Cisco Routers vs. WatchGuard XTM - Discontinued Product

Cisco Routers, particularly ASRs, are well suited at the edge or perimeter of your network topology since they're capable of aggregating large data and performing fast packet processing. To be even more specific, they are great at handling full internet BGP route tables and aggregating multiple WAN connections. Some scenarios where they may be less appropriate might be for much smaller sites running less critical services that may not need "state of the art" enterprise routers.

Incentivized

WatchGuard XTM comes in different models, so you can choose the model best suited for your company size. I think it works well in small as well as very large networks. I have not used this feature, but you can create a "FireCluster" to connect member devices of the same model if you need to put multiple WatchGuard XTMs in your environment. Coming from command line, it took a little adjusting to learn which screen to use to set up the different rules. Once you understand how to set up policies, it is simple to create more. New firewall administrators would appreciate the ease of creating policies, and expert administrators should find everything they need plus extra features.

Incentivized

• Helps to separate routing information for different networks for different customers.
• Helps peers with service providers and Customer Networks and starts the exchange of information between them.
• Helps facilitate internet connectivity for enterprise networks.
• Helps transferring Internet or Private Data from one place to another.

Incentivized

• Proxy filter.
• Link redundancy.
• Security.

• It will be helpful if configuration can be done using a http GUI
• Graphical Visualizing provisioned VPN services will helps in troubleshooting
• Software upgrade process should have an automated way, that helps in managing large no of devices in the network

Incentivized

• Support can be hard to work with. While they are typically knowledgeable, there can be a language barrier. Also, most troubleshooting seems intrusive which is a problem in a production environment.
• The throughput of the cheaper models leaves something to be desired.
• Have had some issues running VOIP behind these, but have not been able to narrow down the issues to the phone provider or WatchGuard yet.

Incentivized

We are extremely likely to renew, as we have been very happy with our Cisco Routers for over 10 years. Their uptime as well as stable nature makes them ideal for us, as we are an industry that cannot afford downtime. We trust our partner to recommend our next model Cisco, when the time comes.

Incentivized

The best thing about Cisco products is their presence in community. When you have a problem you can do quick search and find whoever else had the same question and expert answer for that question. Other thing is there are Cisco certified people we can find very easily if want some help with comissioning these products

Incentivized

Cisco support is very good. Of course, sometime you will run into support guy that isn't up to the task. Buf overall, the support system is well structure. You know if this support isn't able to help, you can esclate the situation to find another help. Also, their documentation is well developed and can be very useful.

Incentivized

Other vendors definitely bring some great features. We've gone from Fortinet to HPE, to Ruckus. Each product has benefits to consider. For us, Cisco is a trusted brand that's used about thousands of customers and many fortune companies. While some of the newer or smaller players have great features, Cisco has most of the same plus time in the trenches.

Incentivized

Again, WatchGuard is priced much lower than other vendors in its space. It may not have some of the bigger features such as Layer 7 awareness. It's more simple to manage and provides IT staff the time to work on other tasks versus time spent to create complex rule sets.

Incentivized

• Network management has become easy and fast with cloud based portal.
• Network policies could be rolled out quickly across the devices.
• Improvement in Network security.
• Stable internet connection has lead to less downtime and more productivity.
• Stable internet connection in each location within the organization.

Incentivized

• Easy to set up and connect firewalls
• Easy to set up branch tunnels
• Less time spent training