Cisco Secure Firewall Reviews

Cisco Secure Firewall is a next-generation firewall that can be used for various security applications. 

The advantage of using Cisco is its integration within the Cisco fabric, which allows for effective threat detection and mitigation.

Cisco could improve its score by developing more features that integrate seamlessly with various applications and investing in hardware acceleration to enhance performance.

The product is stable with minimal glitches or latency issues.

The solution is easy to install, requiring minimal expertise. Deployment time varies, but it can take about two days for a medium-sized company with 200-300 users to configure and install.

After five years of product usage, the high return on investment and low total cost of ownership can be observed.

Pricing depends on partnerships and certifications. The engineering team's certifications can qualify it for seven to eight percent discounts.

The platform's integration capabilities depend on the project context. In some cases, integrating Palo Alto may provide better performance, but Cisco can still be effective.

However, its classification in industry comparisons, such as those from Gartner, is lower than that of competitors like FortiGate and Palo Alto.

Overall, I rate it seven out of ten. 

Cisco Secure Firewall has impacted our cybersecurity cost efficiency.

The important features are IPS intrusion prevention, anti-malware, and anti-spam.

Cisco firewall needs experience with hardware. They should also enhance security antivirus, application detection, user detection, and ID detection. 

I have been using Cisco Secure Firewall for three years.

300 users are using this solution.

The support is good.

Positive

The initial setup is easy, but it takes some time to push the configurations. Also, it's a little complicated and not friendly to use. It is good only for IT and experienced people. 

The deployment took two months and a team of two to three people.

The pricing is average.

I recommend the solution to medium and enterprise customers since it is expensive. 

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

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. 

Neutral

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.

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.