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WatchGuard's Network Security - your safest and most cost-effective bet on implementing IPSEC in your SMB organization.
October 20, 2023

WatchGuard's Network Security - your safest and most cost-effective bet on implementing IPSEC in your SMB organization.

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

Modules Used

  • WatchGuard Network Security
  • Security Suite

Overall Satisfaction with WatchGuard Network Security

We have been using WatchGuard's appliances/network security for several years - they play a vital role within our network. We use our M-Series appliance for our work-from-home staff to enable them to VPN into the network via their IP phones, tablets, workstations, etc., and it has proven to be an invaluable tool for not only work-from-home, but for protecting our ingress and egress traffic from malicious actors.
  • IPSEC
  • VPN
  • Traffic monitoring
  • None
  • The security suite, while relatively expensive, pays for itself with peace of mind and the ability to effortlessly monitor ingress/egress traffic through the system manager app.
  • A negative impact, and the only one worth mentioning, is that of having to license the Dimension software, as that should be included with the security suite subscription. Without dimension, packet inspection is a bit more involved.
No.
Firebox System Manager is along with WatchGuard System Manager are both valuable tools that make management of our overall WatchGuard deployment a breeze. We are not to keen on using the web interface, so having access to the desktop clients provided by WatchGuard is excellent, and we hope they continue to offer them in the future.
After deploying Meraki and SonicWall in our environment, we decided to go with WatchGuard due to the value in cost and ease of deployment when compared to the two. Meraki was relatively more expensive and SonicWall's solutions did not stack up well against the features provided by WatchGuard's Firebox appliances.

Do you think WatchGuard Network Security delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with WatchGuard Network Security's feature set?

Yes

Did WatchGuard Network Security live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of WatchGuard Network Security go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy WatchGuard Network Security again?

Yes

Our network is segmented on various VLANs - the multiple interfaces on the WatchGuard appliance allows us to filter traffic with various rulesets specific to interfaces with very little effort, allowing for gateway/Internet access with ease.

Deploying home IP phones and various devices is effortless due to WatchGuard's VPN capability. The ability to deploy 2FA with specific users is very helpful as well.

WatchGuard Network Security Feature Ratings

Firewall
9.4
Identification Technologies
9
Visualization Tools
8
Content Inspection
8
Policy-based Controls
10
Active Directory and LDAP
10
Firewall Management Console
10
Reporting and Logging
9
VPN
10
High Availability
10
Stateful Inspection
9
Proxy Server
10

Using WatchGuard Network Security

50 - Work-from-home users, users with home IP phones, users with BYO devices, site-to-site VPN users.
1 - A general understanding of networking, routing, subnetting, TCP/IP framework, VLANs, as well as a general understanding of IPSEC.
  • Work-from-home users
  • BYOD
  • IPSEC
  • Fully remote customer service department, including tablets, IP phones and workstations.
The cost is a worthwhile investment for the features offered and the abilities gained.

WatchGuard Network Security Implementation