Check Point Quantum Smart-1 Security Management vs. FireMon

It is very suitable to manage and monitor a large amount of network security information. It is not recommended to use the network information security management of a single firewall device in terms of cost.

Incentivized

Firemon product is overall good a product. It gives us a summary of who made what change, when it occurred and at what time, in real time. Their Out of box tools do satisfy the common requests for reporting and there options to create customized report allows us for more options as every environment is different. That is why I gave it an 8 rating.

Incentivized

• Centralized Database
• Detailed and indexed logging
• Securely connects to each device

Incentivized

• PCI Reporting - After identifying which firewalls and rulesets are in scope, producing a report artifact to satisfy PCI requirements on Firewall reviews is literally a two-click operation.
• Storing Rule Metadata - FireMon stores metadata (prefilled fields, standard fields, and custom fields) for each rule in each policy which is valuable for context during firewall reviews in particular
• API - FireMon exposes most if not all of its functionality via REST API

Incentivized

• The user interface is very convenient to use. To say what is missing. It is only not supported in the language system that displays Chinese.

Incentivized

• Some features could be added to the existing functionality which include NAT rules usage
• Rule expiration normalization from firewalls rather than entering them in rule documentation
• .csv exports of the files from the firewall pane only gives usage for 30 days by default and that should be increased

Incentivized

The shell is locked out and we can't run any general centos commands. The implementation and maintainence of the arch is very complex. Even with the right identifiers on log messages the log collection keeps failing. The warning messages on the device are ambiguous. The log messages on firemon are a bit confusing and don't show the exact issue.

Incentivized

It save me time and I'm able to have the review - review the rule independently with using my time.

Incentivized

FireMon has been relatively stable overall. However, there have been a handful of times where we had issues with the console. For example, we couldn't update which devices to include in a security assessment. The initial suggestion from support was to just reboot it. It seems like there weren't many other options available such as to restart services before going to the extreme of a complete reboot.

Incentivized

I'm not sure we have the largest implementation of FireMon out there but we do have a few 1000 devices being probed by FireMon. Overall, the system's performance has been rock solid. The console refreshes quickly and reports are generated within an expected timeframe.

Incentivized

FireMon technical support is awesome! They respond quickly to our requests and they are well trained and very knowledgeable about the tool. Some issues have to be referred to the development team, but technical support largely provides solutions for any issues that we may have.

Incentivized

Implementation is fairly simple. Most issues can be resolved by referencing manuals.

Incentivized

Far exceeds any testing we were able to think of when testing.

Incentivized

I has worked with AlgoSec and while they are very similar product, I find the FireMon is easier to understand and get rolling with. While both require some learning, FireMon is by far the easier one. Once you have an understanding of how things are arranged and labeled you can easily import firewalls and begin to work on them to improve them

Incentivized

Firemon Is easily scalable and maintainable with any size team. Although it requires some tech debt, it is well worth the time to invest to ensure compliance is visible and reports are accurate. Although our environment is very large we do not fully utilize the scalability of the Firemon product.

Incentivized

• Reduce personnel management costs
• The elastic expansion capability solves the rapidly changing environment that needs to be changed.

Incentivized

• The use of FireMon has eliminated the backlog in firewall policy changes, approval, and implementation.
• FireMon has greatly increased the accuracy of changes, and reduced the risk of planned changes (3 incidents in over 27000 change tickets--most with multiple policy changes in each, is a stellar record)

Incentivized