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Cisco FMC
Updated July 10, 2022

Cisco FMC

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center

We use Cisco Secure Firewall Management [Center (formerly Firepower Management Center)] to protect our entire organization and its IT assets. We also have firewalls managed by [Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center] that protect our IOT/OT infrastructure both ways. This is our enterprise solution to protect against ransomware attacks (partially), protect from external attacks, lock down internal systems and services, and ensure the best network security for our global network operations. Once getting used to the interface its pretty straight forward to use and navigate. Cisco has a decent (although google searches quite often is as good or better) knowledgebase on how-to's and best practices. We chose FMC as our first line of defense due to Cisco' s brand, its strong networking and security background, and its extensive product line to meet any business need.
  • Ease of administration
  • Latest security updates with easy ability to implement with little to no user impact
  • Cutting edge functionality to meet any business need and its ability to add features and functions after its already on the market
  • Licensing is difficult to navigate on purchase
  • Renewal licensing and support isn't all that easy to do and has its issues
  • The lowest end firewalls on the market seem to be EOL sooner than documented and requires earlier upgrading to ensure FMC itself can be kept current for security reasons. if you buy anything but the cheapest model firewalls this is not a problem
  • Implementing some functionality is more complex than it should be and believe Cisco could do better in this regard to the software
  • Everyday Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center proves its worth. With the ever changing ransomware and hacking tools out there it continues to prove it can protect our network and IT assets
  • With its ease of use admin portal its easy on first log in to see what is going on and things you should look at and remediate
  • With its easy update process for itself and remote firewalls it enables us admins to have more personal time versus working after hours to apply such updates
We chose Cisco [Secure Firewall Management Center (formerly Firepower Management Center)] as our primary network and security partner. We wanted the stability of one vendor for all these products and at the time no other vendor really supplied the entire network and security stack. Cisco also was great at laddering our discounts when purchasing more products from them versus going to competitors for certain products. The most important thing is, with having so much of our network and security products all being Cisco when updating any device/software we know we should have little to no issues afterwards. All due to Cisco's internal controls to test across their product line. This enables us to be more aggressive (at least for security) in keeping our equipment up to date both software and security update-wise.

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?

Yes

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?

Yes

Cisco Prime LAN Management Solution, Cisco Secure Email (formerly Cisco Email Security), Cisco Wide Area Application Services
Business which have ore than 25 staff and want excellent security should look at [Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center (formerly Firepower Management Center)] as a solution to implement. Obviously, larger organizations should short list [Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center] as a top 3 candidate. Cisco security is arguably one of the best there is. And, with its R&D it continues this trend to this day. Also, cases where you need complex network/security configurations; this product is well suited for. Including situations where failover and fault tolerance is required.

Very small businesses and home offices should select something else as this type of software and hardware is more complex and difficult to administer than other well suited products on the market.

Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center Feature Ratings

Firewall Security Management
8.3
Policy planning and rule management
8
Automated Policy Orchestration
8
Device Discovery
8
Policy Compliance Auditing
9
Anomalous Event or Behavior Deviation
9
Firewall Rule Cleanup
8

Resilience and Reliability

Cisco SecureX when linked to Cisco Talos and AMP provides the best real time protection for network traffic and all applications that traverse the firewall. Security staff can sleep easier knowing that SecureX will actively monitor all system traffic during the day and while you sleep. Sending admins notifications when necessary and ensuring the network is secure at all times.
Firewalls, monitoring and notifications are only the basics to protecting a business network. Adding application monitoring and real time integrated packet analysis is the latest must to protecting data. Due to the ever evolving nature of security breaches and hacking methods a business network must be active in self protection. Adding these new security systems onto network equipment adds this adaptive layer to cyber security.
We are very satisfied with SecureX and it's adaptive, active nature in protecting or data and systems. It's easy to administer, update, review notifications and update when necessary. Cisco's security practice fits into our needs and continues to evolve as global cyber events change. SecureX is easy to migrate to new cisco gear as we upgrade to newer models when supports ends on older gear. Enabling fast ROI during these capital expenditure projects.
Cisco secure firewall management center is easy to install, moderate to setup in conjunction with firewall hardware, and administration of policy changes afterwards is pretty straight forward. And flexible to add more advanced security configurations as needed. Cisco support website is pretty good for researching how to documentation too. Cisco secure firewall management center enables integration to SecureX - the cloud security protection service. And AMP which protects packet flow with real time analysis. Cisco secure fmc is the evolved name for cisco firepower management center so for those customers who have firepower this is a simple migration.
Since moving to Cisco secure management center from firepower management center we've had no application issues, outages or any other problems. It's always been there for us and always provides us the necessary protection and notification when we need it. Been very happy with all of our Cisco systems over our tenure to date.
Cisco secure management center is easy to set up itself. Integration to Cisco firewalls is a little challenging depending upon needs and functionality. As well, setting up VPN tunnels from cisco secure management to other 3rd party VPN services can be problematic but is doable. It just needs some expert level skills and knowledge to be successful.
  • Links in well with cisco email security appliance
  • Links in well with cisco threadgrid
  • Links in well with meraki switching and network management

Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center Support

Cisco support is great at being able to create tickets easily. Before the pandemic Cisco support was fantastic with following up, resolving, and closing out tickets. However with the advent of covid they've had some challenges to date with support promptness and resolving cases. This is part of the reason why they don't get a 100% rating from me. We feeling like cisco can improve this area and make customer satisfaction higher.
ProsCons
Knowledgeable team
Problems get solved
Kept well informed
Immediate help available
Support understands my problem
Support cares about my success
Poor followup
Cisco security products are Paramount to business success and business continuity. Having quick customer service with responsive knowledgeable support staff is Paramount to our success. We feel that purchasing Cisco equipment is a partnership between our organization and them and that we are in this together as a team. Cisco has a vast security practice with equipment that meets our ever expanding business needs as well the software that runs on it is adaptable as well to the ever-changing security environment globally.
Yes - Yes we have reported more than one significant issue with Cisco security products including secure management center. Cisco tac support has been great and very knowledgeable in timely resolving the problems. We've actually been successful in helping them diagnose new bugs and them publicly publishing updates so that not just us but other customers can be successful when they upgrade their cisco security software.
We bought the add-on Cisco amp and Cisco threatgrid services and we were wanting to integrate them to Cisco secure management center. Cisco support made it really easy for us to enable these services with a single 30 to 45 minute support session and got them connected online and functional with no impact to users and us as administrators.