Palo Alto PA Series Review
Updated January 13, 2020
Palo Alto PA Series Review
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Software Version
PA-5000 Series
Overall Satisfaction with Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls is used as our routing, security, and network core at the resort. All traffic that flows from one network to another must go through our Palo Alto. When I came aboard at Pearl River Resort and Casino the Palo Alto was already the core router and firewall. I was a little hesitant about this design. However, after using the system and seeing the performance and benefits of the Palo Alto I am very impressed with the security it can provide and still meet our needed levels of performance.
- Security Enforcement and Review - The Palo Alto firewall provides all the advanced features you would expect from a modern firewall. Zones based rules, Layer 4 and down rules, and application firewall rules.
- User Definition - The Palo Alto firewall has direct AD integration. This allows rules to be based not just on source an destination information, but also on which security group in the AD that user belong. For example you can limit access to out of band networks to only the users that need it.
- Line Rate Traffic Analysis - When doing my home work I found that Palo Alto firewalls provide high speed analysis to traffic with additional processors to allow line speed results.
- No cloud analytics - I believe industry as a whole is moving to a management suite powered by ML. Palo has a great product, but currently there is no ML backed platform.
- SD WAN - Palo has just announced the addition of SDWAN in its upcoming 9.1 release. I feel they are a bit late to the game compared to others like Fortinet.
- Web based interface can still seem slow at time when compared to more modern HTML 5 interfaces.
- The Palo Alto has helped us achieve our main goal of security segmenting our back of house and gaming system from each other in a way that we can easily verify.
I did not originally choose Palo Alto as our core firewall appliance. It has already been purchased when I came on board. However, I did recently choose to purchase new Palo Alto firewalls to replaced our older models. I have had experience working with Cisco ASAs and SonicWall appliances in other jobs, and we have a CheckPoint stack stood up in our lab here at the resort we compared to the Palo Altos. None of the others could compare in features and management. SonicWall did not have the features we had grown accustomed to having already used the Palo Altos. And with their recent purchase and then spun back out cycle the company had been thru we were reluctant. My engineers and I have use ASA in the past. They are good products, but still very "old school". Checkpoint we did not feel treated as well as a company and we took them off the potential list.
Do you think Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series delivers good value for the price?
Yes
Are you happy with Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series's feature set?
Yes
Did Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series live up to sales and marketing promises?
Yes
Did implementation of Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series go as expected?
Yes
Would you buy Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series again?
Yes