Cisco Secure Firewall Reviews

We use Cisco IronPort, Firepower, Secure Firewall, Email, and Secure Connect.

As with most products, integration could be better where needed. Sometimes, for example, the Cisco Secure Firewall and IronPort are in a class of their own. When it comes to management and logging, there's room for improvement.

Most of the products aren't configured on their own, but they are related together. There should be some sort of management. We would need a supervisor to manage it before using all of the solutions together.

They address services that belong together. For example, the Secure Client provides remote access. Authentication and multiple-factor authentication are two different products that belong together. There should be a link between both products and between both management interfaces to see, for example, troubleshooting or reporting so that you have both sources together.

It would be great to have all the data correlated to have an overview and one point of administration. 

The grouping of the solutions helps save time. If you have a problem and you have a high-level overview of the system, you can easily dig deeper into the problem. For example, I can check to see why ASA isn't working but the reason for the outage is actually because of Duo. I can spend a lot of time working in the wrong direction because I didn't have an overview.

IronPort stuff looks at first a little bit outdated. It's not a fancy-colored view, but it does its job and is extremely helpful. Debugging on this platform is very easy. 

Firepower's implementation and reliability need room for improvement. 

We address our problems with the relevant people. Some of the quality of their support has dropped. If your problem gets escalated, there are many skilled people who are absolute pleasures to work with. They are brilliant at what they do. 

If you talk to someone who solves the problem within five minutes you can't do any better. But on the other hand, the other end of the range needs improvement.

You can have a case that lasts 15 months in which you have to talk to 20 people to resolve. 

The complexity of the installation depends. It's not so easy to install. Each topic needs one management interface. So you end up with 20 to 40 different management platforms. All of them use a tremendous amount of resources. If you're willing to install it, you need a huge pile of hardware. It is not clear what everything does. Some consolidation there would be helpful. Other vendors face the same problem.

We have seen ROI from using Cisco.

I chose Cisco because I've been working with them for 23 years. I choose it for its stability and because they have the right range of products. Most of our IT staff is happy with it.

I would rate it a nine out of ten. 

We use the solution to secure our external software application and user access through different ports.

URL filtering is valuable.

The virtualization aspect has room for improvement.

The scalability has room for improvement.

I have been using the solution for three and a half years.

The solution is stable.

I give the scalability a one out of ten.

The initial setup is straightforward.

The price is good.

I give the solution a nine out of ten.

Previously, our customers had to always utilize hand-to-hand delivery. Now, they are able to move completely to a secure digital method. They use a strictly dark fiber optics connection from a central location to the endpoint.

Our clients have been able to consolidate infrastructure products such as Talus for hardware encryption and Dell EMC for D2D de-duplication and backup.

FMC could be improved because management with FMC is quite difficult compared to using Firepower web-based management.

We've been selling Cisco Firepower for a year.

Our clients feel that Cisco has proven stability in enterprise networking, routers, and ASA firewall security.

We are very confident with Cisco's technical support and would give them a ten out of ten.

Positive

Previously, we sold Check Point and Palo Alto.

We choose to sell Cisco because it has been approved by NATO. Our clients use a strictly offline infrastructure, and there were significant issues with Check Point. In addition, we have good support from the local Cisco office, and they also suggested that the end user goes with Cisco.

As a Cisco Secure Firewall reseller, the value we bring is very good support. You will not get the same level of support from some other vendors. For instance,  Palo Alto and Check Point don't have direct support like Cisco. They have third-party support. Thus, you may get a response only when you escalate the issue to the third tier of the service level. With Cisco, everything is resolved within a day.

The initial setup is straightforward because most network engineers have worked with Cisco. Cisco invested in universities, and as a result, 40% of the network experience of students is with Cisco.

Our clients are mostly financial institutions and have strict policies that do not allow personal data on external clouds outside the country. As a result, they mostly use an on-premises or hybrid cloud deployment model.

We are currently having our customers switch from the 2000 to the 3000 series.

The price is not too high, but the subscription is a little bit high. We compared the activation of Cisco and Fortinet, and when we activated the whole portfolio of the UTM of Fortinet, the speed was reduced. We tested the same situation with the Cisco 2140 series, and there was no reduction in speed.

When you're evaluating the solution, take a look at the customer reviews.

We have had no issues with Cisco Secure Firewall, and I would rate it at nine on a scale from one to ten.

We are mainly using it as a VPN gateway and edge firewall.

It helped us with the transition to working from home and hybrid working. Because of its VPN capabilities, it enabled us to keep working while everyone had to stay home because of COVID.

It integrates well with other systems within our environment. 

I like its integration with the AnyConnect client. I also like how modular it is. For example, I can easily integrate the Umbrella add-on into it. We are planning on adding Umbrella. We haven't added it yet, but we have researched it.

One big pain point I have is the ASDM interface because it's Java, and sometimes, it's a bit buggy and has low performance. That's something that probably won't be improved because of backward compatibility. 

The CLI is not always clear. It's not always intuitive.

Some of the things, such as site-to-site VPN, are complicated to set up. The settings you have are all hidden away in crypto maps, and you can't have a setting per tunnel. When you want to change one particular tunnel, you automatically change them all. That's a drawback.

We've been using the Cisco ASA firewall for about two years.

It's reliable.

I haven't had much contact with their tech support. We have a partner called Fundamentals for support. They're good. I'd recommend them.

We have a Palo Alto core firewall, and we handle threat detection and intrusion prevention on that device. We don't use Cisco ASA for detecting or remediating threats.

Compared to other systems that I have used in the past, Cisco ASA is reliable, and it's not a very big hassle to set up. It's very good, and it just does its job. 

It's not a very big hassle to set up. It's a bit complex when you go into different topics that aren't the basic capabilities, such as when you go above VPN and basic ACL configuration, but all in all, it does the job.

I'd rate it a seven out of ten because of the ASDM, non-intuitive CLI, and complication of setting some of the things.

Our primary use cases for this solution are as a traditional firewall, VPN system, IPS, and for URL filtering.

I think that the firewall feature is the most valuable to me as it is one of the oldest features for this solution. We also appreciate how stable the VPN is.

I have a lot of difficulties with the solution's Firewall Management Center (FMC) and the GUI. Neither is responsive enough and should be improved.

My organization has been using Cisco Secure Firewall for more than 10 years. 

My opinion is that this solution is quite stable.

We encounter tech issues often. Sometimes it's really good to work with the tech engineer, but sometimes it can be really frustrating that it's slow to go through the email chat and everything. It depends on the engineer you get.

Positive

I have had difficulties with the implementation of this solution. When I first encountered this solution, I had difficulties bringing it up and configuring it, but this was maybe due to the fact that back then it was a new technology. It is possible that I would have an easier time with it right now. 

I would say that this solution did help free up staff. Today, and even during COVID, a lot of customers are interested in VPN solutions and this demand will only keep increasing. I work from home mostly and the solution saves me two hours per day.

I do want to stress that this solution saves our organization time. We have 13 engineers in our company and even more staff in other departments and they also have the opportunity to work from home and with this, they save a lot of time. We plan on buying a smaller office thanks to this and this too will save a lot of money for the company.

The reason we chose Cisco is that some of my colleagues partnered with the provider when they came to Hungary, so they have been working with these solutions for a long time.

I do not have experience with the Cisco migration tool, but my colleagues do and they are really happy with it and its ease of use.

I would rate this solution a nine, on a scale from one to 10, with one being the worst and 10 being the best.

We have a lot of use cases of FirePower. In one of the use cases, we have two offices, and we use FirePower on our two sites. One of them works through the site-to-site VPN, and we have a controller on this site.

I work with Cisco and other partners, but the Cisco team is the best team in our country. When I call them, they always help us. 

I started to configure the device with version 7.2. After that, I had a problem. It was not a physical problem. It was a software problem. They advised me to install 7.0. I uninstalled and reinstalled everything. It took time, but it started to work normally.

I am not a programmer, but on the business side, they should fix all such issues in the future. We are Cisco partners, and when we recommend Cisco FirePower to customers, they always think that FirePower is bad. For a single installation of FirePower, if I have to write about 18 tickets to Cisco, it's a big problem. There was an issue related to Azure. We had Active Directory in Azure. The clients had to connect to FirePower through Azure. We had a lot of group policies. After two group policies, we had to make groups in Azure, and they had to sign in and sign back. It was a triple-layer authentication, and there was a big problem, so we didn't use it.

We have been using this solution for about two years.

It's very stable now. Everything is fine for me.

I use just two devices. I've not tested anything else.

Their customer support is very good. We also work with other vendors, but Cisco's support is still the best. I'd rate them a 10 out of 10.

Positive

For me, it was very easy because I solved all problems, but I had to install it two times. 

We are a reseller, and for us, it's a 10 out of 10 because if we sell it, we will earn money, but customers have to agree with us.

We mainly use it in the data center. We are obliged to use a firewall. It's a necessity.

It has helped in securing our infrastructure from end to end so that we can detect and remediate threats. There is another office in my company that does threat detection, but it has been helpful.

It hasn't freed up any time. We still have to manage the firewall. It's something we have to do.

All the features except IPS are valuable. IPS is not a part of my job.

It's already pretty good. In terms of functionality, there isn't much to improve. There could be more bandwidth and better interface speed.

I've been using Cisco firewalls for 20 years.

Its stability is very good.

It's better to have a higher speed. I'd rate it an eight out of ten in terms of scalability.

We have multiple locations and multiple departments. We are a big company, and we have a lot of remote sites. We have about 6,000 of them.

They are very good. From time to time, Cisco employees come to us and provide information about the latest features and new products. I'd rate them a ten out of ten.

Positive

We have other firewalls, and it hasn't helped to consolidate other solutions. We have to use the Cisco firewall and other vendors because of internal law. We have to use two firewalls, one from vendor A and the other one from vendor B.

We went for Cisco because it's affordable. It's something you can trust. It's something you know. It's a valued product. 

I've been involved in configuring it and assessing and ensuring that the configuration is up to date and there are no bugs, etc.

Its initial setup is not at all complex. I've been working with Cisco firewalls for 20 years, so I know them very well. It's not complicated for me.

We have all deployment models. We have on-premises and cloud deployments. We have everything. I belong to a big organization.

We had a consultant for integrating the product. Our experience with the consultant was good.

The number of people required for deployment varies, but one person can deploy the solution. It's quite easy to implement. It doesn't require a lot of staff.

It requires normal maintenance.

It's affordable.

Try it. You will be happy. 

I'd rate Cisco Secure Firewall a ten out of ten.

We use them in our data centers and on the client side. We have a small installation of Firepower in our main data center, and we are also using Cisco ASA firewalls. So, we have the old ASA platform and new Firepowers. 

It saves time because it's easy to operate and it's easy to add new zones or firewall rules. It's also easy to troubleshoot. It's a neat platform.

When I was managing these firewalls, I found them easy to understand, easy to deploy, and easy to maintain as compared to some of the other firewalls I have been involved with earlier. The opinion of my coworkers is that it's easy and quick to establish new zones, expand, and maintain.

I'm not very familiar with the largest Firepower models, but competitors like Palo Alto seem to have a more capable engine to do, for instance, TLS/SSL decryption. As I understand, Firepower doesn't let you export the decrypted traffic so that, for instance, the security department can look at the traffic or inspect traffic. It's all in the box. I've heard rumors that this is something Cisco is working on, but it isn't yet available.

We have been using Cisco firewalls for about 10 years. 

Its stability is good. We have a failover standby solution that works fairly well. It can have some improvements, but we are happy with it.

We had an issue where we had to install another cluster for the firewall because we went out of the capabilities on one of them. You need to analyze in advance how much your usage will grow in the future and you have to decide based on that. It's about adding more firewalls. We can scale in this way, and it's good.

Whenever I've used their tech support, they have been successful. They quickly pinpointed the problem and provided swift remediation for all the problems. My experience has been good. I'd rate them a nine out of ten.

Positive

We decided to go for Firepower because we needed to expand, and we have a large installation of Cisco devices in our environment. It's 70% Cisco. We have one location where they are using Extreme equipment, but in that location also, we have Cisco firewalls. Having one vendor leads to ease of management. It's also easy in terms of competence. We have good knowledge of Cisco, so it's easy to maintain and operate a Cisco platform.

For network security, we have a central hub for all the external traffic. That is a huge load of traffic. On those applications, we are using Palo Alto. We have a mixed combination of Cisco and Palo Alto in our central locations.

Using Cisco firewalls has helped to eliminate or consolidate some of the tools and applications. We have some installations of AlgoSec to see what's going on or how the performance is, but we have, more or less, decided that we don't need them now because there is so much information that we can pull from CSM or FMC.

It's easy to deploy and maintain.

We have a partner for Cisco products. We have a contract with a new partner now for the SDA fabric on ACI.

I'd rate Cisco Secure Firewall a nine out of ten. 

We are using these firewalls for edge security or different zones of security. We use them throughout the whole organization, but they vary in size, depending on if it's a small office in Spain or a large office in another country. We have offices in many countries.

It saves time. It protects us from experiencing big or small attacks. If we are vulnerable to attacks, it would take us a lot of time to fix that and put out all the fires. Hopefully, we won't need that when we have several layers of security.

We feel that we can trust the security, and our assets and business are well protected. We need to have trust in it, but we also see that it works. We have a security company that has tested that it works.

They have already improved it to some degree. It has become easier, but I've not drilled down much myself. I mostly use CLI, but I can see that it's a little bit more GUI-based. So, improvement is already there. It's a good thing that we now have GUI-based control over the details, and that would be the way to go.

It integrates with other security products from Cisco, but sometimes, there can be glitches or errors.

I have been using Cisco firewalls for the last 20 years. We are now mostly using FPRs, but we also have some old Cisco firewalls that we need to change to newer technologies.

It has been a while since I used it myself. My experience was good. You get the correct engineer for the task. I'd rate them an eight out of ten.

Positive

We have firewalls from other vendors, but we will be moving over to Cisco. When we have the same vendor, it would take less time to train people to do their job because there is one technology rather than four or five different ones.

I was involved in its deployment, but that was a few years ago. It was not an in-depth technical installation; it was more of a physical installation. It was easy. We are a big company, so we need to plan the downtime and get approval from the business to take down systems and upgrade them. 

I'd rate Cisco Secure Firewall a seven out of ten.

Our clients use Cisco Secure Firewall to protect them from data breaches. They also use it for site-to-site VPN connections and remote access.

The most valuable features are remote access, site-to-site VPN, and next-generation features.

The management of the firewalls could be improved because there are a lot of bugs.

I've been selling this solution for three years.

Most of our clients have deployed the solution on-premises and are slowly migrating to hybrid and to SaaS models.

When you configure it, it's very stable.

Cisco Secure Firewall is a scalable solution.

Cisco's technical support is good.

We used to sell Palo Alto firewalls and switched to Cisco because it was more cost-effective for clients.

As a Cisco reseller, I try to give our customers the best possible solutions for their problems.

The initial setup is straightforward for smaller organizations, but it can be complex when companies are larger.

Migrating certain components of a client's previous firewall configurations to Cisco Secure Firewall with the migration tool is simple, easy, and quick. However, it would be really nice if we could migrate complete ASA configurations to FTD with the migration tool and not just the policies and objects.

Maintenance-wise, we troubleshoot and make changes if required.

I deployed it myself with, and perhaps with one person from the client's end.

On a scale from one to ten, I would rate Cisco Secure Firewall at seven.