The Cisco Firepower 4100 Series’ 1-rack-unit size is presented by the vendodr as ideal at the Internet edge and in high-performance environments. They further state that it shows what’s happening on your network, detects attacks earlier so you can act faster, and reduces management complexity.
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WatchGuard Network Security
Score 8.7 out of 10
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WatchGuard Network Security is a network security and firewall software. WatchGuard includes secure Wi-Fi, multi-factor authentication, and network intelligence products and services designed for SMB’s.
When we are asked by local partners which security equipment we use we always recommend our Cisco security products. The Firepower firewall is no exception and we can easily recommend this to others who need a fast, secure, and well built system that integrates well with all your existing hardware and software.
I've been impressed to consider how many Watchguard Network products we utilize. Firewall/VPN, Wireless APs, and endpoint antivirus. It makes it easy to diagnose issues and find resolutions with minimal interactions with the end user or their system. Reliability of the network hardware has been superb, and we have minimal issues with their software
The failover process is clunky. When out Fortigate firewalls failed over, we lost 1 ping. When our Firepowers failover, whether it is on purpose or not, we experience a 2.5 minute complete outage.
Cisco could stand to improve their support documentation. I have found it difficult to find good directions for configuring these, especially when it comes to NAT and IPSEC tunnels.
Sometimes, it is not very intuitive. You'll not know how to use certain features unless you read the documentation.
Some settings in the firebox are not visible unless you enter edit mode. This can cause inadvertent issues if you make a change when you just want to review the settings.
The use of blocks in the design of the Firewatch interface can be confusing. A better design could have been used.
I'm giving this note to WatchGuard Network Security due to its ease of daily support (after acquiring necessary knowledge in the solution), which allows agility in configuration changes, its integration of several reliable security features (such as SSL VPN, VPN Virtual Interfaces between companies, and others) and functional and stability in operation, with no downtime in the equipment due to problems or malfunctions
In general, the Cisco Firepower 4100 Series works well, great performance, support a high volume of traffic, configuration, users, the device is powerful and once you have something configured you can be sure that it will rarely fail but for day to day troubleshooting or modifications needed can be a little complicated due to you have to deploy every change you make in the device and is not as fast as other devices, in general a deploy takes 5 minutes.
Although it might take some time to figure out, we have been able to use WatchGuard's online reference library and tech support to create/implement/modify all of our filtering rules and exceptions needed. There really has not been a shortcoming other than perhaps a learning curve.
Availability has always been a strong point of this product, it is rare that watchguard does not have a solution for customers' network monitoring needs.
The performance of WatchGuard Network Security is very good, in the years that we have used the solution we have only had a single error and Watchguard itself was able to solve it. Furthermore, when purchasing any product, the partner always evaluates the capacity of the solution to recommend the most appropriate product for our needs.
We have only had to contact them once during the initial set up to help bring the internet back on line. After that for the most part our systems have been automated, and could easily be checked form their online FAQ and Knowledge base that they provide. Everything else is easily handled from their browser based interface
We participate to a in person training and the three days of learning was really useful and complete to gain skill to solve the major part of the problem we encounter during our life. And more the in person training give us the opportunity to create a network with other WatchGuard partner.
I had my key information for setting up the firewall, and they assisted me in finding the settings and appropriate places to enter data. They also helped troubleshoot when I didn't understand some of their feature concepts, and we got it running.
Cisco Firepower 4100 Series deployment is straightforward and easy to implement. It is also can support high availability and able to achieve redundancy. Besides, firmware upgrade is quite simple and the process does not take much effort as the upgrade will be automatically done by itself. Cisco Firepower 4100 Series is also very cost effective compared with other similar ranges of firewalls.
Watchguard Network Security is easier to use and more effective that its competitors, with certifications you can trust and a good reputation, we can rest assured that our network security is in good hands. Competitors have also demonstrated poor aftersales support, which has not been the case with WG
This product is very scalable since previously everything related to Watchguard was on premises but that has now changed with the inclusion of watchguard cloud. Now the product has evolved to have full control of firewalls at the cloud level.
The intuitive Web Interface reduces the entry to learning for new techs, so less training is required and inexperienced techs can figure out tasks if they understand basic networking and firewall functions.
The licensing model for the hardware places them at the top of the list for mid-tier devices that are overpriced. They are barely competitive considering that you can't use a device for more than 5 years no matter what. And the security/maintenance costs are in addition to the hardware costs which are already high compared to other mid-tier brands.
