Item: Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center
Rating: 8
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center is used to manage cisco firewalls running FTD Image or Cisco IPS/IDS Firepower Modules on top of Cisco ASA. Access, Intrusion, URL, and Malware Policies are controlled from one place for all managed devices. The network object can be reused between access policies. FMC provides great visibility and context for events, threads, and traffic generated from users, applications, and operating systems used in the infrastructure.

Pros and Cons

Manage firewall access policies
Manage IPS policies
Wizards for VPN configuration
NAT configuration

Faster depolyments
Simultaneous access policy configuration by multiple users
More VPN Troubleshooting options on GUI

Return on Investment

Managing access policies from one place
In case FMC is not available, all firewall changes are blocked
VPN Configuration Wizards

Alternatives Considered

Palo Alto Panorama and CheckPoint

Palo Alto Panorama is more user-friendly and provided faster policy deployment compared to Cisco FMC. Panorama is more stable compared to Cisco FMC. Cisco FMC is better when compared to CheckPoint Smart Console. Configuration and troubleshooting in CheckPoint Smart Console are more complicated and are not as user-friendly as it is in Cisco FMC.

Key Insights

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

Yes

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

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

Yes

Did implementation of Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center again?

Other Software Used

Palo Alto Panorama

Likelihood to Recommend

FMC is feature-rich and user-friendly. Cisco firewalls can run on standalone mode (FDM) but fewer features are supported on FDM. FMC is a must when working with Cisco Firewall. Migration from Cisco ASA to Cisco FTD is easy. There is a tool (FMT) that converts and imports the cisco IOS configuration file to FMC. FMC runs in VM or can be purchased as a physical appliance. The downside is that FMC is not quite fast and has bugs, especially when running in the older version 5x. and 6x.

From 1-10, FMC is an 8.

Overall Satisfaction with Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center