Barracuda CloudGen Firewall for AWS - PAYG

My main use case for Barracuda CloudGen Firewall  is protection and preventing unauthorized access.

A specific example of how I use Barracuda CloudGen Firewall  for protection and preventing unauthorized access involves contractors and subcontractors who require access to the main console. They mostly log in remotely, and each time it creates a new login. I maintain a list of verified, safe devices that I input into the system. If someone tries to log in with unauthorized devices, it automatically gets blocked. On my console, a pop-up question asks if this device can be verified for access. Most of the time, I have to physically call the contractor or subcontractor office and ask for the device ID before allowing them to log in. In the past, we had a few breaches, but we were able to rectify the situation in a timely manner. With Barracuda CloudGen Firewall, it is much easier because the question pops up on my console asking me to grant access or not.

Day-to-day, my use of Barracuda CloudGen Firewall is primarily protection, and I am able to watch incoming and outgoing traffic. Due to changes in upgrades and updates of hardware and software, I sometimes need to dynamically plug some ports. It is very easy to do with Barracuda CloudGen Firewall because I see everything on one console, enabling me to do it across the network in real time.

The best features Barracuda CloudGen Firewall offers include a centralized console where I am able to see all incoming and outgoing traffic as well as the size of the packets. By the size, I can easily see what is occurring. If someone has copied a device ID and credentials, by the size of the outgoing packets of information, I can easily determine if it should be allowed and automatically block the access in real time without worrying. I do not have to call back and forth for verification; I can just automatically block and stop all activities in real time to prevent unauthorized access. Because I see it on the main console, it is very easy to understand and analyze what is happening. Everything happens in real time without waiting or asking questions. As long as the rules are followed, everything is fine. If any rules are not properly followed, the system alerts me and automatically blocks access even before I click to block access. I do not have to worry because it shifts responsibility from me to Barracuda CloudGen Firewall since it is doing everything in real time to prevent unauthorized access or leakage of information if any device has been compromised or has stolen credentials used to log in.

The most important aspect of Barracuda CloudGen Firewall for me is its easy integration into the system. I do not have to jump through hoops. The integration is done in real time, and after upgrades and updates, it continues integrating without me needing to do much. Everything happens automatically, which saves lots of time and money ultimately, making it easy to operate and see.

Barracuda CloudGen Firewall has positively impacted my organization by saving us lots of time and man-hours, ultimately saving us lots of money. It is very efficient and offers a very high level of security. We have beefed up our security with Barracuda CloudGen Firewall, and I am able to see everything on one main console in real time without jumping around because Barracuda CloudGen Firewall does it for me. If any rules are not followed, Barracuda CloudGen Firewall blocks the traffic or user, and I just need to click one more time to deny access and remove an unauthorized user from the system.

To improve Barracuda CloudGen Firewall, I would like to receive worldwide updates of security breaches on the Barracuda CloudGen Firewall console, informing me of events such as something happening in Singapore and detailing how unauthorized access occurred so I can be aware and alert.

For needed improvements, I would like to see better, brighter color alerts on the console that say "Warning, warning, warning." It would also be nice to get a louder warning type. Additionally, I would appreciate an option when I connect some of my approved devices, such as an Apple Watch, for the warning to pop up on my Apple Watch saying "Warning, unauthorized access, unauthorized user, be aware." This way, if I am not at the console but somewhere in the office, I could return to the console and check the problem easily.

I have been using Barracuda CloudGen Firewall for at least a year and a half.

Barracuda CloudGen Firewall is generally stable. I have experienced reliability issues sometimes after an update of the AI engine, but these issues are very temporary and minor.

The scalability of Barracuda CloudGen Firewall is excellent. It can handle growth in traffic and users easily, particularly since we have acquired new companies, and we have been able to easily update and upgrade the license, which shows great scalability.

Customer support for Barracuda CloudGen Firewall is timely and responsive. When needed, it can easily be changed from tier one to tier two for more advanced support. There were no problems that were not resolved to our satisfaction.

I previously used Kaspersky, but because of security breaches and the fact that it originated from a Russian company, we decided not to trust it anymore. We were looking for different solutions when we came across Barracuda CloudGen Firewall.

Since using Barracuda CloudGen Firewall, the security incidents have decreased significantly by approximately 25 to 35 percent across our global network. Before, we used to spend at least five hours after upgrades and updates to integrate everything back. Now, we save five to ten hours of man-hours that would have been wasted on integration because it happens automatically on my console. It has saved me at least ten hours of man-hours that would have been necessary for sending technicians on-site to verify the handshake and the install, making sure everything is correct.

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Barracuda CloudGen Firewall started with trying it on a sandbox. After which the pricing was approved by our accounting department and chief financial officer. Once approved, we implemented it, and compared to other solutions, it is fairly priced. Our higher-ups are happy with that.

Before choosing Barracuda CloudGen Firewall, I evaluated other options, specifically Nortel and Cisco Security.

My advice for others considering Barracuda CloudGen Firewall is to get a trial, set it up in a sandbox, see how well it performs in your environment, and if you find it suitable, use it. Barracuda CloudGen Firewall is a good, reliable solution.

I think Barracuda CloudGen Firewall is a good, reliable, robust solution. I appreciate it because I am able to see everything in real time on one console without jumping through too many hoops.

Regarding Barracuda CloudGen Firewall's AI capabilities, I think it has good governance and security, but the AI needs to be smarter or have a better engine. It needs to be more advanced and predictive, performing preemptive strikes by blocking the port that an unauthorized device is trying to access even before it attempts to log in to the system.

Mostly, Barracuda CloudGen Firewall's AI has made correct decisions for me, but I would appreciate it to pick up the IP addresses of compromised devices and create an updated list in real time. If it could gather information from our security providers through the shared information log, it could notify me if a device with a specific IP address has been flagged as compromised. I would rate this product an 8 out of 10.

I use Barracuda CloudGen Firewall  for multiple functionalities. One function is an email security gateway. It also acts for network security protection, network security and threat protection, which includes IPS concepts, malware protections, zero-day threat detections, web filtering and URL categorization and application controller. Additionally, it works for secure remote access through VPN, and SD-WAN for multi-site connectivity, which provides intelligent traffic routing and optimization. There is a possibility of cloud integration as well. It also includes web application firewall capabilities, which takes care of web application security and provides email security services. However, this should be tied up with the email security gateway to the firewall because Barracuda has a separate product for email security gateway, which needs to be integrated with Barracuda CloudGen Firewall . Then, this use case would work.

I use Barracuda CloudGen Firewall for multiple functionalities including email security gateway, network security, threat protection, IPS concepts, malware protections, zero-day threat detections, web filtering, URL categorization, application controller, secure remote access through VPN, SD-WAN for site connectivity, intelligent traffic routing, and cloud integration. Additionally, it includes web application firewall features and allows email security, requiring integration with a separate email security gateway product.

When I consider what I dislike about Barracuda CloudGen Firewall, there are a lot of competitors in the market. Next-gen firewalls offer a lot of capabilities. From a capability standpoint, competitors would allow you to configure use cases according to your needs and improvements. However, when I worked on Barracuda CloudGen Firewall, the option towards configuring the use cases was quite limited. The second point that I would highlight is the integration towards data points. The integration towards monitoring devices was quite complicated comparatively to other devices. Other vendors were mostly plug and play technology, but with respect to Barracuda CloudGen Firewall, we needed to involve a lot of manual effort in terms of those integrations.

I have been using Barracuda CloudGen Firewall for almost four to five years.

These kinds of stability issues happen in every tool. I will not blame or degrade Barracuda CloudGen Firewall in any means. The reason is that it was stable for us for a longer period of time. The support they provide during critical phases, such as the deployment of patches and other tasks, was adequate. During the deployment of patches and considering the uptime after the deployment of patches, the downtime and uptime are quite manageable for critical operations. They were on par on that stability portion.

I think Barracuda CloudGen Firewall is good from a scalable standpoint. From a rating standpoint, I would give it an eight.

I do get a lot of use cases to contact the technical support. One is starting from the integration standpoint and starting from the initial deployment standpoint. The deployment strategy was quite complicated considering the nature of deployment strategy that we have chosen. During the integration phases, we do contact their technical support.

I'll rate the technical support at an average of seven. The reason is they are good at certain phases of the support, and not at certain phases of the support. When I say certain phases of the support, when you are buying the product and when you are deploying at the initial phase, they are quite supportive because they wanted to establish their mark in the organization. But once everything is done and once when we are trying to configure the use cases or probably the integration phase with other tools, the support we expect at that phase of the project is not bad, but quite average. There might be a lot of reasons behind it as well. I do understand that because the kind of customer service that we would have adopted, there are a lot of customer service options available, such as gold or silver. Probably the option that we have chosen as an organization might not be better. I am not sure. But during the integration phase, I would say it is quite average. On a scale of ten, I rate it seven.

The initial deployment strategy of Barracuda CloudGen Firewall was easy. They offer two kinds of deployment strategies. One is an on-premises solution, and the other one is a cloud-based deployment solution. Both offerings were good. We took the options that were viable and that suited our needs. They provided multiple options in terms of the deployment. Additionally, they offer a kind of tech specialist in terms of supporting your deployment, which eases the job from an organization standpoint and in terms of writing the use cases. The deployment strategy was adequate.

I have used Fortinet Firewall as a competitor. Fortinet was a different product with its own pros and cons. From an integration standpoint, when all these data points are more important in this current world, the only concern that I would note from Barracuda CloudGen Firewall standpoint is that during the integration standpoint, it was difficult for us to integrate with other monitoring tools in which we would monitor the events in a single centralized repository. The alternative option that we were using was Fortinet, but we stuck with Barracuda CloudGen Firewall due to its intelligence in terms of blocking the anomaly traffics and other capabilities.

Maintenance is a common aspect of any product in which you maintain it on a regular basis irrespective of a patch update or anything. It is quite mandatory. Since the market is dynamic and due to evolving threats around the world, every vendor or every organization would be choosing a product based on the threat landscape and what is the threat for our suppliers. Barracuda is one of the suppliers for us. We need to stay on top of the threat and make sure that the maintenance is happening. Even if the product has reached the end of life, we need to understand till how much time that the particular product would get support from the vendor standpoint. If it is not, what is the other alternate option in terms of upgrading the product itself. Maintenance is a kind of bread and butter for every organization to take care of. My overall review rating for Barracuda CloudGen Firewall is seven out of ten.

Barracuda CloudGen Firewall  is for cloud security because cloud service providers like Azure , AWS , and GCP  provide interfaces where organizations need to install different firewalls to secure their infrastructure. The normal security gateway or three-layer firewall they offer is not sufficient to control current threats. Barracuda CloudGen Firewall  can protect infrastructure from Layer 7 aspects.

Barracuda CloudGen Firewall is designed for organizations with multiple branches and hybrid cloud environments. It provides strong SD-WAN capabilities including intelligent routing, failover, and link optimization. For example, if a company has offices in different locations such as Pune, Bangalore, and the US, and the MPLS link fails, the firewall automatically switches traffic to broadband without any downtime. Additionally, connecting AWS  VPC to on-premises networks is straightforward and secure.

The support for distributed and hybrid environments is the best aspect I appreciate about Barracuda CloudGen Firewall. It provides strong SD-WAN capabilities including intelligent routing, failover, and link optimization. If a company has offices in different locations such as Pune, Bangalore, and the US, and the MPLS link fails, the firewall automatically switches traffic to broadband without any downtime. Connecting AWS VPC to on-premises networks is straightforward and secure.

Another valuable feature is easy centralized management. From one single console, I can manage multiple firewall policies, rules, and updates very easily. From a security coverage perspective, it provides good security coverage including firewalling, IPS, VPN, web filtering, and malware protection. The most important aspect is that while enabling these features, it works in real life and functions very well according to the defined policy.

For mid-size and small-size organizations, a cost-effective solution is the fourth and most important point. If I were to buy a similar solution from competitors such as Palo Alto, Cisco, or Check Point, they offer this solution at a higher cost. Where cost is a concern for an organization, Barracuda CloudGen Firewall is a good choice.

Strong hybrid SD-WAN capabilities are the best feature I have seen. The availability has increased significantly due to good SD-WAN capabilities that bring features including intelligent routing, failover, and link optimization. If anything fails in a disaster scenario, the failover is very smooth, so the end user will not realize what exactly happened at the perimeter. Additionally, good link optimization capabilities improve user experience when accessing different public resources. Since we are moving from browser segments to application segments, a good strong link is necessary. From that perspective, it is very much easier to configure link optimization and user experience is excellent.

From a user interface perspective, I do not see that much cleanliness compared with other vendors such as Palo Alto and Check Point. While creating policies, some settings are hidden inside multiple menus, which makes it slightly confusing, and a person who has never used Barracuda CloudGen Firewall may need some time to learn that. The user interface and learning curve need to be more simple.

From an advanced threat perspective, AI-driven detection and deep endpoint integration may need some more improvement. Nowadays, to enable advanced threat protection, organizations may require some additional tools for complete protection. That is another improvement area.

From a performance and scaling perspective, I have seen that performance can be impacted when all security features are enabled. That is why I recommend that this solution is not ideal for enterprise-grade environments or organizations. Additionally, from an ecosystem and integration point of view, there is a smaller ecosystem compared to leading firewall vendors. Integration with third-party tools requires additional efforts. For example, integration with SIEM  tools such as Splunk works but needs some manual setup. These are the improvement areas for Barracuda CloudGen Firewall in my view.

Nowadays, AI is everywhere, and every solution infuses AI for product portfolio enhancement. However, when we infuse AI, we need to take care of other aspects as well because AI can help us enhance our cybersecurity posture, but at the same time, it can be a nightmare that brings attackers. We need to use caution while enabling any AI-driven features. From an overall rating perspective, I would say it is medium. I do not see anything exceptional with the AI.

I have used Barracuda CloudGen Firewall since my TCS  days, and I have been using it for almost four to five years.

Barracuda CloudGen Firewall is a stable solution. I have not experienced any crashes or downtime. However, when all features are enabled, there are some performance spikes that occur.

I can handle growth and larger workloads easily with Barracuda CloudGen Firewall. I do not see any problem with the scalability aspect.

From a customer support perspective, I would rate it at eight. The knowledge base is also good. Whenever I faced any issues and searched the knowledge base, I found many solutions in place.

I have not switched from anything, as I work with various products in my portfolio. I have worked with Barracuda CloudGen Firewall, Fortinet, and Palo Alto, so I have worked with all these leading vendors. As required, I need to work with different vendor solutions. For me, it is about the technology and the firewall. The vendor may be different, and based on the project, I need to work on different tools.

From a money saved perspective, it is almost more than fifty percent money saved. Due to its feature set, the user experience also improved by around fifteen to twenty percent.

Although I am not directly involved in that particular segment, from what I understood from the pricing information, it is a very cost-effective solution compared with other well-known firewall vendors that are in the market.

I evaluated Fortinet and Palo Alto as solutions.

From a user interface perspective, I do not see that much cleanliness compared with other vendors such as Palo Alto and Check Point. While creating policies, some settings are hidden inside multiple menus, which makes it slightly confusing, and a person who has never used Barracuda CloudGen Firewall may need some time to learn that. My advice to others looking into using Barracuda CloudGen Firewall is that if an organization is mid-size or small-size, it can easily use Barracuda CloudGen Firewall. However, if it is a large or enterprise organization, you must think it through. If an organization is moving into the cloud and has a smaller footprint, Barracuda CloudGen Firewall can be used because in the cloud, organizations are getting a clean pipe solution. It is easy to use it in a cloud environment with minimal application solutions. My overall rating for this product is six.