We use the solution to control all the emails that go out from the company. We also use it to protect our network by stopping unauthorized people from accessing it.
Marketing at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
Dome9 Cloud Street View for AWS Security: The Exponential Cloud Growth Visualization
Confidence is key when it comes to managing large IT systems. The tricky part is when a CIO tries to generate the trust and confidence of a company’s IT environment. Complete transparency is the answer. As you may recall, I’ve written about the need for transparency concerning Newvem’s services in the past. As the cloud industry market matures, the AWS cloud continues to grow at ground-breaking speeds, in addition to the usual individual cloud deployment. In either respect, transparency becomes an issue.
Cloud management vendors recognize the need for transparency and are taking the necessary steps to enhance their solutions to better support active visibility. The natural evolution of a typical management system begins with gathering data and presenting it in report tables. While traditional IT tools have had a similar evolution, the infinite cloud resources and dynamic manner of the environment take the lack of controllability issue to the extreme. This, makes visualization more crucial than in a traditional, finite data center.
This week, I met my good old `cloud friends` from Dome9 that released their new cloud security visualization solution, Dome9 Clarity –
“Think Street-view for AWS security. Transparency into on-premise security has been around for the last 15 years, we are simply extending this value to the cloud.” Zohar Alon, Co-Founder and CEO at Dome9.
Dome9 Clarity – Visualizing the data flows between AWS security groups
The value of IT management features has more than proven itself over the last two decades. Issues concerning systems’ availability, security and performance are anything but new in the world of IT services. Despite the fact that the cloud doesn’t eliminate any of these concerns, it does force a change to the key methodologies and processes. As an ex-Check Point employee, Zohar Alon, Dome9’s Co-Founder and CEO, built and led the security giant’s security firewall management systems. With this experience, the natural next step was to apply his knowledge to the world of the cloud.
Dome9’s Cloud Clarity provides cloud network security visualization within the AWS cloud. It is the sensible solution for optimized cloud security management. Controlling an environment with hundreds or thousands of EC2 instances that are grouped into as many as hundreds of security groups, not to mention the rapid and dynamic growth of inter-dependencies is far from an easy DevOps’ task. With Dome9, AWS users get a visual picture of their AWS VPCs and security group configurations. According to Alon, their new capability reduces such security audit efforts significantly and has been proven to condense four hours of auditing work into a mere 15 minutes – quite impressive!
As cloud deployments become more and more complex, consequently, the overall stack complicates as well. DevOps models evolve to be able to regain control supported by distributed systems’ methodologies. With the help of Clarity’s real visibility feature, customers are enabled with a clear understanding of their security system, which in turn enables control and support of the modern application stack.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Head of Technology and Systems at Simed
A product that performs well and enables users to control the information that goes out of their company
Pros and Cons
- "The product enables us to check the information that goes out of the company."
- "The product must provide different features like antivirus."
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
The product enables us to check the information that goes out of the company. We get to know if someone sends our sales emails to our competitors. We control the information that goes out of the company. It’s a good product.
What needs improvement?
The product must provide different features like antivirus.
For how long have I used the solution?
I am currently using the solution.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The tool always performs very well. All the upgrades happen automatically. We haven't had a problem with it.
How are customer service and support?
We haven’t needed much support.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The solution’s pricing is a little bit high. I rate the product’s pricing a seven out of ten on a scale of one to ten, where one is the lowest price, and ten is the highest price.
What other advice do I have?
I would like to implement all the security solutions from Check Point in our company. Overall, I rate the product an eight out of ten.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Buyer's Guide
Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP
November 2024
Learn what your peers think about Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: November 2024.
815,854 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Wraps our FTP infrastructure with network security and allows us to monitor FTP activity
Pros and Cons
- "Dome9 wraps our FTP infrastructure with its network security configurations, and this also gives us the ability to monitor FTP activity."
- "Gives us centralized firewall management for both Windows and Linux distros. Also provides a clear view of the security configurations and connections across environments (DMZ, external and internal networks)."
- "The user interface is responsive and quite intuitive; when selecting an object it automatically shows the relevant actions."
- "I’d like to see more integration with third-party tools. For example, it would be helpful to have an integration between Dome9 and ServiceNow to manage security incidents and security changes."
How has it helped my organization?
We have an FTP infrastructure that is accessed by customers. As FTP service is quite vulnerable if not secured properly, before implementing Dome9 we had to apply multiple security solutions on the FTP servers.
Dome9 wrapped the FTP infrastructure with its network security configurations. This gives us the ability to monitor FTP activity as well.
What is most valuable?
- Centralized firewall management for both Windows and Linux distros - This is something that everyone is looking for. The initial version of Dome9 was one where you managed all the rules centrally in Linux and Windows, which was quite challenging. Now, to see in a single pane of glass, all the agents, all the rules, everything that is going on in out datacenters, is quite valuable.
- Visibility of the security configurations
- Clear view of the security configurations and connections across environments (DMZ, external and internal networks)
- The user interface is responsive and quite intuitive; when selecting an object it automatically shows the relevant actions
What needs improvement?
I’d like to see more integration with third-party tools. For example, it would be helpful to have an integration between Dome9 and ServiceNow to manage security incidents and security changes.
For how long have I used the solution?
Three to five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I don’t recall any stability issue from the first time we used it. It has been solid and reliable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I didn’t encounter any scalability challenges. According to the vendor, we are far from the limit that has been tested by the vendor so far.
How are customer service and technical support?
The technical support has been very professional and helpful. They are knowledgeable and answer our questions in a timely fashion.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We had been using iptables on Linux servers but it was missing centralized management. Also, configuring firewall security rules was quite a nightmare, especially testing.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was straightforward, as the solution is quite intuitive.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
In order to obtain better pricing, I would advise taking into account the existing number of devices and add a forecast of the number of devices to be added in the coming year or two. The company has multiple modules that you purchase independently or in groups, depending on your needs.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
When we did market research five years ago, there were not many alternatives in the market for our purposes. We looked at Kaspersky Lab and Trend Micro but they didn’t address our needs.
We ran a PoC with Dome9 and it was transformed quickly into production.
What other advice do I have?
My advice would be:
- Share your project goal(s) with the vendor to help you map the functionalities and modules needed, to be implemented in phases, during implementation.
- Map your existing security configurations and create a lab to test them with and without Dome9.
- Implement the solution progressively and look at the logs in the Dome9 application to learn about the network activity.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
President at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
We have been able to empower our development team to work with the infrastructure in a managed, foolproof way.
Pros and Cons
- "Compliance is becoming an important tool for us as well."
- "Addressing the large amount of compliance information and benchmarks we need to observe, the tools are becoming our goto dashboards."
What is most valuable?
We started long ago with the dynamic access and protected assets, and it has always been a cornerstone for our highly mobile, distributed development team. We require tight control on access, and when our team travels it helps us gain access as needed in a protected manner.
Compliance is becoming an important tool for us as well.
How has it helped my organization?
We have been able to empower our development team to work with the infrastructure in a managed, foolproof way to insure testing and other efforts don't leave unintended holes.
What needs improvement?
The governance and compliance areas are becoming very useful, and continue to expand in very user-friendly ways. Addressing the large amount of compliance information and benchmarks we need to observe, the tools are becoming our goto dashboards.
For how long have I used the solution?
Many years, so many I forget. Not too long after I discovered them at AWS the first or second year of RE: Invent.
What was my experience with deployment of the solution?
None. Just follow the easy instructions for IAM Policies.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Rock solid.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Never a problem.
How are customer service and technical support?
Customer Service:
Highly engaged at all levels of the organization, and truly helpful, which cannot be said for many others in their space.
Technical Support:Helpful and usually spot on early in the request.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We have assessed several, and Dome9 is the only one that we have used continuously, and it has begun to replace other solutions as Dome9 rolls out new features.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Product Manager at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Helpful account discovery feature and good reporting against compliance
Pros and Cons
- "The reporting against compliance is an important feature that helps you comply with policies and standards within your organization."
- "The price of this solution should be reduced so that it is more affordable to scale."
What is our primary use case?
We are a reseller of security solutions, and we also offer professional and managed services around them. We cover network security, web application firewalls, email, web security, security information and event management, privilege access management, and other such products.
Dome9 is one of the solutions that we implement for our customers, and they use it to help secure their cloud. It works on several cloud platforms, including Azure and AWS. It will handle security issues such as ensuring a proper configuration, that the credentials are set up correctly, and that the storage of sensitive data is appropriately configured.
Some of our customers use Dome9 for discovery, to help them understand the different accounts that they have in the cloud. Very often, there can be a proliferation of cloud-based accounts and applications that the organization on a wider basis is not aware of. Dome9 is very good if you need to get an inventory and reporting on the current state of your environment.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature is the discovery. People are often quite shocked when they run the analysis and figure out all of the accounts and servers that are running in their environment. These are accounts that they are unaware of.
The reporting against compliance is an important feature that helps you comply with policies and standards within your organization.
What needs improvement?
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with Dome9 for about one year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I have never had any negative feedback about stability, so I assume that it's perfectly stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Dome9 is very scalable, although as it scales it can become quite costly. As such, for some of our customers, scaling is not possible because it is cost-prohibitive.
How are customer service and technical support?
I have not personally deployed Dome9 so I have not had any contact with technical support.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is pretty straightforward. You can get it up and running in a matter of hours. Because it is cloud-based, it pulls the information in via APIs. As long as you can put in the relevant account details, it can work almost immediately.
There is a language that you can use to create policies and rules, which gives you the ability to do more complicated things, but it will take longer to set up.
It only takes a few people to deploy this solution. One from our side and perhaps two from the customer's side.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It is a very straightforward licensing model that is based on the number of assets you are discovering and managing with the solution.
What other advice do I have?
My advice to anybody who is considering this product is to look at the free proof of concept that is available. This makes it very easy to try out at no cost. I suggest trying it out on a subset of the environment first, just to get everything working well. After establishing what reporting you want, and what policies you want to check your environment against, you can expand to cover a wider set of your environment.
The biggest lesson that I have learned from using this product is that organizations are very uninformed about their cloud presence, what assets they have, and what shape it's in. It's huge exposure for the organization to have all of these assets in the cloud but not have the visibility and traceability around them. Organizations that don't have a solution like this are often insecure because of what they have in the cloud.
Overall, Dome9 is a good product and I haven't received any negative feedback from our customers about it.
I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
Owner at Liversidge Consulting Ltd
A powerful solution for our clients to effectively deal with problems unique to AWS
Pros and Cons
- "People implementing this solution are concerned with addressing a significant risk, and within the AWS realm, this tool does de-risk substantially."
- "I would like to see some AI on the back-end, just to assist with doing analysis and making recommendations."
What is our primary use case?
We have been researching this solution as something to provide for clients who are interested in implementing a high-security AWS environment.
How has it helped my organization?
This solution provides some security around holes that are uniquely present on AWS. We try to convey to clients and customers that when you move to AWS, the whole attack surface is different, and therefore you can't take your existing tools to AWS and then secure it in the same way as you can your traditional environment. You need to have tools that understand the nuance of AWS, and that's the reason we use Dome9. It has these unique skills and attributes in the AWS world.
Specifically, we are interested in securing IAM. It controls everything in AWS such as who can create computing instances and who can destroy them. Given that all of the power is with IAM, you have to make sure that you haven't over-privileged, or through the combination of people being users, groups, or roles, that they haven't collected too many privileges that you weren't aware of.
What is most valuable?
The feature that I found most valuable is the ability to scan IAM, the Identity and Access Management tool, for all of the privileged accounts.
What needs improvement?
Integration with other security tools would be of benefit.
I would like to see some AI on the back-end, just to assist with doing analysis and making recommendations.
For how long have I used the solution?
Trial / evaluation.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability is rock solid.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I have no concerns with the scalability of this solution.
How are customer service and technical support?
Technical support for this solution is excellent.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We did not use another solution prior to this one.
How was the initial setup?
This solution is easy to get going, although it requires a lot of training to get the best out of it.
It took us weeks to set it up, which was very quick. In terms of setting it up for a client, the strategy would depend on what holes they have in their security infrastructure, and how we can use this solution to close them.
What about the implementation team?
We implemented the solution in-house and would assume this role for our customers.
What was our ROI?
This is the sort of tool for which ROI is not really considered. People implementing this solution are concerned with addressing a significant risk, and within the AWS realm, this tool does de-risk substantially.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It is a standard licensing fee, with no additional costs.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We evaluated another solution called Evident.io, but it had a lot of overlap with traditional tools, whereas Dome9 was unique in its approach.
What other advice do I have?
This is a product that I would recommend because it does unique things that I'm not aware any other product can solve those issues. It is incredibly powerful and gives our customers a lot of assurance that we're taking AWS security seriously.
My advice for those implementing this product is to use every piece of it. Explore every option and feature and leverage it to the max.
I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Reseller.
Senior Consultant at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Streamlines visibility of cloud environments to make management easy
Pros and Cons
- "Checkpoint posture management gives you visibility across your entire cloud infrastructure, so it helps you with management, maintenance, and compliance. With visibility across all these cloud platforms, you can protect against compromised credentials or identity theft."
- "I would like to see improvements in the vulnerability assessments in terms of how the solution discovers vulnerabilities or compromised workloads. Also, customizable reports would be nice."
What is our primary use case?
It is a good tool for a large enterprise operating across multiple cloud environments, like AWS, Azure, or a hybrid infrastructure. Check Point posture management gives you visibility across your entire cloud infrastructure, so it helps you with management, maintenance, and compliance. With visibility across all these cloud platforms, you can protect against compromised credentials or identity theft.
What is most valuable?
The assessment history lets you test each environment for each rule you set. You can see if the security tests have passed or failed, then plan a roadmap ahead on how to strengthen your security to defend against attacks on your cloud environment.
What needs improvement?
I would be great to have additional features when it comes to vulnerability assessments in terms of how the solution discovers vulnerabilities or compromised workloads and not just on security configurations with customizable reports would be nice.
For how long have I used the solution?
I'm a system integrator and a managed service provider. I've been using CloudGuard for a couple of years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
So far it works and we've had no major issues with stability. When it comes to managing clouds or gaining visibility, generating, or scanning different cloud environments, it meets all the requirements, especially if you're going through a specific compliance audit.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
When it comes to scaling up, it's very easy to just add licenses. But to prior implementing this solution, you need to have a good accounting of all your assets to onboard on this platform. CloudGuard is good for bigger, more complex cloud infrastructures. But if you have only one cloud infrastructure, I don't think you will see much advantage over other cloud posture management. That's why this is useful mainly for bigger enterprises with multiple cloud instances and different cloud environment providers.
How are customer service and technical support?
So far, they've met all the service-level agreements (SLAs) with no delay. When it comes to Check Point, they have local distributors to provide level one or level two support. For level two or level three, it will go directly to the Check Point support. And I think that's how their SLAs work. The first line of their support should be local. If it cannot be handled locally, it goes global Check Point support.
How would you rate customer service and technical support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
Setup is usually simple. It's not hard to implement it and gain visibility across two or more cloud infrastructures. It's quite fast. As long as you have the right number of assets, workloads, and applications for each cloud environment, you can easily deploy CloudGuard.
What was our ROI?
In terms of pricing, it's in the middle but more on the high side. It's not steep. However, I think the price is right for its functionality and the value you get from it when you're managing multiple clouds. It solves a lot of your compliance problems.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The licensing model is based on the size of your cloud infrastructure. So to estimate what you will pay, you need to count each and every asset. And when I say assets, that means every application, database, server, or virtual network on your cloud infrastructure.
I'd like to see more flexibility in their licensing model. It's based on assets, but we all know that assets keep on growing. I would recommend a flexible, upgradeable license, so when you add assets, they can easily bill you or upgrade you.
What other advice do I have?
I rate CloudGuard a nine out of 10.
I recommend CloudGuard posture management for anyone who needs to take control of multiple cloud environments. It streamlines visibility, so this is the right tool if you are trying to meet a specific compliance standard or you're managing hundreds or thousands of servers within your cloud environment. It unifies your cloud environment.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
Implementer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Excellent posture management that's easy to implement
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable feature is posture management, which gives you complete visibility of all your assets in the cloud and allows you to do governance and compliance."
- "CloudGuard could be improved by including integration with vendors other than AWS, especially Azure, especially in permissions."
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature is posture management, which gives you complete visibility of all your assets in the cloud and allows you to do governance and compliance.
What needs improvement?
CloudGuard could be improved by including integration with vendors other than AWS, especially Azure, especially in permissions. In the next release, I would like them to include some kind of online scanning on code in the development phase.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been working with this solution for two years.
How was the initial setup?
CloudGuard is easy to implement.
What other advice do I have?
For those looking into implementing CloudGuard, I would suggest contacting SharePoint professional services to get the job done easily. I would give CloudGuard a score of ten out of ten.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros
sharing their opinions.
Updated: November 2024
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