FireMon Security Manager for AWS

FireMon Security Manager  is mainly used for analyzing firewall configuration and rules. It is primarily for firewall analysis and configuration analysis of the firewall.

We work with FireMon Security Manager  as a service provider. Our customers have it, but we use FireMon Security Manager on behalf of them.

We use FireMon Security Manager mainly for the on-prem environment, and we primarily use it for our on-prem firewalls.

We are not using FireMon Security Manager for SASE  integration right now. We are just using it for firewall management.

We do use FireMon Security Manager for real-time compliance management primarily for that purpose, so we do have a positive impression of that because it can map the compliance against various standards available such as ISO 27001 or PCI DSS. That helps us in automating that compliance check on these firewalls.

We are not using FireMon Security Manager in an automatic fashion for compliance checks. We run it manually and run the tool periodically. We have not kept it for continuous scanning of the environment. However, whenever we run the tool, we do get a warning or an alert saying that this is a firewall rule that will potentially violate, for example, PCI DSS compliance.

FireMon Security Manager does affect our cleanup of firewall rules in a large enterprise environment because it helps us in identifying which rules are remaining unused since the previous FireMon Security Manager check. That helps us in prioritizing and saying that these are so many unused rules and why don't we clean them up.

One advantage of FireMon Security Manager is that it analyzes the firewall configuration against known standards. If there is a known firewall standard or configuration standard in NIST or any of the audit or compliance requirements such as PCI or ISO 27001, it can analyze the firewall configuration against those standards and give us a report of where we are missing so that we can comply with those standards as well.

FireMon Security Manager can also connect to multiple types of firewalls with different vendor firewalls. We use a multi-vendor firewall environment, and the advantage of FireMon Security Manager is that it can connect to different vendors that we use in the environment.

FireMon Security Manager helps to prioritize risks and prioritize fixes. When it points out errors or misconfigurations, it gives us a rating saying that this is a high critical misconfiguration which needs to be fixed first, versus a low-rating misconfiguration which might have a less or reduced impact and which we can fix later on.

We do observe a decrease in errors and misconfigurations that increase risk in the environment with FireMon Security Manager. It points out errors, so we mainly use it for that purpose. We don't use it to manage the firewall, but we use it for analyzing the firewall configuration that will reduce the risk and any kind of errors that are there in the firewall. We could say there is about a twenty percent decrease in errors and misconfigurations due to FireMon Security Manager. The reason is we were using some other tool earlier, so we had done quite a bit of improvements on the firewall. Once we introduced FireMon Security Manager, it found new areas where we could improve and there is about a twenty percent improvement.

FireMon Security Manager does affect our compliance reporting processes. It helps us automate reporting and prioritize all those compliances. This way, it is quite useful.

I think there are some disadvantages and areas for improvement. What is limited or has no capability in FireMon Security Manager is integration with all the cloud-based firewall native vendors. For example, in Azure  or in AWS , if you have a Palo Alto firewall, FireMon Security Manager will work fine. However, if you use Azure 's own native firewall or AWS 's own native firewall capabilities, FireMon Security Manager does not have the ability to analyze the policy of such native cloud-based firewalls. That is a disadvantage that we are seeing because we are also using more and more native services rather than going for third-party services in the cloud environment.

The second disadvantage we see with FireMon Security Manager is some vendors which are now becoming popular, such as Cato Networks . We have one customer who uses Cato quite extensively, but we are not able to use FireMon Security Manager for them to do the policy analysis because it doesn't work with Cato.

I started working with FireMon Security Manager approximately a year ago.

Stability-wise, FireMon Security Manager is not a problem. It is approximately a ninety-nine percent stable product.

We haven't used FireMon Security Manager in a highly scalable manner, so when we factored it in, we haven't really tested its scalability. I am not aware of the scalability of the product or whether it can support thousands of firewalls. We do use it for hundreds of firewalls today, but not in the thousands. I am not sure on scalability.

Customer service from FireMon Security Manager is good in terms of responding to any issues or any errors that we face. In terms of using the product as is and its customer support, I would say it is good enough. I would rate support at about an eight on the scale from zero to ten, with ten being the best.

We were using some other tool earlier. We had done quite a bit of improvements on the firewall. Once we introduced FireMon Security Manager, it found new areas where we could improve and there was about a twenty percent improvement.

Deploying FireMon Security Manager is quite easy to deploy.

We bought FireMon Security Manager directly from a reseller. We did not buy it through AWS Marketplace .

FireMon Security Manager is worth buying and worth its money in terms of return on investment. As long as you have the firewalls in your environment which are supported by FireMon Security Manager, it is worth the investment.

It does save time and money both because otherwise you would have to review the firewall configuration by hand or manually, whereas FireMon Security Manager automates it. In terms of money, you will have to reduce the number of people who are involved in the firewall review. FireMon Security Manager is also a lower-cost product than AlgoSec .

I am comparing FireMon Security Manager to a product such as AlgoSec , something which operates in the same market. AlgoSec is one big example where we did an evaluation.

Cost-wise, it is very competitive if I compare it with its peers. The pros are that in terms of the tool capability, it is as good as any of the best of the market tools and cost-wise, it is lower. FireMon Security Manager is affordable compared to its competitors.

Time-wise, I am not sure how to measure it, but from a procurement perspective, because this is procured by the customer directly, we don't have visibility in terms of what was used and what was the cost of AlgoSec versus FireMon Security Manager. However, from a product perspective, our recommendation was that both were equal, and FireMon Security Manager slightly better. Cost-wise when FireMon Security Manager was better, I think the client went with FireMon Security Manager itself.

When I mentioned time saving, I meant that it saves time for when accurately creating, approving, and deploying firewall policies.

What organizations should remember is primarily to look at the compatibility of FireMon Security Manager with the firewalls that they have in their respective environments. In their environment, if they have only, for example, Palo Alto, Cisco, or FortiGate firewalls, and all of them are supported by FireMon Security Manager, however, if they use a very unusual firewall or a cloud-native firewall, they should check whether FireMon Security Manager supports those firewalls and then take a call accordingly. My overall rating for this product is eight out of ten.

FireMon Security Manager  is used to centrally manage multiple firewalls, enforce security policies, monitor threats, and simplify day-to-day firewall administration.

FireMon Security Manager  allows us to manage multiple firewalls from a single console, making policy updates and monitoring very easy, and troubleshooting much faster and more consistent.

FireMon Security Manager is deployed in our organization on-premises within our data center.

The best features of FireMon Security Manager are centralized policy management and security policy analysis, which is very useful, along with compliance reporting and clear visibility across all the managed firewalls. These features help us to simplify firewall management and improve security.

FireMon Security Manager has positively impacted our organization by improving our firewall management by increasing visibility, reducing configuration errors, streamlining policy changes, and helping maintain compliance.

FireMon Security Manager could be improved with a more user-friendly interface. Otherwise, the performance and the deployment are perfect.

We have not switched solutions; we started with FireMon Security Manager only.

FireMon Security Manager is a pretty stable solution.

Scalability-wise, FireMon Security Manager is a very good solution that can handle our organization's growth.

Customer support for FireMon Security Manager is very supportive, and they are able to provide support and troubleshoot issues at any time.

We have not evaluated other options before choosing FireMon Security Manager.

FireMon Security Manager provides a very good return on investment because we are able to save our time and money.

FireMon Security Manager helps reduce configuration errors by identifying duplicate, unused, and overly permissive firewall rules before changes are implemented. This reduces the risk of misconfiguration and keeps security policies consistent across all firewalls.

Regarding FireMon Security Manager's AI capabilities, its governance and security appear very well-designed. They provide controlled access, support compliance, and policy validation, which is very helpful.

The data that FireMon Security Manager provides is very accurate and reliable, with reliable output.

I recommend clearly defining your firewall management and compliance requirements before deploying FireMon Security Manager and taking advantage of its policy analysis and compliance features. This will help the organization to achieve a compliance-ready environment and gain proper visibility.

I rate this product 9 out of 10.