FortiManager vs. Skybox Security

FortiManager is well suited for larger organizations which require unified configurations and IT departments that need quick turn around on firewall related tickets. I believe MSPs can also benefit with the use of the VDOM feature, if strict separation between clients is needed. FortiManager wouldn't be ideal for 1-3 site operations, unless their configurations are extremely complex or have a high number of active users.

Incentivized

For any customer that has a complex network environment spanning globally, skybox helps manage firewall policy compliance for many vendors quite easy. It has a variety of security and network vendors that it is compatible with in its database.

• Centralized FortiGate FW Management in a single console
• Available physical, virtual, or cloud deployment
• Single console for next-generation FW features
• Multiple Administrative Domains

Incentivized

• Skybox manages compliance for firewalls better than we have seen with other tools.
• Skybox integrates into standard change management tools so change control can flow through Skybox and assist with all decisions to implement a change.
• The Skybox network map is more detailed than other management tools showing us paths other tools didn't find.

Incentivized

• Various bugs: The software is buggy, and if you don't have a good understanding of it's underlaying operation, you can get confused or stuck when pushing a configuration. There are lots of little quirks you will have to learn, which are not described in any documentation.
• Conflict resolution: Occasionally, during larger changes, bringing new devices in, pushing a config will fail due to dependencies, conflicts, or other software bugs. This is somewhat time consuming because the error messages provided aren't descriptive
• CLI Options: Some configuration changes require creating scripts that execute on each device, and can't be done via the GUI

Incentivized

• User experience. On the first approach, it's not the simplest tool that I have ever used.
• Web-based console. In my honest opinion it's very important [to have] this type of functionality to extend the use of Skybox.
• Too many updates of the product.

Incentivized

It is user friendly and quite easy to use. It centralizes all info in one portal and generates good reports to help you visualize and assess your change management decision

The support team needs to be improved especially in their response and awareness about recent bugs in their solution. For example, sometimes they are not aware about how to integrate specific vendors like Microsoft Azure and they still don't have answers to it until now.

FortiManager is the best choice for managing numerous FortiGate firewalls. It allows for easy integration into ServiceNow and automates simple repetitive tasks that are very straightforward. Role-based access control is easy to enable and you can get quite granular with user permissions. Administrative Domains help segregate firewall management and compliance within the FortiManager console, by almost any classification method that makes sense to your organization.

Incentivized

CloudGuard Dome9 does not have a suite for an on-premise datacenter.

Incentivized

• Significant reduction in new firewall deployment turn around time, 50% reduction
• Reduction in time spent on website access related IT support tickets. Avg 5 minutes from response to close
• Reduction in time spent by IT team for setting up WFH employees to allow working over SSL VPN.

Incentivized

• Skybox is in pilot
• Positive ROI is in change management

Incentivized