Item: WatchGuard Network Security
Rating: 10
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Currently, we deploy WatchGuard Network security devices in order to help secure both the external and internal perimeter of our customer's networks. The appliances offer many modern features such as Advanced Thread Protection (ATP), Spam / Antivirus, Website blocking / reporting and VPN services. The firewalls can also act as a wireless controller for the WatchGuard wireless access points. We have successfully deploy several of these with great success.

Pros and Cons

Website blocking works as well as any other option on the market.
ATP seems to identify a lot of threats that get past our spam filter or local Antivirus.
The spam and Antivirus services seems to identify a lot of threats that get past our spam filter or local Antivirus.
Considering the high cost of the wireless controller, having it come free with an application is a great value
The hardware is enterprise-class, rarely do we have hardware related issues.
The support is typically fast to respond and will not keep you for hours doing mundane troubleshooting.

Costly, the devices are rarely expensive, especially for the additional security bundles
There is no way to enforce password requirements for user accounts on the appliances.
the support is handled over sears, but this is not uncommon in the industry.

Return on Investment

it is not always easy to calculate a ROI for security devices, but we feel like over the years having these appliances in place has saved us countless data breaches.
Because of the subscription model, watchguard always provides a discount for upgrading devices once the existing device is EOL.

WatchGuard Network Security Partner

We are a WatchGuard security partner and we are very pleased with our performance.

Usability

At first, WatchGuard security appliances can seem complicated to configure, however, they do offer a lot of great resources and online training courses. Like any other modern security appliance, it has a large number of features to solve today's business needs. We currently deal with Cisco, Fortinet and Watchguard and I [see] WatchGuard to be the simplest devices to manage due to the management software that they come with..

Implementation Rating

To date we have not had many issues with the appliances, once they are in production we rarely need to touch them except for when we need to make changes. The hardware comes in many different form factors and easily integrate in any server room we have worked on.

WatchGuard Network Security Packaging and Licensing

We find that it is very simple to sell and maintain an active license across all of our customers, I feel this is due to how it is packaged. It can get a little confusing when customers want to 'cherry-pick' single licenses, but we typically push for the full security bundle

Alternatives Considered

Cisco 8540 Wireless Controller, FortiGuard Web Filtering Service, Cisco Aironet and Catalyst 3800 Series Access Points and Cisco Business Edition 7000

Typically WatchGuard appliances come out on top, however, this is due to the long ongoing successful relationship we have with WatchGuard products. We maintain active partnerships with Fortinet and Cisco to ensure that we can meet all of our customers needs.

Likelihood to Recommend

If a customer needs to set up a wide area network, WatchGuard security appliances can help filter the traffic and more importantly enforce access lists. At a larger scale, WatchGuard provides management server software that can facilitate the managing of 100s-1000s of devices.

If a customer needs a good quality Internet firewall, I would always suggest WatchGuard. With their subscription model, the solution can be tailored to fit the specific needs of the customer.

Watchguard products are great.

Overall Satisfaction with WatchGuard Network Security