What is our primary use case?
We've been using Algosec as our reference tool to clean our policies from old unused rules and objects and to assess rules that are categorized as risky so that we can fix those risks.
Firewall Analyzer from Algosec is our main tool for Firewall auditing and it makes our external auditors very confident on the way our policies are managed.
Fireflow from Algosec also helps us identifying which firewalls are on the way from source to destination when we need to open flows and it saves us a lot of time. We are still on our path to implement full automation of firewall policy creation with Algosec's Fireflow but the goal is to achieve it soon.
How has it helped my organization?
Since we deployed Algosec our Firewall policies which didn't have much maintenance over more than 15 years had their policies reduced to less than half the rules by using Algosec's Firewall Analyzer to remove unused rules, unused objects withing rules, compacting several firewall rules in one rule, etc.
We were also able with Firewall Analyzer to get risk reports of our firewall policies and start tackling them to close them or at least to be aware of its existance.
Firewall Analyzer is amazon in Policy Optimization and we feel we are much more secure since we have this product. If we add a rule that poses a risk we get an alert from Firewall Analyzer which is very important to us.
We are also starting to use Fireflow and our goal is to have the policy creation automated soon. For now we are already able to identify which firewalls are on the path between point A and point B and we are on the path to full automation which will reduce a lot the workload of our team.
What is most valuable?
The feature we find the most valuable is the Firewall Analyzer for the firewall policy audits and to show external auditors we have a process to identify risks and to tackle them. It's also very important for policy clean maintenance.
This helps us know which devices are between the source and destination on the flows that we need to open for the business. The audit tools are also very important to us because we can easily have everything that needs to be presented to the security auditors.
We are in the process of implementing FireFlow for full automation which will save us time for more important things we need to to on daily basis that are not creating firewall rules. We aim to achieve the full automation soon.
What needs improvement?
In our case it would be very important to improve support to Dell switches and also some Juniper switches, which we have a lot of in our company network. This has been our difficulty for the full automation on the Fireflow. If all our network devices were Cisco I'm sure we would have the network map complete very easily and the full automation working with much less effort.
We already asked Algosec for the support of the switches we have that are not natively supported for the future versions and we expect that we are lucky enough for them to be supported on the next releases, although there are some ways of working around non-natively supported switches to complete the network map.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using Algosec solution for more than 5 years now.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We never had issues so far in terms of stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution is very scalable and allows you to add all the firewalls and devices you need.
It is also scalable on the licensing as you can start by buying only the Firewall Analyzer license with which you can start onboarding all the devices and completing the network diagram so that Algosec's has the whole picture and know all the paths from network A to B.
After that you are ready to start using FireFlow and you can buy the license only when you are ready to start deploying it.
How are customer service and support?
Sometimes it takes more time than expected to have answers for support tickets, but in general the customer service is good.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup has been easy. The only difficult thing was the part in which we needed to onboard non natively supported switches. That part is a bit more complex.
What about the implementation team?
We implemented with a mix of external company and in-house. The external team was helpful and had a good expertise level.
What was our ROI?
The time we save on our daily operations is very important. We could reduce the team size with this tool as we had a trainee almost fully working on opening flows.
It also allows us to detect risks on firewall rules and fix them, keeping the company network safe.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The price for the solution is not cheap but if you use it fully it will compensate in terms of securitization and in terms of time gained on the daily operations. It is also very helpful if your company is audited on the security part.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We heard about Tufin and Algosec, and after going through the specs we decided to go on a POC with Algosec and ended up buying it as it fitted our needs. We followed our Firewall integrator advice, who also recommended Algosec for our Firewall's park which is basically Fortinet and Check Point.
What other advice do I have?
We recommend trying fully automation in a controlled environment before widely deploying it to the production firewalls. It's important to gain confidence on the product.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
