Item: Cisco Secure Firewall
Rating: 7
Author: Simon Watkins

Overall Satisfaction with Cisco Secure Firewall

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We've been deploying these firewall on customer premises as Internet edge devices acting as the demarcation point between the network and the internet. As many of our customers are on a cloud journey, utilising DIA (Direct Internet Access), we deploy these devices in a HA (High Availability) setup ensuring that we have maximum business uptime.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Application control
Ease of use
Not a big jump moving from Cisco ASA

Cons

Full native routing integration in the GUI
NAT

Return on Investment

Maintains network uptime
Has IPS/IDS that will block threats
Has AMP to block malware

Alternatives Considered

Cisco Meraki MX

We've selected the Cisco Secure firewall as there is full Layer 7 functionality. You get more features out of the box so to speak with full application visibility and control, Intrusion Prevention, SI (Security Intelligence), Adavanced Malware Protection and a whole host of other feature. Although some of these are available in Meraki, the Cisco Secure Firewall goes into the next level.

Key Insights

Do you think Cisco Secure Firewall delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Cisco Secure Firewall's feature set?

Yes

Did Cisco Secure Firewall live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Cisco Secure Firewall go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Cisco Secure Firewall again?

Yes

Other Software Used

ThousandEyes, SolarWinds Kiwi CatTools

Likelihood to Recommend

Having deployed a number of these devices, I have found that they are excellent for network segmentation and the demarcation point between the internal network and the wider internet. If you required very high throughput then I would be cautious deploying these firewalls unless of course you were to purchase a higher model with the corresponding increase in throughtput. Essentially we need to be cautious in these cases and ensure the correct model is selected.