Cisco Secure Web Appliance vs. Symantec Advanced Threat Protection

We have both scenarios where we can describe that. For example, in the HQ, where we have about 3,000 users, Cisco IronPort Web Security Appliance is the ideal solution, because we can consolidate all the Internet access, policies, rules, etc. in the same box. However, if you have small offices with a few users, it's hard to justify one big and expensive box that could cost more than the whole office infrastructure.

Incentivized

It is valuable software for when it comes to a large or medium organization, since it helps to protect the endpoints, but as the number of servers increases its value increases. However, it is important to keep in mind that when it comes to low end devices, its protection can affect their performance. This is because it is not a software with a very light agent.

Incentivized

• SMA gave us central control over multiple servers, simplifying management.
• Performance of the Appliance VM exceeded that of our old physical appliance-based solution.
• Convenient licensing for virtualized environments that allows easy scaling.

Incentivized

• The incident management piece is the heart and soul of the product. A single area where all data in relation to network and email protection is available.
• Works well in conjunction with the standard Symantec Endpoint product.
• URL Protection is advanced and very helpful
• Technical support is great and definitely the best I have ever seen for a "anti-virus" type product.

Incentivized

• I think that the interface could need updates to adapt it to a much more current system, achieve quick access to necessary tools and adapt the platform to a much more customizable and comfortable system to work with.
• It is undoubtedly a platform that is worth having, however, the license costs could be better adjusted to small businesses so that it can be accessed more easily.
• It could be a bit complex to use, the use of codes is quite extensive, it could be adjusted to something much more practical but just as efficient.

Incentivized

• I don't like that I have to maintain the client and keep it up to date. Updating the client is not a very easy process.
• Deploying the client could be easier. They have a deployment tool, but it doesn't really get to all PCs, which means I still have to manually deploy it.
• Because the product has so much customization, it can also be very difficult to set up and understand.

Incentivized

Symantec Advanced Threat Protection has done a sufficient job at identifying true positives. However, the UI could be improved and the amount of false positives is a little too frequent for my liking

Incentivized

Because it's one of those products you almost don't realize it exists from the end user. From the administrator perspective, you can do everything on its web interface and it's very intuitive to manage, once you know the concepts behind identities, acls, etc. Also, once you build the control structure, I mean, you link 'local' groups with your own Active Directory groups, as we did here, you don't need to be managing those things on the appliance itself.

Incentivized

There is a small learning curve, but compared to other AV products it is fairly simple and easy to catch onto

Incentivized

Our experience with Cisco's support was terrible. Other than the fact that they don't respond to service-related emails with urgency, they also keep on changing the policies that affected us. Recently, they came up with a new look for the same software, which was insanely slow. Renewal of keys for the old interface took months. Overall, the support was not very friendly from the users' point of view.

Incentivized

Support responds fast for higher priority issues, they have always been good at solving the problems we encounter.

Incentivized

No, besides to review documentation prior to beginning. That is what helped lead to a smooth implementation

Incentivized

At home I have a McAfee service that does similar tasks and helps manage the users of my internet. McAfee seems more user friendly and easier to set exceptions.

Incentivized

Frankly, the other products were too expensive to make the change from Symantec so we continued with the tried and true protection. We don't have the funding to move to a more expensive product and the manpower that it would take to implement a new solution.

Incentivized

• Security! Security! Security! We are financial company that work with very sensitive information. A lot of unsafe traffic was blocked on the Cisco IronPort WSA over years of using it. We did not earn on it but absolutely sure that we did not lose 'gazillion' of dollars being infected or scammed.
• Easy to configure and use, no need to teach new personnel how work with this product (hopefully saving time = saving money).
• Unfortunately the price of license subscription made financial managers push IT dept. to look for something cheaper.

Incentivized

• Some digital assets were lost due to failures to detect various threats.
• We had to use other products in combination in order to trust that all threats were actually detected, taking extra time. We couldn't use just SATP.
• Ability to quickly manage/deploy via AD made maintenance of the application itself quick and easy.

Incentivized