Likelihood to Recommend CloudGenix would be suited for any company that has an internet connection if you have multiple sites you could use this to help with network traffic and what should take precedence over other applications. If you didn't have various sites, you could go with another type of internet connection.CloudGenix may not be suited for that scenario.
Read full review Any scenario where a dedicated firewall administrator is on staff and a secure firewall solution that requires high availability is needed will be a good solution for the McAfee Firewall Enterprise product. The McAfee Firewall Enterprise however comes with some of its own parlance that is different from other vendors and does require some comfort on the administrators side when it comes to working in the command line. Added knowledge of protocols and how they interact is a must for any firewall admin but particularly for the McAfee Firewall Enterprise product due to its flexible nature. If the environment is to be mostly hands off where a very limited rule set is to be configured and not likely to change often, I would defer to a different product
Read full review Pros Circuit Monitoring QOS of network traffic High Availability Read full review Based on the SecureComputing Sidewinder firewalls, the McAfee Firewall Enterprise does similar backend containerization of each service which provides for added security in the unlikely event of failures or breeches. Tie in reporting services (if used by the admin) provide very granular details on rules accessed and the firewalls response to the requests. Configurable options are plentiful. Unbound DNS can be configured on each "burb" (SecureComputing/McAfee parlance for interface), similar options for sendmail while rulesets can be configured at the application level down to simple IP-filter making options for enhancing security as well as troubleshooting equally as useful. Full control over shell for scripting and/or scheduling (cron) purposes. Solid HA and patching architecture. Support was always helpful, knowledgeable and insightful (especially the staff that migrated from SecureComputing). Read full review Cons Some warning messages are hard to pinpoint the actual issue. Support was faster at first, seems to not be as quick as in the beginning. Read full review For an application-layer firewall the applications supported (at the time I managed them) were too few and would need to be expanded and the application ruleset needed to be expanded as well. The remote access VPN client configuration was overly complex for the average user and would need to be supplemented with a configuration file that had already been generated. Other solutions from CheckPoint or Cisco ASA are not as complex for end user remote access. Enhancing the GUI with a builtin "packet capture" feature would be useful for administrators not familiar with tcpdump. Read full review Support Rating The support was super fast in the beginning. Sometimes it seems now that the support does not get back to you as quickly. When we do get in contact with the support, they are usually knowledgeable and can help find the problem. The support has also been easy to work with.
Read full review Alternatives Considered We evaluated Silverpeaks and Cisco. We found that CloudGenics' had a pricing model that met our needs. The sales team we worked with went over our existing environment thoroughly to provide the right size solution without compromising or limiting our technology needs. While the overall solutions form each vendor would have worked, we simply believed CloudGenic was the right fit for our company based on price, sales, support, and functionality.
Read full review Compared to other firewalls I've managed (Palo Alto, Cisco ASA & CheckPoint) I would say that McAfee Firewall Enterprise was probably at the time not the leader in its field however it is a product that proved its reliability and flexibility over the other vendors. The addition of many new features usually comes as a detriment to some other area (restricted CLI, decreased logging etc.). In my experience this product gave the flexibility and options that the organization needed.
Read full review Return on Investment Reduced Down time Improved throughput due to their intelligent data analytics Full utilization of all data circuits Read full review In its highly available configuration the impact on any business objective has been positive given the fact that any downtime of the firewall would negatively impact all business objectives. Read full review ScreenShots