Palo Alto Networks PA-Series Reviews

We have a customer in Sri Lanka who uses it. They are banks with multiple branches and use the Palo Alto firewall to connect them in local area. It's also used to connect their local area network and servers. Basically, it's a standalone firewall for their setup.

Another customer is Maliban, a textile and garment company in Sri Lanka. They also use a standalone PA-800 series firewall. I haven't personally enrolled it, but I can manage it since I have experience working with the VM version in a VMware setup. Palo Alto is not only a hardware product, it can be used in VM environment.

Additionally, there's CELSI, which has a PA-5500 series firewall. I enrolled that one when I first started my current job.

Overall, our enterprise-level customers mainly want to secure their bank branches, local networks, and websites. They primarily use standalone firewalls, and I haven't had any issues managing them so far. Even though I haven't personally enrolled all of them, I'm confident I can handle any recommendations or configurations needed.

It handles security threats really well. Wildfire keeps updating all the security threats in the cloud environment. If we receive any latest attacks, we can forward them to the cloud and check them in Panorama. The Wildfire updates are excellent for security. That is the feature they have, as per my understanding.  

Mostly, my partners and customers are connected through VPNs. I have VPNs for my enterprise, which work with multiple customers for online solutions and payment gateways. I also have a contact solution for payments.

My firewall solution allows me to manage stability and security effectively. I ensure the stability of security solutions through routine checks and updates.

In my role as a tech, I provided support for various firewalls, including the PA, PM, and virtual series. It wasn't limited to a specific product like the PA-800 series, PA-1000 series, PA-9000 series, PA-7000 series, or PA-5000 series. We received training for all firewall types.

Palo Alto gives proper training for the product, not cutting corners over that. They don't assume you have previous knowledge and experience and start working directly, which happens in most companies. 

So, they provide product training very thoroughly. This helps the support system to have the necessary knowledge, not just before starting to work or troubleshoot. 

In the 11 months, we were initially trained on various OS versions and given tools like vSphere because we didn't have access to the Palo Alto environment. 

Later, when we got access, we were given a tool to design our own networks, study them, and, if needed, raise concerns about issues. 

The engineers or senior engineers would then study and guide us. They trained us for new upgraded versions of the OS regularly. Even as a third party, we had complete access to the Palo Alto Networks domain, tools, database, knowledge base, and everything. 

This gave us the opportunity to build our skills and understand what Palo Alto requires us to do. We could troubleshoot it properly with customers. 

We use the solution as a gateway for users and network devices. 

When I compare the tool with other firewalls, it’s the most powerful. It's the most powerful security engine. All the traffic going to the Internet passes through it as the first layer of protection. Because of its good performance, we also use it for decryption.

The product's most useful function is its performance. I also appreciate the ability to create rules as groups and apply filters to each group. Each application has its own rules, which can be combined using a group, which is very effective. Additionally, we use Palo Alto Networks PA-Series for decryption, applying encryption policies on the firewall. The encryption policy works for all traffic going to the Internet.

We integrated it with Active Directory, specifically with our three or five Active Directory servers. This integration works well for user analysis and policy authentication.

The tool is rated high in Gartner reports. 

There are various use cases, particularly for desktop scenarios. One of them involves exploring contacts. Virtual firewall use cases revolve around different scenarios, such as transitioning to the cloud. For instance, when Barclays uses Azure or AWS, there's a focus on meeting security obligations and implementing threat prevention to comply with regulations like GDPR or PPA. This includes creating segmentation to align with regulatory standards. As part of this process, security features available in cloud platforms like virtual firewalls and threat prevention are incorporated.

After the implementation here, especially since I work in the data center, I've noticed the significance of security. For example, Veeam, CDL, and other aspects became crucial, especially during the COVID period when users started working from home. 

This situation led to numerous blocks, and user profiles were getting blocked due to issues with IP addresses ending up on blocklists. However, after implementing the 3M series virtual firewall, we were able to effectively manage security for our cloud applications, like those in AWS. This enabled us to monitor remote workers and take necessary actions, such as blocking problematic IP addresses. Consequently, we reduced the number of tickets raised with ISP providers.      

Firewall implementation and firewall rule edition are the primary use cases.

It's very secure. It inspects the application. Compared to script-based or CLI-based firewalls, it's easier to use the GUI (graphical user interface) to implement the firewall. 

It has its own logging system. You can go to monitoring and check the logs to see if a connection is getting blocked. You can use multiple types of logs to check if a file or a port is getting blocked or if there are any TCP resets from the source or destination. It's easy to troubleshoot with the monitoring and logging it provides.

We use the solution to connect to the internet. It is for a company that produces dog and cat food. We have enabled threat prevention.

The product makes me and my users feel safe. I like the URL filtering. I don't have to change or add something. I like the security analyzer a lot. I use it a lot to see if there are any configuration errors. It points me in the right direction. The documentation is great. We can find everything we want in the knowledge base. We can learn how to set things up. It is understandable. Even I know how to do it.

There are various use cases, particularly for desktop scenarios. One of them involves exploring contacts. Virtual firewall use cases revolve around different scenarios, such as transitioning to the cloud. For instance, when Barclays uses Azure or AWS, there's a focus on meeting security obligations and implementing threat prevention to comply with regulations like GDPR or PPA. This includes creating segmentation to align with regulatory standards. As part of this process, security features available in cloud platforms like virtual firewalls and threat prevention are incorporated.

After the implementation here, especially since I work in the data center, I've noticed the significance of security. For example, Veeam, CDL, and other aspects became crucial, especially during the COVID period when users started working from home. This situation led to numerous blocks, and user profiles were getting blocked due to issues with IP addresses ending up on blocked lists. However, after implementing the 3M series virtual firewall, we were able to effectively manage security for our cloud applications, like those in AWS. This enabled us to monitor remote workers and take necessary actions, such as blocking problematic IP addresses. Consequently, we reduced the number of tickets raised with ISP providers.