Check Point VPN-1 [EOL] Reviews

We use it as a firewall for network segmentation, malware prevention, VPN, and a lot more. The product helps to separate clients from server networks and protects internet traffic. 

It also helps secure different kinds of applications and user surfing traffic, whether it’s classic proxy functions with URL filtering, anti-phishing protection, or malware sandboxing, just to name a few. You can also use it as a VPN endpoint for client and site-to-site VPN infrastructure that interacts with different kinds of vendors.

This product has now served more than 30 years in the market and has evolved tremendously over the years. Check Point administration and management help you through visibility and performance. Even though its price is high, you have one management platform that has a great user experience and is easy to use. 

The log viewer and its indexing is especially useful. It can lower your administration time and can also be used with an API. If you want a perfect and centralized solution that gives you fast access to all of your network areas, this is the right product. The new AI functions will speed up the administration even more.

Valuable features include IPS, anti-malware, VPN, and many more. All of them are state-of-the-art technologies, and with the AI features in Check Point's latest versions, you can get out more of the product. 

VPN clients are easy to use and deploy. The catch rate for anti-malware or anti-phishing is exceptional. 

There were independent tests where Check Point had a huge advantage over other vendors. Also, the proxy functions to secure surf traffic are working properly. 

For enterprise environments you have high availability functions for clustering.

Pricing is sometimes challenging, although it brings a lot of features. 

Sometimes, you have trouble with interoperability with infrastructure vendors to get clustering running. Support is also good but can take time if you have tricky issues. 

There is no big difference from other enterprise products in the market. It would be great to see more features in the product that currently need to be addressed by additional vendors. For example, rulebase optimization from Tufin.

I've used the solution for 20 years.

Using clustering and virtualization for HA situations works great.

Using Maestro makes scalability and future growth easy.

Support offers good escalation handling. Sometimes solutions and hotfixes take time, but in the end, we can solve every issue.

Positive

We didn't use other solutions. Check Point was and will be our number one solution. The great community and technical contacts help so much.

The setup is straightforward if you have the right knowledge to deploy. Users need to choose the right integrator.

We handled the setup in-house. We have a lot of knowledge and experience in Check Point.

The solution's easy administration and support help us to use our time for other important IT issues.

Get in with a good integrator to help you get fair prices and support you with licensing.

We did evaluate open-source firewalls, like IPtables, however, that is a long way back.

Check Point was and will be the leader in its area. Check out Gartner's Magic Quadrant to compare it to others.

One of the main use cases of Check Point VPN-1 [EOL] in our company is to provide secure remote access to all the devices of our collaborators. Previously, our company had its entire data center on-premises, which is why it was one of the tools that was used to provide protection between external and internal communications.

Four years ago, our company began to make innovations in the area of technology in many applications, so many of our servers migrated to the Azure cloud and this brought with it many changes.

Check Point VPN-1 helped us a lot in our company by protecting against external threats through firewall protection and its VPN functionalities which gave access to external entities to our infrastructure. The tool helped us a lot in preventing vulnerabilities, including detecting and preventing malicious activities. With its extensive security features, we managed a lot to keep our entire environment safe and well monitored, and it helped us a lot in improving security posture and being vigilant in case of new danger.

Check Point VPN-1 [EOL] has several valuable features for a company's security environment. It offers VPN functionalities, allowing secure remote access to the company network and thus gain access to secure each of the resources. 

It also has an IPS that prevents and detects all malicious activities in the network. The firewall makes a filter in the network for incoming and outgoing information.

The product offers fairly good centralized administration and monitoring with decent capabilities that allow the administrator to have relevant control over devices.

As with all technological tools, it will present some deficiencies in order to improve its performance. This does not mean that it is bad, however, they must improve in these areas:

It should have improved scalability since, as we all know, companies grow constantly.

It should also have machine learning as cyber threats are constantly changing.

It should have excellent integration with the other security tools.

Although it presents good monitoring, it does not have very good reports. The analyses provided should be improved in order to provide more information.

The product was implemented approximately five years ago..

The stability of the tool was always one of its great features.

The tool does not have great scalability. It has a limit. That said, with what it has, it has a good performance.

Between on-premises and now the cloud, support has not improved much. It's very much the same.

Positive

We did not use a different solution. Since the days of on-premise infrastructure, the same tool has been used.

The installation of the tool is easy, and its configuration is fast.

The installation was done by an engineer that the supplier gave us. At that time, he knew what he was doing.

In companies, managers always want to see ROI. In this case, the return will be the security of the company's information that could even cause bankruptcy if said information is leaked or kidnapped by hackers. This is why it is important to have excellent security and make a good investment in protection technologies. 

The installation of the product is easy. When it comes to cost, you always have to think about the installation, maintenance, support, and licensing. That is why it is very important to know what type of tool is needed in the company. You need to have well-defined characteristics so as not to waste money and economic resources.

When the migration to the Azure cloud began, we began to evaluate other technologies. That said, we decided to continue with Check Point. At the time, some others that we analyzed were Cisco ASA ,Juniper SRX, and Palo Alto Networks.

Make a good plan when doing a migration, seeking out innovation, or acquiring a security tool. It is always good to identify what you want to protect and how you are going to do it.

In the nascent years, the golden years, when we were applying content filtering and perimeter security, and we were beginners when it came to being able to configure or have a truly established network, we found a solution to control and have remote access to what is known as Check Point VPN-1. It was one of the solutions that allowed us to have connectivity from the different branches to remote sites, such as the wolf houses and other branches that the company had, and also allowed us to filter content.

It allowed us to have content filtering and commercially available firewall perimeter management that had been available since 1997. It was very functional and was one of the best brands that had been securing the network. This system is installed, and as such, it allows us to set up a stack of protocols, files, and processes that would give us functionality and differentiate us from the market against the competition we had today and thus be able to be better and safer when establishing a perimeter line of defense.

Its most outstanding feature is content filtering. The ability to connect or interconnect different branches thanks to its innovative side-to-side configuration management, or what we know as site-to-site VPN. This allowed us to be innovative and always stay connected at all times. We must consider that many of these teams were based on Gaia Embedded, an arm-based distribution for SMB devices; however, they were among the best we could have in the early 2000s, when we started using this technology.

At that time, we all wanted something fast and efficient, flexible, easy to configure, and, above all, scalable. A lot of what was requested at the time and that today we have, thanks to the innovations and the contribution that Check Point gave us, is that it was its fastest installation. Every time we made a change, the policy took about three minutes to apply, and obviously, when there were emergency changes or changes that we needed that were escalated, they were not modified very, very quickly. Before it was issued, it caused a delay. It was improved, and today we enjoy a faster and more efficient technology, and we can either include it or be able to have them as high-availability devices in a cluster.

I've used the solution for seven years.

The application control of the solution is something that I find very valuable.

The reporting from the file or reporting from mobile access needs improvement. The solution, in general, could use better reporting tools.

I've had issues in the past with one bug, but it has since been resolved with the help of technical support.

The solution is stable. I haven't used it for about three years, but my colleagues do, and they say it's very good.

Technical support has been good. 

Previously, I used Cisco and a proxy. I switched to Check Point because it's stable.

I would rate this solution eight out of ten.