What is our primary use case?
We use it to configure the perimeter firewalls. In FireSIGHT, we have two firewalls in a cluster with high ability, then we have five firewalls in Offices. We use those firewalls as a perimeter for Offices.
We have all the devices in the Firepower Management Center system. We always work with Firepower devices in Firepower Management Center.
We have offices around the world. We are in Europe, the USA, and South America.
How has it helped my organization?
We have border security with Firepower. We try to curb security issues by using this Firepower firewall.
What is most valuable?
The solution provides us with good working application visibility and control.
I have access to the web version of Cisco Talos to see the reputation of IP addresses. I find this very helpful. It provides important information for my company to obtain the reputation of IP addresses. The information in Talos is quite complete.
What needs improvement?
The configuration in Firepower Management Center is very slow. Deployment takes two to three minutes. You spend a lot of time on modifications. Whereas, in FortiGate, you press a button, and it takes one second.
Three years ago, the Firepower Management Center was very slow. The solution has improved a lot in the last couple of years. It is now faster. I hope that continues to improve.
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For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using it for three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We have five devices. In Rome, we don't have a technician and didn't work when we started using it. We had to send a technician to Rome to reboot the system. Now, it is stable with no problems. Also, we lost the link to the high availability firewall in our data center. We only had one device there, and Solutel had to solve this issue.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability is great.
We have five devices in four locations.
Three network administrators who work with Firepower, including myself.
How are customer service and support?
I usually create an issue with Solutel, then they create a case with Cisco Talos or the Cisco technicians. I am happy with Solutel's support.
How was the initial setup?
We deployed in several cities, but not the same day.
What about the implementation team?
The initial deployment was done by a Cisco partner, Solutel. Our experience with Solutel was fantastic. They are local partners for us and provided us with great service.
What was our ROI?
We realized that clearly we have issues of security with a lot of attacks. I don't know if it is because with the COVID-19 virus a lot of hackers are at home or working more hours. In the last year, we have seen attacks that are very big, and we need a barrier. So, we use a firewall to block these attacks.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The price for Firepower is more expensive than FortiGate. The licensing is very complex. We usually ask for help from Solutel because of its complexity. I have a Cisco account where I can download the VPN client, then connect. Instead, I create an issue with Solutel, then Solutel solves the case.
Our license for Firepower is their best license.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We have FortiGate firewalls, the security of Office 365 from Microsoft, Cisco Umbrella, and Kaspersky Anti-virus. We are also using Cisco ASA, Meraki switches, and a router from Cisco.
The Firepower Management Center tool is very slow. We also have the FortiGate firewalls and these tools for configuring the firewall are faster.
We have to make a change to our devices in South America. We are currently evaluating Cisco Firepower Series 1000 versus FortiGate. Firepower is more powerful than FortiGate, but FortiGate is more flexible and easier to configure. Because of our last issues with Firepower, it is possible that FortiGate is more stable.
What other advice do I have?
It is a very powerful device. Firepower Management Center is a great tool, but it is a bit slow.
We don't have Cisco Umbrella integrated with Firepower. We tested Firepower's integration with Meraki Umbrella, but we don't use it because you need better firmware.
I would rate this solution as an eight (out of 10).
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.