Radware DefensePro Reviews

I set this solution up for a company who was using it as their edge security solution. It was used to secure the entire infrastructure for the company and helped to protect against DDoS attacks. It was being used in conjunction with a load balancing solution and an open-source firewall running on CentOS.

I was working with them at the time that this solution was deployed, but I have now moved.

This solution has given us protection against our network being compromised. All of our customers are depending on services that are offered on our network, and DefensePro makes sure that it is protected and customers have access to these services at every point in time.

The most valuable feature is the DDoS protection.

The reporting is very good and provides us with a comprehensive description of where attacks are emanating from. The solution mitigates against these attacks in real-time and you can see where their base path is routing from.

If for any reason, DefensePro goes offline, it doesn't prevent your infrastructure from functioning or your customers from reaching you. Obviously, the protection will not be there, but your customers can still reach the services that you are hosting internally. This is a good feature because otherwise, it would be a single point of failure for your entire infrastructure.

This solution may not cover all of the requirements in situations for which I am unfamiliar, and there is always room for improvement.

We implemented this solution in 2015 and it is still working.

This solution is quite stable. If the device is ever offline then you can still have everybody access the entire infrastructure. This is important in Africa, where power is not always stable. You can just wake up in the morning and discover that the power provider has made a mistake and the entire infrastructure is down. Once the power is restored, this solution boots up and simply begins working again.

Radware DefensePro is highly scalable. You have to imagine the high volume of packet inspection. As you add more links, you want the inspection capability to be able to handle more packets. It is just a matter of buying more licenses that allow you to inspect more packets.

This solution is part of the security wall that is protecting between 600 and 700 users in a call center services environment. Several call centers across the country are relying on DefensePro as part of their edge security.

The technical support is okay. They are very accessible and they have different levels of services, depending on your plan.

We did use another solution prior to this but we were getting a lot of attacks. This meant that we were paying a lot for bandwidth and our customers were complaining that our services were not happening in a timely manner. Based on this, we felt that our solution was insufficient to protect the infrastructure, which is why we switched to Radware.

The initial setup was straightforward. The deployment took about three days and the plan was executed such that there was minimal disruption to the business services.

We had been satisfied with the outcome of the simulation and everything we did before actually migrating to the production environment.

Two staff members, both system administrators, are handling maintenance. The same two people focus primarily on the edge protection devices.

The company had two consultants visit from Radware and assist with the deployment. They were very helpful, supportive, and trained us in such a way that we were confident in handling the solution on our own and no longer needed to depend on them.

All the way from the testing phase to the deployment stage, the Radware consultants were there to support our efforts and everything was successful.

The pricing is based on the amount of network traffic and the number of packets being inspected.

Before choosing Radware DefensePro, we did an extensive evaluation of all of the solutions that were available. This is a fantastic solution and it met all of our requirements at the time, which is why it was chosen.

The reporting provides us with a lot of interesting and rich data. It allows us to have total control over what is being protected.

When I first started using this solution, I wondered why it was that the DDoS protection could not be coupled with other edge protection features that I have on my firewall. I questioned why it was that I couldn't have all of the protection in a single box. However, I now realize why it is, from a strategic perspective, and it just makes more sense to have DDoS in its own box.

The biggest lesson that I have learned from using this solution is that you can't assume that everything is right unless you have insight as to what is currently going on within your infrastructure. You can't just relax and think that everything is okay. It is not a good policy to assume that customers are simply complaining about the services and their experience for the sake of complaining. Rather, consider that something is not right and look into it. This begins with getting the proper solutions in place.

Overall, I'm happy with this solution and what it has offered so far. The suitability of using DefensePro depends on your budget and your requirements. My advice is to make sure that you have your requirements right and then compare against the other products that are out there. I tend to believe that this solution is fit for all institutions and in my opinion, anyone who implements this will not regret it because it will serve them well.

While this solution has worked well, I can't say it is perfect because there might be requirements out there that I am unfamiliar with and are not currently being met.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

Cisco partners with Radware and Radware integrates with Firepower very easily.

The Radware DefensePro module, the virtual module running on Firepower, provides more DDoS protection than, for example, Cloudflare.

There is a long list of all arrays of the DDoS attempt cross-mitigation that it does. ISP just basically does IP-based DDoS or TCB DDoS protections. Radware goes beyond that, into DNS DDoS, content-based DDoS, et cetera, so it has many levels.

With Radware, there's a lot more granular control of what DDoS you're looking at in terms of DDoS visibility and protection. 

It's an on-prem appliance, however, they also have a cloud-based appliance, meaning that copies always are on demand. 

They have a hybrid model approach if a client wants to go that way. 

There's a lot of flexibility, and a lot of different deployment models available whereas Cloudflare, for example, is only in the cloud. 

There are customers who don't want Firepower. Let's say they have Sophos or they have Palo Alto. We're trying to re-position Radware DefensePro as a separate appliance in their environment.

The solution is a little more pricey than other options on the market.

It could be a little bit more user friendly, however, that said, it's pretty decent compared to a lot of other vendors.

I've only been dealing with the solution for 30 days or so. It's quite new still. I haven't spent that much time with it.

I've never seen the solution go down or fail. Its performance seems reliable. I'd say the stability is good as I have never seen any issues with it. It's not buggy or glitchy. It doesn't crash or freeze.

The solution is scalable as far as performance, yes. However, it is not scalable when in a high availability scenario - meaning a lot of my customers have dual data centers. They have dual firewalls. You can configure the product to be high availability as well, however, it requires a customer to have that private link. It is great when you have two high ability firewalls in the same data center, however, then when you have high ability firewalls at different data centers, you can make it work. I have customers who have high ability firewalls, one in each data center, and they have a private, dark fiber link that syncs both firewalls. You can potentially do the same with this solution.

I haven't gotten a chance to work with technical support. I can't speak to their level of knowledge or their responsiveness in terms of dealing with issues.

I also have experience with Cloudflare. It covers the basics, however, it doesn't cover everything. Whereas, the Firepower that has the Radware DefensePro module in it does DDoS attacks, DNS, content, et cetera.

Cloudflare is also in the cloud. It's template-based. It's a standard template-based subscription that you get with their DDoS. The same applies to all of their customers.

The solution is expensive. it is not a cheap option.

The DefensePro is not a cost-effective solution. It's very expensive. I have a lot of schools - K through 12 school districts. They want DDoS protection. When you're comparing it with a cloud service, which is a new emergent thing, a lot of ISPs offer it. However, if customers want to get their own DDoS protection, you have Cloudflare, who I think is Radware's biggest competitor, and they offer everything in the cloud. If you need something on-premises, it's going to be more expensive.

I did a price comparison between Cloudflare and this product, the three gig model, which is the minimum. What we needed was way too expensive, way over the budget for our client.

The initial cost is over $100,000 for one appliance. That said, in year two, you won't have that cost. With Radware, you pay upfront, and it's your own. Cloudflare, their main competition, is on the cloud and is $37,000 a year. The costs never come down. If you have Radware for three-plus years, you'll begin to see your costs come down as you don't have to keep repaying for licensing. 

I haven't spent a good amount of time with the solution or with implementations just yet. From what I have seen, I would rate it eight out of ten. The main downside is that it is expensive.

Our primary use case is to prevent DDos attacks. These block legitimate users from accessing a website. DDoS attacks send more requests than the victim server can handle.

This application provides protection and blocks malicious invasions meant to stop a web site from being functional.

The defense against DDos attacks is the primary use, but the product provides other network security as well.

Converting or offering integration with the cloud solution would improve the product. Maybe a solution that does more to track the behaviors for the site and enhance the intelligence and proactive behavior.

The product is very stable. I don't need to make adjustments and there is no downtime.

The scalability on the cloud is something we do gradually. It is very scalable. We will eventually scale up but it won't be necessary for a few years.

Really, I don't have a need to contact technical support. The support materials are good enough and the product works well.

We were using another solution but it did not specifically do what this product can do. Because of our business and new regulations, we needed to protect traffic differently to be legally compliant.

Setup is very easy. It has a simple interface and it has good resources. It is a simple step-by-step process. It is very fast. We did use two people for the deployment.

It is very easy to deploy and I did it myself.

It is hard to really measure a return on our investment. It keeps us from attacks and that has inherent value.

The product isn't cheap but it is also not expensive. It is affordable. It does the job we need it to do well. We lease on a yearly basis.

We looked very briefly at specifications for other solutions but I was already familiar with what this product could do.

I would rate the solution a nine out of ten. It's easy to deploy and efficient for protecting us from attacks. It is fast for processing positives, even on multiple platforms. You need just a few minutes to set up the standard product and maybe one-hour maximum to do something more complicated. 

It is used for DDoS protection, especially from low-rate DDoS attacks.

We use this product for various services which are delivered to our end customers.

A valuable feature is the speed of signature updates. We have received a better response from the team that does technical support.

SSL-based mitigation from DDoS attacks is good from their side. They are capable of preventing SSL-based attacks with certifications and everything loaded onto them.

From a service provider's point of view, I would like to see better scalability in terms of a platform, rather than sticking to specific models. From a subscription or model-of-operations point of view, I think they should scale it better.

If they would go to a cloud-based approach, that would give much more flexibility in terms of working with them.

They should add artificial intelligence to the platform. It is currently missing the machine learning piece.

I would like to see better implementation of a zero-day attack implementation strategy with self-mitigation.

It's stable. There is no question or doubt about it. 

It has not gone down for a quite long time. It's working fine.

Scalability is okay. I would rate it as a nine out of ten.

We have eight to 11 people using the solution.

Their tech support is fantastic. Their response time has been good.

It was a straightforward setup. Deployment was not a challenge, and it took a few weeks.

The product's pricing is a good value.

The cost for maintenance is cheaper because the majority of the deployments using the solution are in areas where cost of maintenance is also lower.

We also evaluated Arbor DDoS. Licensing of Radware is quite simple and straightforward, while Arbor DDos is a bit complicated.

When we looked at changing the platform, two things came to mind. One is the scalability issue, in terms of adding more appliances into a cluster form to have better throughput. Secondly, we looked at the cost.

I would recommend this product.

It's a straightforward, simple installation. I don't see any complexity in doing it. Even a person with a basic understanding of how a Radware platform works will be able to do it.

In case of any challenges in terms of deployment, upgrades, or in change management, the technical support is there to help us. They do miss out in terms of the cloud-based approach.

There is no latency. After proper setup and testing, we had no intrusions that were not detected.

Data scrubbing and unmatched DDoS protection are valuable features.

It is very stable.

We are not that big, but I know many large scale corporations who deploy Radware DefensePro, such as Bell and Telus.

Technical support is excellent. I have a support technician who I can call 24/7.

We switched due the reliability of this appliance.

We needed support for testing and implementation. They will point you to tutorials and assist you where needed.

It’s not the cheapest, but it’s the best.

We looked at F5 and Arbor Networks.

Let sales engineering guide you through the reasons to use this product. They will be honest if it is the right solution for you.

We primarily use the solution for preventing distributed denial of service, or DDoS attacks.

The ease of installation is the solution's most valuable aspect.

The configuration is very simple and straightforward.

The stability of the product is very good.

The product integrates well with Cisco.

We are currently using the solution in conjunction with Cisco Firepower. In terms of the defense devices, I would like to see an improvement within the implementation and upgrade phases.

The dashboard could be updated. It's just the one that is used with Internet Explorer 11 and with outdated Java. It's only a small part of their web interface and is not the entire dashboard.

The implementation process could be a bit better.

I've been using the solution for about two years at this point.

It's a very stable product. Once you gather all policies and configure all necessary policies, everything works fine.

There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's been reliable in terms of performance.

We've never really tried to scale the solution. I can't speak to how easy it would be to expand it out if you needed to.

We have maybe a thousand users, and it's a very complex environment.

We'd like to maybe just increase the speed in the future - the speed of the WIFI link and internet service provider's uplinks.

Technical support has been fine overall. They are very easy to work with. We're satisfied with the level of support we've been given overall.

We did not previously use a different solution. This is our first tool for this particular purpose.

The initial setup is not complex. It's very straightforward and very easy. The configuration process, as well, is excellent and very straightforward. A company shouldn't face any issues when they are implementing the solution.

That said, we have a pretty complex environment. Our implementation process could have been easier.

The deployment process was very fast and took about one week.

There is a different team the deals with pricing, licensing, and subscriptions. I don't have any knowledge as to the overall costs.

We did not evaluate other options. We are a Cisco Gold partner, and this is their recommended and compatible product that works specifically with Cisco Firepower Threat Defense.

We are users of the solution.

We've been mostly very happy with the product. I would rate it at a nine out of ten. They just need better implementation and to work together with Cisco for faster and better results.

The solution is primarily used to protect our cockpit internet line which is serving our cockpit application.

The solution offers a keen, tight service. It's very good at protecting us from DDoS attacks. It's very good at cleaning our pipeline when support routes traffic through. 

The product has been stable. The performance is pretty good.

The pricing is reasonable. It's not overly expensive.

It's my understanding the initial setup isn't too hard.

The solution needs to improve its communication with users. Last year, there was a lot of silence on their end. There have been communication delays we would rather not deal with.

There needs to be more reporting. I'd like to be able to see more information on traffic or the system's data. Right now, information is lacking, from what I can tell.

I have been at my current company for one year now, and have used it since I started. However, I can't speak to how long the company has used the solution before I arrived. 

The solution is stable. It's reliable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's been good so far.

We may have limitations on the scalability due to our own model. I can't speak to its general scalability.

At the moment, we do not have plans to increase usage in the future.

Technical support is okay, however, it could be better. We're not directly operating the device, and therefore don't have too much access to them, however, there have been some communication breakdowns.

My understanding is that the initial setup is not overly complex. I've heard it's straightforward. I'm not actually the person that does the implementation, and therefore I don't have direct experience in the matter. The equipment seems pretty simple and straightforward.

Currently, the pricing is quite reasonable. We have no complaints when it comes to the cost of the solution.

We are just a customer and end-user. We don't have a business relationship with Radware.

I'm not sure which version of the solution we're currently using.

I'm not sure if we intend to switch products. In the future, that will depend on if there are any new functions or features, or if the price of a new product is better.

In general, I would rate the solution at an eight out of ten. We've been satisfied with the solution and its capabilities for the most part.

The solution is mainly used to protect our web services and mail. 

We have been able to integrate the solution into our network without it affecting the network overall. 

The DDoS protection that the solution provides is its most valuable feature.

The documentation needs improvement and the best practices need adjustments. I find I spend a lot of time searching for information and documentation related to implementation. They need to provide better sources to make things easier.

The performance needs to be better.

The solution needs high availability. It would help you avoid some of the trouble with configuration.

The stability of the solution is good. I've never had any issues.

My understanding with the product is that it is scalable but I don't have enough experience with it yet to make a clear determination.

Technical support is okay. I had some trouble in the registration account prior to deployment, but it was fixed. They were not very fast or responsive, however. It took about one week to resolve the issue. 

We did not previously use another solution.

Implementation is straightforward, once you have all the necessary documentation. I couldn't find any documentation until I was registered, however. They don't have enough public information about the solution. Before registering, I couldn't do anything. This was a new product for me, so it was important for me to have access to the implementation guide before starting. 

You only need one person to handle the implementation.

I implemented the solution myself.

We are using the private cloud deployment model.

I would rate the solution eight out of ten.