Likelihood to Recommend It is a flexible tool for managing and optimizing WAN connections, but it does require some technical expertise to manage. It excels in its ability to integrate multiple WANs. It will however be a not-so-useful purchase if your company has few locations as it will be more expensive and complex for nothing.
Read full review If you are looking for a smaller network/security team, the ease and low complexity create an easy to manage environment. One engineer can easily manage 100 nodes/locations. If you are just starting to get security conscious and predict regular adjustments to policy, routing, and access, this is a very good system for making easy to understand and low impact changes on a regular basis without operations interruption.
Read full review Pros Enhancing network security by integrating with other security solutions and providing secure segmentation of the network. Improving network visibility and control by providing detailed analytics and network-wide policy management. Simplifying branch office networking by reducing the need for specialized hardware and simplifying network management. Read full review Easy to manage and make changes on - ACL's are done with ease. Easy USB initial configuration - The easy initial setup of a new location and firewall saves massive time. Settings are automatically pushed to new nodes upon contact with the controller. Low Complexity - This system does not have a lot of complexity requiring extra hours, training, or personnel to manage. Read full review Cons It does appear to be a little glitchy when you go from template mode to CLI mode and try to do testing on certain areas. The configuration tends to get hung in that old session when you drop it from being controlled by the controller to making changes in CLI. I've had a lot of instances where you try to put it back into controller mode for review management and it holds on to your items you've had in CLI mode , it gets a little confused at which config it needs to use. You end up having to reset the whole number environment. Read full review Poor Reporting - It exists but even when calling in to support for assistance, they have no idea how to tackle customizing reports or searching for specific data. Read full review Likelihood to Renew highly recommended
Read full review Usability It is the best solution on the market.
Read full review The Graphical User Interface is very easy to read, understand and work with. The usability of this product is very high.
Read full review Support Rating Al ser soluciones integradas del portafolio de soluciones de Cisco, el soporte es transversal a cada uno de los componentes implementados, teniendo el cliente la capacidad de resolver sus inconvenientes bajo una misma infraestructura que está totalmente homologada, satisfacciendo de esta manera, las necesidades del cliente asi como permitiendo, que este se concentre en su negocio. Since the Cisco SD-WAN tools are a part of Cisco’s broader portfolio of solutions, support cross-cuts to each of our deployed components, with our company as the customer having the ability to solve our problems through the same, approved infrastructure. Their support team easily satisfies the customer’s needs so that they continue to focus on business functions.
Read full review Support has varied over the history of the company. Terro is a name that comes up often with the best of service from this company.
Read full review Alternatives Considered The proof-of-concept setup that was done at a client site did provided a greater positive impression by Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN than Fortinet Secure SD-WAN for sure. It makes sense to use Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN while the major client is a Cisco house where more than 95% of network equipment used at their global networks are Cisco's.
Read full review There are similar hardware and license costs between the two products. The Forcepoint NGFW product is by far easier to use and manage.
Read full review Return on Investment It's definitely decreased the amount that we spend on really expensive circuits every year. We're moving to cheaper broadband circuits with much higher throughput, being able to leverage those and still get the performance that we want, the quality of service that we want. Read full review Efficiency/Productivity increase. The company moved from Cisco firewall and routing hardware to Forcepoint NGFW. It now takes fewer people and fewer hours to manage the new product. This has allowed the company to put the man-hours to use on other projects and tasks. Long term viability. This has been a concern in the past when the company started as Stonegate, merged to become Stonesoft then got purchased by McAfee, then McAfee got purchased by Intel. However, with Forcepoint the product seems to have found a stable home. Low complexity. The Web GUI based system for management has reduced the cost of personnel and training required. There is no longer a need for the company to have higher trained and higher salary cost employees to manage the system. Mid-level admins at lower salaries are capable of managing the GUI based system with ease. Read full review ScreenShots