Cisco Secure IPS vs. Juniper SRX Series Firewalls

For scenarios, I described before, like when you have centralized administration and several locations, and the majority of those locations have the same size/requirements, Firepower is well suited. Easy to maintain, relatively cheap to buy. For scenarios too small, like small sales offices like ours, I don't think Firepower could fit, basically because you'll need to invest a certain amount of money to buy, license and deploy.

Incentivized

Juniper vSRX is an excellent edge gateway device. The combination of Tunneling protocols supported and the advanced routing & security features makes it perfect for this kind of deployment. It is available in physical, virtual appliances as well as support on multiple clouds so you can have the same box be your edge gateway in multiple environments for consistency.

It can also work as a Internet Gateway, DMZ Firewall/Router and it would function just fine.

While it can also work as a DC firewall (North-South), the poor GUI will make it harder in the day to day administration for the multiple policies in a DC.

Incentivized

• You will get more visibility in your network.
• Very fast performance
• Easy to detect and prevent the suspicious activities.
• Easy to export report[s]
• Daily security updates
• Efficacy
• Very low cost
• Cisco Threat Intelligence Director
• A lot of Cisco documentation available

Incentivized

• The Juniper SRX platform is easy to set up (out of the box).
• The support team responds to tickets quickly and with good solutions.

Incentivized

• The performance is not always as good as you'd want. Some operations take the better part of a minute (drilling down in traffics analysis).
• Deploying or upgrading the FirePower software to the ASA firewalls takes a long time and deployment might fail without a clear reason.

Incentivized

• Some of the more complex setups (clustered HA, etc.) can be a little difficult to configure.
• The lowest-end model that supports true multi-site HA is relatively expensive. It would be nice to have that option in lower models.
• Some configuration options (particularly the way address book entries are done) can get tedious and make for very long configs.

Incentivized

We are in the middle of outsourcing and may not be able to keep this product.

Incentivized

Very easy to navigate GUI in the FMC and very effective at performing the intending duties.

Incentivized

We didn't have any major issues that let us need support. Only, for this reason, I think Cisco Firepower deserves the rating. Even for small issues, the partner that helped us during the project could solve it quickly. There are also tons of documents and other online resources to help maintain, administer and support the product.

Incentivized

This is the one area where I have a beef with Juniper. When I called into Cisco TAC, 90% of the time, the first person I spoke with was able to resolve my issue. With Juniper TAC, 90% of the time, the first person I speak with is not able to resolve my issue, seems to almost be reading from a script, and must escalate my ticket. All of which takes time.

Incentivized

We were using the Suricate IDS but it is very difficult to configure and manage so we replace it with Cisco Secure IPS. It gives us all the advanced security features and more control over our network.

Incentivized

Equipment prices ran about the same. Performance and management were also more or less equal. The biggest deciding factors for going with Juniper were (1) fewer security incidents related to SRX firewalls and (2) technical support costs were significantly less.

Incentivized

• Has made it much easier to determine when incidents have occurred
• Has been effective in reducing false positives and making solution management more efficient and cost effective

Incentivized

• It is a workhorse for our field operations. It provides the last touch for an ISP to the customer. The customer has no view of the device, but with the repeatability of the device, they do not need to.
• The ability to roll out a dynamic routing protocol attached to a security zone allows elasticity to the environment that supports growth.
• VLAN support on the inside interfaces allow this to be the only device in some smaller deployments we install these in.

Incentivized