FireMon Security Manager Reviews

Firewall auditing is very important. We also use the solution for rule traffic analysis, traffic flow discovery and hidden/shadow rules within over 100 firewalls spanning five different brands. These features are valuable as firewall rules are constantly added but its tough to determine what can get cleaned up over time. Knowing how frequently a rule is used, where redundant rules exist and documenting changes are important.

Since our network is large, someone new like myself has a challenge when we need to make changes to permit certain traffic. Often this traffic will traverse multiple firewalls and FireMon can help demystify where needed rules need to be implemented.

We just went from the v7.x to their latest web based v8.x which was a welcome change. One area for 7.x customers that needs improvement is the migration. It is an involved process so get ready to spend some time getting your environment back to the way it was. Another area that could use improvement is the traffic path analysis. FireMon uses learned zone data against interfaces to help determine traffic pathways. The catch here is in v8.x, you now have to specify a source or destination network which may throw off the results sending you to the incorrect firewall. Since we just upgraded last week, there aren't many other items that we can see as improvements as we are just getting familiar with this version.

I've used this solution for a little over one year.

The migration from v7 to v8 needs to be improved but we had no issues in the initial deployment.

We have a centralized server with data collector appliances placed between two data centers. We were losing change data because one of the collectors had too much load on it but we never knew. Support had to dig deep when we had our 7.x install and help balance out our firewall to collector ratio to ensure we weren't flooding any one collector.

It's been able to scale for our needs.

Their support is very good. They are generally responsive and I have needed to escalate only a couple of times.

We had no solution in place prior to this. FireMon was the best choice as they really specialize in this niche market.

Like anything new, we needed help from support to get our initial setup moving along. However once you learn the basics, it's not hard moving around the system.

We did get FireMon's assistance during our initial implementation. I encourage this as every environment is different and for me it was worth the investment to get that initial startup help to get things going.

Like any implementation, take time and plan. Engage users and stakeholders letting them know what this system can do and get it integrated within the organizational ecosystem. Like any solution, if it isn't used you simply don't get that potential dividend.

The reports you can run to look for redundant ACL’s in the firewalls, and the policy trace and review. It also allows you to tie to multiple domains so that the administrators for the FireMon servers do not have to deal with the hassle of making 'view only' accounts. You can also use the Insight function to keep records of the ACL’s. Instead of filling up the firewall with remark statements that could lose their position, you can leave all the information in the FireMon server, and you can tie in ticket information. It also allows you to put an expiration date on that ACL so that you can always remove unneeded exceptions.

It improved performance of the organization, as instead of going line through line of the firewall, we were able to quickly find IP addresses or services using Firemon.

I believe their network maps have a lot of room for improvement. I think they should allow more customization.

I have only worked on this product for a year.

No issues encountered.

We have not had any issues with stability.

My organization only used FireMon for Cisco ASA products, so I am not sure if it works with other firewalls but it does support other vendors.

Great, they hold free WebEx sessions for additional training on FireMon.

They're extremely responsive and experienced on the product.

We did not have a previous solution.

An in-house team did it.

Using this product allows firewall administrators to quickly find a problem with their firewall configurations. It allows the administrators to also look for open services that should not be allowed. One of the most useful features is the ability to use policy trace. If you work in an environment with multiple tiered firewalls you can look at exactly what ACL’s the traffic is going through on each firewall without having to have permission to those firewalls.

It is a smart move to make and makes the administration and troubleshooting of ACL problems clear.