Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software vs. Norton Small Business

Cisco ASA's are great for internal network connected access between a firewall and the central management server. And, for complex networks where high security requirements with overly strict compliance are necessary. For networks with limited connectivity to the core or for poor network connectivity these are not the best solution. There are other more stand-alone firewall's that do this better. These firewall's are a little more complex to set up to start with so significant knowledge of these devices is required to set them up and ensure they are best practice installed.

Incentivized

For a small or mid-sized firm with distributed computing requirements like ours, Symantec Norton is well suited. It is an ideal solution as it is easy-to-use and the pricing is the right fit on account of geographical customisation. Small businesses, especially, realise the value of endpoint protection only when they encounter serious issues, therefore their product becomes well suited for those who may dither because of the lack of clarity and poor pricing structure of other options. However, the most important feature still remains its effectiveness, which makes it the most optimal option at the right price

Incentivized

• ASA is our VPN concentrator. The client and server are very stable and very easy to use
• ASA also offers Intrusion Prevention, to an extent. This is also very useful for an improved security posture for a small company
• ASA allowed us to scale very quickly. We could onboard clients, partners, and consultants and give them a great onboarding experience as well
• Administrative costs with ASA are low. It's very easy to administer.

Incentivized

• In term of pricing
• In term of Advanced threat protection
• User friendly solution and good support team.

• The ASDM software is at times a nightmare to install because of different java versions[.]
• [The firewall] could do with a power button, just to be able to do a hard reboot when needed[.]
• It would be nice to manage the firewall via the web on port 443[.]

Incentivized

• Confusing Workflow at Renewal
• Fixed Bundle Sizes may be an issue for Smaller Businesses with in-the-middle requirements
• Easier Installation

Incentivized

To be honest there has been now great products out in the market compared to Cisco ASA. I beleieve Cisco has to do a lot of improvement in this area. The other defeiniete factors is the cost when it comes to renewals which is always a premium on Cisco products

Incentivized

I generally have not noticed the outages, however since it's a machine it can malfunction, we need to implement the firewall infrastructure in such a way that it is highly available with device failure, region failure etc. Else any solution will be having the issues if they are not build with resiliency.

Incentivized

The support is usually very good and gets back to you very quickly. However I had some instances of when two engineers will give me wildly different answers to what I thought was a simple question. Overall however I do rate the support highly and they are generally always very good.

Incentivized

It was quite a good one, how ever requires an expertise to deploy hence the SMB segment would be finding it difficult to implement this product. The one good reason is that there are lot of ASA certified engineers in compared to the other certified engineers. Hence this resembles positively on the deployment as you have quite a lot of experienced engineer on your deployment

Incentivized

We were using [pfSense] before in our environment but we regularly facing difficulties over it due to software bugs & downtime. After implementing Cisco ASA, it resolved our availability issue & provides us a reliable solution with the best security features & easy to understand GUI.

Incentivized

• Most network engineers have worked with ASA, so there is no need for re-training when adding or turning over staff
• Current configs from older devices plug in easily, and are operational on larger devices if an upgrade is required
• Many support options available

Incentivized

• Data Protection is ensured which ensures positive focus from all team members on their work which certain results in improved productivity at the individual level of 2-4% that consequently improves organisational productivity.
• Our cost of external inputs for data security issues is NIL therefore obviously reducing the bottomline by 1-2% which would be the average cost incurred by organisations of our size in general. Of course an event maybe costlier, but I am sticking to averages since we have had no events.
• Overall, we feel that the cost of security software is also lower on account of optimised pricing by Symantec. While the expense in this segment is a fraction of total IT costs, and therefore tangible savings are also fractional. However, So, since the value of outcomes (lack of security related negative events) is much higher, intangible benefits are even higher.

Incentivized