What is our primary use case?
We use it for our edge firewalls and our east-west and north-south traffic for our firewalls. We have also deployed each firewall to every site for our Layer 3 connections back to our data center.
How has it helped my organization?
Since we've integrated it into our east-west traffic and north-south traffic, I feel that it has reduced the number of viruses or other things in our endpoints. I wish to expand it more all the way to our endpoint computers so that we have end-to-end firewall security through Palo Alto.
It provides a unified platform that natively integrates all security capabilities. This is very important to me because I'm in IT infrastructure. I take care of the entire operations network and everything that flows north and south, east and west, and inside and out of our data center. It's very important that we have Palo Alto to protect us.
It embeds machine learning in the core of the firewall to provide inline, real-time attack prevention. When any packet comes through the network, everything is like a first pass. It goes through every single part of our network, and we don't have a delay in alerts or network security. It stops any attack on the line.
What is most valuable?
I like all the threat alerts and WildFire. I also like scanning because everything that comes into our network via customers is scanned. We're an electric company, so every one of the bills is scanned and emailed in and out of our network.
What needs improvement?
I like the reports, but I wish the reporting was a little better. When I set up the automatic reports to come in, they're pretty basic. I would like them to be a little more advanced at the ACC monitoring and things like that. I still enjoy all the daily alerts that I get and all the daily PDFs and reports, but I just feel that it could expand upon the visualization of the reports.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using this solution for seven years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability is great. They're not going anywhere. They're the industry leader.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It doesn't matter whether you are small or large, Palo Alto will fit your needs.
How are customer service and support?
I'm in Pacific Standard Time. During the day, I have great support, and after 5:30, I don't have great support. During my business hours, I would rate their support as a ten out of ten. I love Palo Alto's support. However, at night, when the sun changes and I go to a different area, it's not always the best at level 1. If the incident was like having a system down, the support would be better, but after hours or 5:30, I have a harder time.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We were using Cisco ASA. We switched because of its ease to use and the GUI. There is also Single Pass Architecture, which is related to the way a packet flows through our network. It doesn't have to go through one area into another area. It's all at one, and it just separates. It gives me the best visibility of our network and firewalls.
What was our ROI?
It has decreased the time of technicians in researching the vulnerabilities. We also do web filtering, so that helps. Web filtering has changed things because we used to use Websense, and it's night and day.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It's very expensive. However, we usually use all of the subscriptions and threat alerts on any firewall that uses the internet. For each edge security endpoint, we use all subscriptions. Otherwise, we just utilize the threat alert, the antivirus, WildFire, etc.
What other advice do I have?
Palo Alto is the best firewall company. Whether you're a small company or a large company, it will fit your needs.
By attending this RSA Conference, I was hoping to find new security solutions. However, I seem to like my existing Palo Alto security solutions. In terms of the impact of the RSA Conference on our organization’s cybersecurity purchases, it depends on what we're looking for at the time of attending an RSA Conference. Right now, we're looking for something that I didn't really see here. We're looking for security, but this means we need a security operations center (SOC), whereas we're small. We just don't have that type of network. This is almost too much. However, that's why we have Palo Alto Networks.
I would rate it a nine out of ten. It's not perfect, but it's pretty good. Palo Alto is the best firewall security network that I could possibly purchase.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.