Juniper vSRX Reviews

Our primary use case for the Juniper vSRX solution is protection. We use it for Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) and Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS).

At the moment, we have about 120 vessels running under Juniper vSRX with 20 people per vessel. It's 2400 users. For deployment and maintenance, we have nine people.

We don't use anything extra on the production side. We would like to increase usage. We are going to put an inner portfolio on more than 20,000 vessels. 

We plan to put all of them under the same umbrella with Juniper vSRX.

The features we found most valuable are using the IDS and IPS during protection. For prevention, the application filtering feature is great, fantastic.

Up to the point we have used it now, there is no need for anything extra in the product.

The stability of the solution is very good. It's very stable.

Juniper vSRX is very scalable and easy to use. The difference is that we are always using it. The scalability is the main reason why we got it. 

We evaluated quite a lot of products before we took on this station. It's expensive.

The technical support is very good. They are very fast. They are our partners. It's in their benefit to help us work efficiently. They are earning money on it.

The initial setup is straightforward. Our deployment took three months. We had to put it together with many adjustments for the system to work together.

We used our partner Teresa for the installation of Juniper vSRX.

We evaluated the IDS and IPS without considering application filtering. It is easy to connect Juniper vSRX to the vessels. We have vessels that lead to connectivity.

Our network is very limited. One of the most important details with Juniper vSRX is that we can collect all of the updates in one single place and then push it over to the vessel. 

This was something very important to us in production.

On a scale from 1 to 10, I would rate this product a 10. When you've got a 10, there is nothing to improve. There's nothing to add. The pricing still needs some improvement.

We use it for our network and VPN.

We have a lot of field users. Using this tool, they can get authenticated into the system. Instead of going through multiple steps to bring up client information, it is just the click of a button on a mobile application, then they can get authenticated.

The authentication part is seamless and easy for people. They can use their mobile phones and everything to get authenticated. 

Right now, we are going through issues and problems where the product gets dropped with the connection or during the authentication initial phase. While it could be our problem, we would like to see more stability in this area.

The stability needs improvement.

We have more than 5000 field agents. From our perspective, we are okay with scalability at this time.

Juniper vSRX was a replacement product for something called Network Connect that we were using before. It seems much easier for the clients to log into it.

We are using both the on-premise and AWS versions. They are used for different purposes, so I can't compare them.

Our primary use case is for firewall and network security

It does everything that we need it to do.

• Easy to maintain.
• Easy to use.
• Easy to set up.

It is easy for me to go in and update settings, make changes, or add/remove rules or security. 

Also, it works. That is the biggest thing.

The user interface could always be better. They could make it simpler and more intuitive. While it is pretty good now, they could always make improvements.

We don't put that much stress on it, but it is very stable. I don't think we have ever had an issue with it crashing or going down.

Our college is small, so we have a smaller environment. However, it appears like it would scale easily. There are other larger colleges who use Juniper using the same system and setup that we do with thousands of faculty and staff instead of the hundreds that we have.

I have not contacted technical support.

It is not that costly.

We also evaluated Cisco, but we had a good experience with Juniper in the past. Our rep with them would come out and talk to us about things routinely. Thus, we already had a good relationship with them.

It works for us and has worked for other colleges and universities.

We use just the on-premise version of the product. We are not on AWS yet. I'm looking forward to integrating this solution into AWS soon.

On the cloud, we use it to test functionality.

Our company is in a proof of concept mode with this product. We have not selected it yet.

• Security posture
• VPN

The GUI interface needs improvement. It also needs improvement with the VPCs.

Because we are in proof of concept, the stability hasn't been stressed more than 30 percent.

The scalability is okay. 

The size of our environment is 46 offices.

The technical support has been good.

The integration and configuration with AWS was excellent.

Our experience purchasing the solution through the AWS Marketplace was good.

We like pricing through the AWS Marketplace.

We also were considering Palo Alto Networks.

Look at this product and Palo Alto's product, then do a deep comparison analysis.

It integrates with our VPC and Direct Connect Gateway.

I am also using it on-premise. Compared to the AWS version, it is pretty transparent.

I can’t really say a firewall improves anything other than security, but we have been able to solve a lot of extranet connectivity issues with these firewalls that the bigger name devices didn’t handle so well.

It is bomb proof as seen by the fact they are still in production use today. A simple human friendly command structure, making CLI edits and debug sessions easy and quick, means that they just don’t fail.

The SRX is a different device. It is much more sensitive to unexpected power loss so we had to RMA several after unexpected site power outages. The command structure is also different so that I always need my cheat sheet when debugging on them.

The NSM is its own beast. It's a 10 when it’s running properly, gives you all the info you need easily to make and document edits and monitor status of devices, but keeping it running well is almost a job in itself. It doesn’t manage its own database very well and it gets slow and unresponsive, often requiring user intervention on the server backend.

Currently we use Juniper products, SSG and SRX firewalls in about a 50/50 mix both standalone and in HA clusters. We also use their NSM for device management and logging.

The SSG models are mostly EOL and are being replaced with new “Next Gen” firewalls. The SRX models will likely continue to be used internally as support will remain available for some time.

We only use the firewall and virtual router options and they do what we need:

• The firewall is easy to configure and testing shows we are blocking the threats.
• The virtual routers make this solution a one box answer for our needs and simplify our internal networking. As they are built into the devices, they allow you to move and separate traffic in a number of ways on one set of hardware.

They constitute a solid working solution that has been able to cope with any of the unique challenges that have come up.

While the OS supports a pretty full UTM option, we found in testing that the hardware was not powerful enough to run with all the bells and whistles turned on for the amount of traffic we process. So we use other hardware for those services meaning it’s not a deal breaker for us.

We have had no issues at all with the SSG models and the SRX model only had problems with sudden power loss occasionally.

The only issue was that the Network Security Manager (which is EOL) was sold as supporting over 125 devices. That may be true if you are just managing the configurations but once you add in monitoring and logging it’s really only happy with fewer than 40 devices, as the database grows too big to deal with and needs constant maintenance.

I would rate the technical support as average, as the calls were responded to quickly but as usual it depends on who you happen to get on the phone that day. Some were very good, others times I had to ask for a different engineer to join the call.

This solution was in place when I started so I cannot answer this question.

The setup was straightforward and to get into a cluster consists of about ten commands. The hardest part is deciding on active/active or active/passive for your solution.

I’m not involved in the financial side of the purchase. Our buyers handle that. Support and licensing comes in the usual tiers, SLA for repairs and/or options turned on in the device.

I know they left Check Point and looked at Cisco products before choosing Juniper, but that decision pre-dates my involvement.

I would say get an SSG but they are EOL so for the SRX make sure you have the recovery boot system configured and a way to remote console the device.
I know this sounds like a major problem but it’s not been that big an issue. We run HA and have same day replacement on them so if we lose one it’s not a major outage, just more work to do.

The tool could be used without additional work. It is easy to implement.

The IDs of interfaces that are implemented inside of the vSRX maybe should be extended in some cases because there is the imitation of virtual interfaces.

I have been using Juniper vSRX as an end user for five years.

The product is stable.

I rate the solution’s stability a ten out of ten.

The solution’s scalability is high because more than 4000 elements can be deployed.

Around 100 users are using this solution.

Technical support is fine.

The initial setup is easy. We use the special scripts to configure it. It is automatic to configure and implement. 

Documentation.

The tool is sold in a package. Hence, the individual price is very low.

I recommend the Juniper vSRX solution. Its effectiveness depends on the architect's expertise. We've encountered no issues with its deployment in our system. Our collaboration with Juniper has been satisfactory in terms of quality. However, it's essential to consider cloud technology within such architectures. The current solution lacks scalability and might need to be reevaluated based on emerging trends in security with the increasing shift toward cloud technology.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.