return on investment with cost savings. Specifically, it replaces costly MPLS links with SD-WAN and utilizes an internet-based backbone with intelligent routing, resulting in a cost reduction of 40% to 60%.

The pricing is reasonable and depends on the usage.

I am also a partner with Cato SASE Cloud Platform.

Mentioning the bypassing feature and traffic engineering would be fine.

Currently, I find no need for any small improvements for Cato SASE Cloud Platform, but I have noticed that they implement suggestions rapidly, and although I'm not facing challenges now, I could think of potential additional features in the future, such as improvements in DHCP IP release functionality, which I have already requested.

To summarize, I recommend this solution for medium to enterprise-sized businesses. I am Mr. Anas Abdul Rauf, working for FSD Innovative Technologies as a network security engineer, and I hold a CCIE certification. I am set to work on FishOS as the first authorized partner in the GCC region, enabling me to provide further reviews after some months.

I rate the Cato SASE Cloud Platform a 10 out of 10.

The optimization and acceleration of traffic from difficult countries like China, India and South America are very valuable. Cato Networks is highly likely to win the deal if the customer has branch sites in countries with complex connections. On the other hand, if the customer has many difficulties, they may prefer other well-known solutions they already have installed.

In addition, we appreciate the optimization and acceleration of the performance of SDP users, especially those who work from home. The possibility of activating the IPS/TLS inspection without changing the device is also great.

The different languages in the user interface should be enhanced to include other languages. Currently, it's only in English, which would be an advantage in Italian for some small customers.

We have been using this solution for two years.

The solution is scalable because the possibility to scale depends mainly on the PoP. The PoP has no limitation in scalability, and there are two kinds of sockets. Still, there are a lot of differences in the suggested maximum throughput. One socket for under 500 megabits and the largest one has more slots for NICs. But the scalability doesn't depend on the appliance, it depends on the PoP.

For example, if you have 50 SDP users for people that connect remote to the headquarters, you can scale to 300 because all the staff works remotely. You won't need any updates, only the licenses in Cato, because the PoP can support it. This is different if you have a VPN based on the appliance because you usually have to update.

The technical support team is very good. We used them for deployment and initial settings. After that, it wasn't problematic. They can also advise you about the configuration if you change something during the time.

The setup is very easy. You can also define the policies and all the configurations without the need to have the socket already available. For example, with the customer, we configured all the settings and sent the socket to the branch in China. When the socket arrived, they only needed to turn it on and connect to the internet.

We are satisfied with the pricing. However, I don't know what the competition is on the price. It is also convenient because if you dismiss the MPLS connection, you save a lot of money, but it depends on the customer's network and their advantage.

I rate the solution a ten out of ten. The solution is good but can be improved by including different language options in the user interface.

It's a network device that is used for WAN optimization and security.

It's a cloud-based solution that integrates well with everything. They are the classic SaaS solution.

We don't need to have a static IP from our provider, which saves us money.

I would like to see better integration with identity providers. Right now, they have Azure and they have Okta. 

For directory synchronization they use LDAP, and it would be better if they moved away from this. My understanding is that they are already working on removing LDAP completely and using web-based authentication for the VPN users and other users. This is not something that is critical for me. I just set up the main services in Azure and use that. This is okay because we don't have a lot of remote users, perhaps 10 or 20 at the maximum, with VPN access. This may change in the future.

We are in the testing phase of this solution. I have been testing Cato Networks for one month.

During the testing period, there were no outages. Everything was smooth and worked well.

This is absolutely scalable, which was the reason we decided to go with Cato Networks.

Technical support is excellent. Even during our testing phase, they were able to set up at least three hours to walk me through and answer my questions.

They were knowledgeable and I would rate them a five out of five.

Negative

The initial setup was straightforward.

It's easy to set up and we just connect to their network.

As we are still in the testing phase, we have not implemented it yet. There will be some implementation, but it's pretty basic. There is no complex setup like you would have with Versa for example. For the most part, it's plug and play.

There were some questions that I had to ask them, but for the most part, I set it up myself.

If you compare with VeloCloud, the price is the same or even cheaper. Also, they include all of the security features, unlike VeloCloud.

We had evaluated others such as VeloCloud and vScaler. 

The advantage of Cato Networks is that they have integrated steps, such as SD-WAN plus Network Security, plus VCNA altogether, in one management pane of glass. It's one place to manage everything. 

With VeloCloud it's SD-WAN, and there is no security. You would still have to get a dedicated endpoint like a firewall if you want added protection then it would be harder to manage it centrally.

vScaler can be integrated, but then it drives the price up significantly. Also, it's not an ideal solution.

One of the advantages of Cato is that they provide a static IP from their cloud and assign it to us. This is a service that comes with an additional cost, but it's cheap compared to if I get it from my service provider. 

Now that the trial period is almost over, I have decided that I am going to go with Cato Networks.

My advice for anybody who is looking into Cato is to consider their environment. If they have a scenario where it is 80% cloud-based and 20% internal traffic, then Cato is a good choice. If on the other hand, they have internal applications with a data center then other solutions may make more sense. For us, since we are fully cloud-based, it is a better choice.

In summary, it is easy to implement and easy to manage. That said, there are always ways to improve.

I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.

We use Cato Networks inside our company for VPN connections to different company servers when we are working from home.

Cato Networks security could be better.

I've used Cato Networks for about two years.

Cato Networks works. I haven't had any trouble, and practically forget that I'm using it.

I'm using just a small part of Cato, so I cannot tell you anything about scalability.

I have not used Cato support.

Setting up Cato Networks was straightforward. There were no issues. Installation took a couple of minutes.

I rate Cato Networks 10 out of 10. It's a good product. 

The primary use case of this solution is to replace the routers we have and to combine the various ISP into one trunk.

It gives us higher internet bandwidth.

The feature that I find to be the most valuable is the bandwidth aggregation.

They can't do one-to-one NAT (Network Address Translation) in AP (their access point), and that is something that Palo Alto can do.

I have been using this solution for a few months.

We are using the most current version. It's a SAAS solution.

Cato Networks is stable.

It seems to be scalable, but we are a small company. Everyone in the company uses it. We are using their VPN for everyone who is working at home. All of the internet traffic is flowing through it. We have 175 people int total.

The technical support is very good. I would rate them a nine or ten out of ten.

They have been quite good for us.

Previously, we were using Palo Alto. 

We switched from Palo Alto because the renewal costs were getting expensive.

The initial setup is straightforward.

The price is not an issue for us, as it is priced more competitively than some other vendors.

It's a cloud solution. It has local hardware, but it's a could solution.

If it's a good use case for you, then it's a good solution. Cato Networks seems to do everything we wanted it to do.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.