My use case for Cisco Secure Firewall includes secure access into the network, remote access VPN, site-to-site VPN, NAT, and access control.

I believe the most valuable feature of having the FTD in Cisco Secure Firewall is that it is typically managed through FMC, which is a tool that allows you to manage multiple devices. The ability to manage, view, and push templates across multiple devices at one time is beneficial versus having to manually do it.

Cisco Secure Firewall helps organizations improve by making networking easier, as they have provided a graphical user interface for much of the functionality. I think people prefer the GUI and find it easier to navigate versus having to remember commands, making it excellent for both novice and senior engineers.

If I could improve Cisco Secure Firewall, I feel that even with my experience, I have difficulty navigating some of the logs and trying to find specific flows, whether it is the source address or the pre-NAT address. I find the filtering very difficult to navigate and determine exactly what field I have to put the criteria in, as there are too many fields.

I probably started using Cisco Secure Firewall at the beginning of the pandemic, around 2021, while I was using ASAs before that, which had been for approximately 10 years. I have used FTD and Firepower for approximately five years and ASA for approximately 10 years.

I believe Cisco Secure Firewall is stable because I have never seen it crash and I have never seen it fail to forward packets.

My experience with customer support for Cisco Secure Firewall is positive, as they are helpful. On a scale of one to ten, I would rate Cisco Secure Firewall customer support as a nine, with ten being best.

I have briefly looked at some marketing materials for other firewall solutions such as Palo Alto, Fortinet, and FortiGate to understand where they are in the market, but I have never really managed or configured those platforms.

The complexity of deploying Cisco Secure Firewall varies depending on how many you have deployed. When I first deployed it, I still had to refer to documentation and conduct some trial and error, as we had to reconfigure some elements because of the interesting environment where we had to port-channel separately instead of as one bundled channel in an HA cluster. The complexity really depends on the environment.

I have deployed Cisco Secure Firewall with some customers.

I believe the market space for firewall solutions is crowded, and these vendors need to be competitive. I find that they are all quite similar.

Cisco Secure Firewall is used for securing perimeters, such as internal or external perimeters of the network.

I consider a valuable feature of Cisco Secure Firewall to be that it serves its purpose. ASA is nice, but it is outdated now. When it comes to FTD, complexity is one of the things. I am not sure they should build it from scratch.

Cisco Secure Firewall has helped improve my company over the last 15 years. Nowadays, you cannot live without a firewall. We are currently moving to another vendor.

Navigating through Cisco Secure Firewall is not intuitive. Complexity is another significant issue that needs to be addressed.

I have been using Cisco Secure Firewall for 15 years.

Cisco Secure Firewall is working with some bugs and glitches, but it is stable overall. ASA is a super stable firewall, even though it is outdated nowadays. FTD is working fine with some glitches.

Scalability depends on which Cisco Secure Firewall you are buying. For the enterprise level, it is scalable, but not significantly.

I have contacted Cisco support about these issues and opened many TAC cases for the firewalls.

I would evaluate Cisco support as good. Cisco is the best there. However, they need to rebuild this product. I love Cisco products, but when it comes to the firewall, I do not.

We are transitioning to Palo Alto.

I find Palo Alto to be much easier to operate and much more stable. If you want to incorporate FTD with another Cisco product, then you need to go with Cisco to have the full ecosystem. Since we do not have that requirement, we are going to another vendor, which is definitely easier to handle.

I have knowledge about the pricing and licensing.

A couple of days ago, I was working on a project and received a quote for the FTD 1230. For the same level with Palo Alto, even though we had a huge discount with Cisco, it turned out to be more expensive than Palo Alto. The pricing is quite expensive. My overall review rating for this product is 6.

Our company's use case involves internal data center firewalls, mostly for east-west traffic.

The most valuable feature of Cisco Secure Firewall is the firewalling, which is essentially the security part of the firewall.

The security is improving with the blocking of access and the access rules. Security-wise, I find that it helps improve access between entities and departments, and more importantly, it covers the regulatory aspect as well.

If I could improve Cisco Secure Firewall, I would focus on the fact that there are many bugs, specifically with the FTDs. The versioning and software stability need improvement.

I have been using Cisco Secure Firewall for almost ten years.

Regarding bugs in Cisco Secure Firewall, for example, the logs show some traffic between two endpoints while others do not, which is a bug we found out recently. Cisco has reviewed it, and we are trying to fix it through an upgrade.

The bugs are problematic.

Cisco Secure Firewall is scalable and reliable. Regarding scalability, it is seamless. We have had a recent upgrade, added new data centers, and enhanced the existing firewalls.

My experience with their support team is that support is good and they are quite responsive. On a scale of one to ten, I would rate them a ten for good support.

I know that they evaluated other companies, including Forcepoint, a company providing firewalls as well, specifically next-generation firewalls. They picked Cisco Secure Firewall mainly for the FTD and superior Cisco support, which was the main deciding factor.

Deployment-wise, Cisco Secure Firewall is straightforward, as all Cisco products are straightforward. It takes roughly two months to deploy Cisco Secure Firewall, but it depends on the type of implementation and the specific data center involved.

The two months mainly involve the LLDs, the design phase, and the shipping. The most delay comes from shipping and delivery, as the standard delivery from Cisco is six to eight weeks, which is where the delay occurs, while the rest of the activities are completed prior to that. I would rate Cisco Secure Firewall a seven on a scale of one to ten overall. I would not rate it a ten due to the stability of the product needing improvement, specifically with the FTD.

Our main use cases for Cisco Secure Firewall are segmentation and VPNs. My involvement is more at the remote sites, setting up those firewalls for VPN, and we have centralized management for handling all the policies.

I appreciate the uniformity of being able to push the policies out with Cisco Secure Firewall. That was one of the reasons we acquired it, so we could push the policies out everywhere.

Downtime due to bugs requiring code upgrades has been problematic. That's the reason why we are moving away from Cisco Secure Firewalls.

I have been using Cisco Secure Firewall for approximately four years.

It has been problematic, primarily due to bugs in the code rather than crashes.

We're looking at Palo Alto, and we will probably be cutting over to Palo Alto, which will likely be a many-year project.

I appreciate Cisco's support and have been very happy with it. I imagine the support is the same for the firewall. I typically handle break-fix issues at the firewall level and turn them over to engineering, who then contact tech support. With switching, I call tech support directly.

The support has improved significantly over the years, and the escalation process is very straightforward now. Even if the first engineer isn't highly knowledgeable, we get additional support and can escalate the issue.

We have been using a Meraki solution.

Licensing with Cisco Secure Firewall isn't too difficult. However, pricing seems high. We had been using a Meraki solution, and Cisco Secure Firewall seems more expensive than Meraki, even though Meraki is also cloud-based.

We're going to cut over to Palo Alto, which will probably be a many-year project, because the amount of downtime is substantial. While it doesn't affect the whole company, there is downtime in certain areas, usually due to bugs that require code upgrades to fix. That has been problematic.

We had planned to deploy Meraki more extensively as our Cisco ASAs aged out. However, we're also deploying SDA fabric, and Meraki is currently not compatible with that solution. I recently spoke with an engineer about SDA, and his answer indicated they will be supported, but with some variance. That's why we're moving away from Meraki, but we're still not ready for Palo Alto since it has a big learning curve and is totally different. We still have deployment and upgrade needs, so we're continuing to get Cisco Firepower firewalls while implementing Palo Alto more internally. This could be a multi-year process, depending on how it progresses.

It's difficult to predict how other organizations will deploy Cisco Secure Firewall, but my advice is to ensure the code being installed is the code recommended by Cisco. My recommendation wouldn't be extremely high, as deciding to discard millions of dollars in investment makes a significant statement. I would have difficulty recommending it based on our management's decisions, especially considering we're willing to replace our core firewalls and perimeter firewalls. The Palo Alto transition entails substantial training and design work. If we're willing to get rid of Cisco Secure Firewall in favor of a different product, it says a lot.

I would rate Cisco Secure Firewall a seven out of ten. It performs necessary firewall functions, but there are issues related to bugs.

Our main use cases include segmenting different networks for IPS and IDS, using it for basic firewall purposes, controlling ACLs, and monitoring traffic to identify issues within the network.

Currently, I find the event viewer feature of Cisco Secure Firewall very useful as it visually displays what is being blocked or allowed by the ACL. I also appreciate the improved visual presentation of the ACL layout.

We have many different opportunities to share incidents with individuals on how traffic flows through the network, and we utilize Cisco Secure Firewall features such as network packet inspection to ensure that policies are applied correctly and to monitor traffic for what is blocked, allowed, or denied.

Cisco Secure Firewall's ability to unify policies across our environment is pretty good.

We can deploy different features and ACLs between various firewalls easily with the FMC, which has improved significantly from the initial deployment time, which was once poor and is now manageable for multiple firewalls.

We use the new AnyConnect or Secure Connect VPNs, which works pretty well. Although we haven't switched to the latest series to utilize the VPNs fully, I appreciate the deployment phase where we can track our deployment progress.

What stands out positively about Cisco is their training and support, which has effectively prepared engineers to work with their products. When hiring, I find it beneficial that most network engineers are familiar with Cisco, whereas I might question the expertise of those trained with Palo Alto or Fortinet.

Performance-wise, Cisco seems to be the best. For instance, my sister company uses Palo Alto and Juniper and reports a high RMA rate. In contrast, we have only RMAed one Cisco Secure Firewall in six years, indicating stability and dependability.

The interface of Cisco Secure Firewall works effectively once you become familiar with its layout, although hiring engineers requires training on the platform, especially as updates occur. They should prioritize adding to the existing product rather than overcomplicating it with new features that may not be necessary.

Cisco Secure Firewall has some growth opportunities in terms of visibility and control capabilities regarding managing encrypted traffic. It has the ability to analyze encrypted traffic, and there is potential for more integration with APIs and AI to enhance these capabilities.

Cisco Secure Firewall needs improvement in deployment time and the capability to access the CLI during support calls. I often encounter issues when technical support uses a CLI that is not familiar to me while troubleshooting through the GUI.

My ongoing complaint for the last six years has been the lack of CLI functionality, which hinders my ability to work on the firewall, alongside concerns regarding deployment time.

For the next release, they should look at the features offered by competitors such as Fortinet, including the ability to perform packet capture directly from the interface.

If they enhanced their troubleshooting efficiency related to packet capture for each specific rule, it would simplify the process significantly.

I have been using Cisco Secure Firewall for about six years.

The process of expanding the usage was fairly smooth. My assessment of the stability and reliability of Cisco Secure Firewall is great from a hardware perspective, yet only okay from a software perspective.

I have experienced downtime crashes and performance issues. Specifically, the FTDs have had High Availability (HA) issues, which I struggle to understand, especially concerning switch connections and HA setups between firewalls.

We have often encountered split-brain scenarios during failover processes and code upgrades, which have been persistent problems for us. It seems that Cisco lacks enough skilled technical support engineers to quickly resolve these issues, often requiring escalation that takes too long.

Cisco Secure Firewall scales incredibly well with our growing needs. We recently transitioned to the new 4100s and we have only just reached the firewall's limitations after five years, indicating that it has been able to build for our future success.

I would rate customer service and technical support about a five out of ten, sometimes dipping to a four depending on the time of day. As in many support models, the quality depends on the region. Some TAC engineers are better in specific areas, such as India or South America. However, they often lack the skills to troubleshoot effectively, leading to repetitive troubleshooting sessions and unresolved issues.

Prior to adopting Cisco Secure Firewall, I used solutions such as SonicWall and Juniper firewalls. I didn't prefer Juniper and found Cisco Secure Firewall to be the most stable firewall I've worked with.

The deployment time could be improved. The deployment was good, however, it could be sped up. There was a bit of a learning curve as well.

What works well is the interface. It's pretty good as far as knowing where to go and the layout. When hiring engineers, they need to know the platform. In terms of updates, sometimes they bolt on too much.

I have not seen ROI with Cisco Secure Firewall initially, however, over time, it has paid for itself as we scale our business.

My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing was a nightmare. It is indeed challenging as Cisco has too many variations of support with no clear explanation of what you are actually getting.

Sales representatives try their best but often fall short, making it complicated for users to understand what licenses are included with the product, leading to confusion over various levels of support.

Before selecting Cisco Secure Firewall, I considered Fortinet and Palo Alto, and I even thought about sticking with ASAs. We still operate a couple of FTDs alongside ASAs, which creates internal competition. Fortinet, in particular, has remained a competitive option.

We did not purchase this on the AWS Marketplace.

My advice to organizations considering Cisco Secure Firewall would be to recognize the tendency for Cisco to overcomplicate things. However, they are striving for simplification in their firewall products. If someone has experience with ASAs, they can adapt to FTDs as easily. Cisco should focus on learning from competitors to enhance its features and remain competitive in the market.

If you want a stable solution with fewer vulnerabilities, Cisco Secure Firewall is likely to meet your needs as it requires fewer upgrades compared to competitors.

On a scale of one to ten, I rate Cisco Secure Firewall a seven.

We use Cisco Secure Firewall for our servers, protecting data centers, and limiting the ports and threats. We have various web servers hosted in our data center, and to protect them from external threats, we use the firewall.

The most valuable features of Cisco Secure Firewall include the next-generation firewall and its strong anti-malware capabilities. These features protect internal servers from external threats, such as denial of service threats, viruses, and malware. Additionally, Cisco checks and stops traffic containing new threats, taking steps to mitigate them. When our servers are secure, their speed is very good using Cisco Secure Firewall. We do not face any kind of delay or issues, allowing more users to connect seamlessly.

Cisco Secure Firewall is difficult to manage as it lacks a web interface for management, requiring installation of management center software on a dedicated computer or server. Should the management software be removed, it needs to be reinstalled, consuming time and resources. Moreover, the configuration commands are not user-friendly, especially when compared to Fortinet's interface. The process of licensing is complicated, involving many steps to obtain and enter the license key. This process should be simplified.

We have been working with Cisco Secure Firewall for about five to six years.

The technical support is not very good because when support is requested, assistance often takes a few days to arrive as they are quite busy.

We previously used software firewalls running on Linux. We switched because they were not next-generation firewalls and did not provide antivirus and malware protection.

The licensing process for Cisco Secure Firewall is convoluted, involving many steps to request and enter a license key. In contrast, Fortinet or other firewalls offer a simpler process where you just need to enter the key quickly.

Cisco Secure Firewall could improve in areas like user-friendliness and cost-effectiveness, as it is very costly and difficult to manage. I would rate it seven out of ten, but I would recommend other firewalls due to its high cost and complexity.

The solution is used in a normal enterprise-level configuration. It has effectively worked as a perimeter firewall. Our VPN was also configured on it.

The threat prevention is better than FortiGate, but it is less effective than Palo Alto. The VPN functionality is consistent, and the performance is good.

Cisco Firewall is not user-friendly. They complicate simple configurations, requiring multiple steps. Compared to Palo Alto and FortiGate, it is not as effective. Cisco Firewalls require FMC for management.

If you have a small to medium-sized office with only a few firewalls, you can deploy and manage them without FMC. However, without FMC, it is not fully functional, limiting the features available. You cannot use the asterisk value in address objects in Cisco.

In other firewalls, hovering over an object displays details like the IP address. With Cisco, you need to access the object to see inside details. Cisco should improve this aspect. The NAT process is handled differently, which I do not like. Obtaining support is challenging compared to FortiGate and Palo Alto.

Although knowledge-wise they are good, obtaining technical support and involving an engineer in a troubleshooting call is a challenge.

I have used the solution for almost two years.

The scalable performance is good, however, the voice communication is not effective. Compared to FortiGate and Palo Alto, it lags in configuration and other aspects.

Knowledge-wise, they are good, however, obtaining technical support and involving an engineer in a troubleshooting call is a challenge.

The deployment was a normal activity, similar to how enterprises operate. It worked as a perimeter firewall, and our VPN was configured on it. The installation took approximately half a day.

For mid-sized organizations, I do not recommend it. For ISPs or data centers, I would recommend it due to its good performance and hardware capabilities. Their hardware can handle substantial amounts of data without causing latency. I recommend it for ISP or data center. For enterprise purposes, I do not recommend it.

I rate the overall solution seven out of ten.

I implemented the product which provides end-to-end networking and security features. It starts with secure tunneling, and I performed micro-segmentation in the firewall specific to a particular customer environment. It offers comprehensive security as well as networking features that I have enabled.

The software was mainly the highlight. Most firewalls have a challenge of identifying keywords and providing restricted access, which I encountered. However, Cisco Firewall has very good features, like trusted applications and restricted access for users based on keywords. I could access it appropriately, unlike some firewalls where this is a challenge. Essentially, the restricted access to websites has been exceptional. I was in the life science industry, focusing heavily on compliance. This product meets compliance requirements, and the security process has improved. Stability and consistent performance are critical components of Cisco's product.

The integration, especially for APIs or with other firewall products, is a challenge for me. In some satellite sites where large firewalls are not involved, I used Cisco Meraki. The integration between Cisco products themselves presents difficulties, such as SD-WAN configuration. Managing centralized networking with Cisco is challenging for me in terms of integration with other firewall products.

I have used the solution for almost four years.

The solution is stable and performs well.

Scalability presents a challenge. There is commercial involvement and several factors, making it complex for me. I would rate scalability seven out of ten.

Technical support is unsatisfactory for me. There might be restructuring within Cisco India or with the partner's capability. Whenever I encounter a technical support challenge, it is not an easy process. Even with premium support, it is a struggle. I have to provide many logs, yet problems remain unresolved, often requiring workarounds rather than solutions.

The initial setup is not simple as it is all based on my requirements. If the requirement or site is predominantly complex, specialist involvement is necessary. However, for a vanilla installation, it is fine - just not easy.

I have assessed and decided to move on to Sophos. Sophos's support is excellent compared to Cisco and other products, with their technical support team based in South India. I have received a lot of good feedback about it.

Overall, I would rate the product six out of ten. Because of the support and cost, I moved away from Cisco, but otherwise, it is a good product. Recommendation depends on the requirement. If lacking a proper team and being dependent on the OEM and partner, Cisco is not suitable.

However, if the team is qualified with Cisco-certified people and the requirement is a big network, it can be considered. In today's hybrid work world, having an expanded gateway is more typical than having a single one. Thus, Cisco is unlikely to be recommended for a hybrid requirement unless in-house skills align. Otherwise, depending on partners and Cisco, it can be a risk.

I rate the overall solution six out of ten.

Cisco Secure Firewall is a next-generation firewall that can be used for various security applications.

The advantage of using Cisco is its integration within the Cisco fabric, which allows for effective threat detection and mitigation.

Cisco could improve its score by developing more features that integrate seamlessly with various applications and investing in hardware acceleration to enhance performance.

The product is stable with minimal glitches or latency issues.

The solution is easy to install, requiring minimal expertise. Deployment time varies, but it can take about two days for a medium-sized company with 200-300 users to configure and install.

After five years of product usage, the high return on investment and low total cost of ownership can be observed.

Pricing depends on partnerships and certifications. The engineering team's certifications can qualify it for seven to eight percent discounts.

The platform's integration capabilities depend on the project context. In some cases, integrating Palo Alto may provide better performance, but Cisco can still be effective.

However, its classification in industry comparisons, such as those from Gartner, is lower than that of competitors like FortiGate and Palo Alto.

Overall, I rate it seven out of ten.