FireMon is a real-time security policy management solution built for today’s complex multi-vendor, enterprise environments. Supporting the latest firewall and policy enforcement technologies spanning on-premises networks to the cloud, FireMon delivers visibility and control across the entire IT landscape to automate policy changes, meet compliance standards, to minimize policy-related risk. Since creating their policy management solution in 2004, FireMon states they've helped…
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SonicWall TZ
Score 8.3 out of 10
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SonicWall TZ is an entry to mid-tier NGFW for small to mid-sized companies. It is a Unified Threat Management solution, with additional native decryption and deep-packet inspection capabilities.
FireMon is best used in a large environment (for example, I have >100 firewalls in my environment). It's best used when trying to improve security posture and showing changes in firewall security over time. It might not be the best choice for smaller environments or those that aren't concerned about security management.
Based on my experience, this is a solid platform for a small to mid sized company, especially when there is someone who has IT experience, or can get outsourced IT help. I would not recommend for someone who is a technology novice. Also, this is a competent device for someone who is looking to add VPN services for remote workers.
There are Service Bundles in SonicWall TZ that are Unlicensed and do not know why they have not be Activated - would need help to further understand benefits
Do not know why Standard Support is Unlicensed
WiFi range of TZ270W is very limited - need to add Access Points or Extended to obtain adequate coverage
The shell is locked out and we can't run any general centos commands. The implementation and maintainence of the arch is very complex. Even with the right identifiers on log messages the log collection keeps failing. The warning messages on the device are ambiguous. The log messages on firemon are a bit confusing and don't show the exact issue.
Overall the new interface is very logical and easy to navigate. We did struggle at first coming from the older interface and finding our way around the new. But our new users found it very simple to find what they were looking for. One negative we do all struggle with is packet cpature not always being clear how its set/what is being monitored. this could do with more information on teh intial page instead of having to look for it
FireMon has been relatively stable overall. However, there have been a handful of times where we had issues with the console. For example, we couldn't update which devices to include in a security assessment. The initial suggestion from support was to just reboot it. It seems like there weren't many other options available such as to restart services before going to the extreme of a complete reboot.
I'm not sure we have the largest implementation of FireMon out there but we do have a few 1000 devices being probed by FireMon. Overall, the system's performance has been rock solid. The console refreshes quickly and reports are generated within an expected timeframe.
FireMon technical support is awesome! They respond quickly to our requests and they are well trained and very knowledgeable about the tool. Some issues have to be referred to the development team, but technical support largely provides solutions for any issues that we may have.
Once you get to a competent technician the support experience is better. But I have found that the lower tiers of support are very slow to respond (like 1 email per day) and you typically have to re-explain yourself a couple times before they get it. I have not used Phone support, and that may be a better experience.
I has worked with AlgoSec and while they are very similar product, I find the FireMon is easier to understand and get rolling with. While both require some learning, FireMon is by far the easier one. Once you have an understanding of how things are arranged and labeled you can easily import firewalls and begin to work on them to improve them
SonicWall and WatchGuard are both fine appliances, but I am accustomed to the Barracuda NG. The Barracuda Control Center is so powerful and useful that it beats out the other two. SonicWall does a great job of dividing up firewall rules and NAT policies, but this is a preference among engineers.
Firemon Is easily scalable and maintainable with any size team. Although it requires some tech debt, it is well worth the time to invest to ensure compliance is visible and reports are accurate. Although our environment is very large we do not fully utilize the scalability of the Firemon product.
