WatchGuard Network Security offers worry-free setup, protection, and management of critical networks.
August 12, 2019

WatchGuard Network Security offers worry-free setup, protection, and management of critical networks.

Greg College | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review

Overall Satisfaction with WatchGuard Network Security

We utilize WatchGuard equipment and their Security Suites in our main office, as well as deploying it on-site for all of our IT customers. Our primary role is working with criminal justice agencies, and WatchGuard products serve many of the appropriate needs. Their firewalls are FIPS 140-2 compliant and offer a full range of services that will maintain compliance with federal CJIS and state policies regarding the access and transmission of criminal justice information (CJI).

Their assortment of proxy policies and security services ensure that our criminal justice networks are safe, secure, and controlled. They utilize multiple layers of threat detection to protect their critical/sensitive data. And with many criminal justice networks requiring two-factor authentication for mobile devices, WatchGuard now offers their integrated AuthPoint service, which can easily provide this service to agencies without requiring them to invest in third-party tokens/services to make it happen.

Pros

  • WatchGuard AuthPoint allows CJIS-compliant MFA for mobile devices.
  • Layered security services can easily block threats from several different angles.
  • Easy-to-use system manager makes building policies and interpreting them very easy.

Cons

  • WatchGuard Cloud features have room to grow. I would love to see it fully replace the need for Dimension or WatchGuard Server Manager.
  • AuthPoint support for third-party tokens (for agencies that already own them) would be a nice addition.
  • Compliance with federal and state regulations for the transmission of CJI.
  • Ability to centrally manage almost 50 sites with ease.
  • Worry-free security for criminal justice agencies.
Usability is generally very good, with a few exceptions. The WatchGuard Policy Manager makes it incredibly easy for anyone with a little bit of know-how to create good policies and utilize features. However, the web interface is sometimes a bit lacking, in my opinion, and is more difficult to use. Setting up some features (such as AuthPoint) can be difficult for a novice, and online documentation is sometimes unavailable or out-of-date.

However, compared to other brands (such as SonicWALL), getting what you want done is infinitely easier, and requires far less navigation of menus. Setting up branch office VPNs with a WatchGuard is the easiest of any products I've used.
It's a very straight-forward process. I can get a device into my customer's hands with a Total Security Suite already attached, which can be good for 3-years running. Nothing to worry about or manage. And once the time to renew comes up, a notification comes through a number of channels (including WatchGuard Cloud, notifications on Firebox System Manager, and email from partner channel managers as well), to ensure that license renewal is easy. Once a renewal is purchased, it is simply applied to the device in the WatchGuard account, which is literally a copy/paste maneuver, and everything is handled.
WatchGuard devices are so much easier to use than SonicWall devices. I find SWs to be obtuse and require a lot of extra clicking/navigating to accomplish the same tasks. The Total Security Suite that is available for WatchGuard is simply unparalleled in a cost-to-features ratio.
WatchGuard Security Services are very well-suited for our customer environments (criminal justice networks). They're very easy to centrally manage (we have about 45 that we handle). It would, perhaps, be less well-suited for very small environments. Although WatchGuard does provide smaller/less-expensive units, they may be overkill for very small environments or those that do not have to be concerned with regulatory needs.

WatchGuard Network Security Feature Ratings

Identification Technologies
8
Visualization Tools
9
Content Inspection
10
Policy-based Controls
10
Active Directory and LDAP
8
Firewall Management Console
7
Reporting and Logging
7
VPN
10
High Availability
10
Stateful Inspection
9

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