Cisco AnyConnect vs Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series

• Autoconnections are seamless for the users. There's nothing for them to do once it's all setup.
• It recognizes security certificates for the PC and user, so you can easily lock down the connectivity to the specific users and/or machines you need for your environment.
• Unless the WIFI is extremely poor, the software can make the connection and allow your users to function on the VPN.

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• AppID is able to see what the actual internet traffic is. For instance instead of port 443 just being "Internet traffic" we can define access to Facebook-base or all the other facets of facebook.
• UserID allows us to define policies based on group or user access and integrates with our Active Directory. This helps to configure a least access privilege and if we find misuse of the network we can tighten specific users to a stricter policy.
• GlobalProtect VPN connection helps our employee's connect from home remotely. This provides a very secure connection with minimal configuration.
• Wildfire provides very up-to-date information regarding global attack mitigations and stopping techniques.

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• Next generation features are lacking.
• Split handling scenarios are limited.
• Sensitive to timeouts.
• Auto reconnect features does not work as expected.
• Auto mtu discovery does not work on some cases.
• Not a full featured solution on the client side.
• Detailed reporting is missing.
• Lack of multi device management.
• Application, url based dashboards needs to be enhanced.

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• The CLI is a bit confusing, and it's difficult to find what you're looking for. Takes a lot of practice. Definitely not as good as the Cisco CLI.
• Updating the firmware is often a very dangerous process, especially when jumping minor or major releases. More QA should be done to validate and ensure no issues during upgrades. I'll admit it's gotten better over time, but there is still room for improvement.

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• AnyConnect has allowed business operations to continue uninterrupted during the pandemic, which has been key to maintaining business continuity with customers and stakeholders.
• AnyConnect has played a part in allowing for downsizing of some physical office sites. At least 4 office buildings within the organization have now been sold as employees haven proven the ability to work effectively remotely indefinitely.
• AnyConnect has also facilitated globalization within the wider organization. Productive meetings with colleagues around the world at various times of day are possible with continuous access to company virtual resources.

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• Utilizing Panorama to manage all of our Firewalls Policies by creating device groups is a real time saver. We only need to configure policies once and push them to the appropriate firewalls saving a lot of time.
• Having the added security feature protection is good peace of mind in an ever-increasing threat landscape.
• Monitoring traffic by IP, URL or username provides excellent insight into our traffic.

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