Sign in
Categories
Your Saved List Become a Channel Partner Sell in AWS Marketplace Amazon Web Services Home Help

Reviews from AWS customer

22 AWS reviews

External reviews

208 reviews
from and

External reviews are not included in the AWS star rating for the product.


    Justin Mcclung

Saves time and enables us to manage all devices from one place

  • March 14, 2024
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

We use it to secure our network. We use it to manage our firewalls and some of the other services that we have with them.

By implementing CloudGuard Network Security, we mainly wanted visibility.

How has it helped my organization?

CloudGuard Network Security saves time from having to go to multiple places to look for different things. It gives us the ability to see it all in one place. We could realize its benefits in less than 90 days.

CloudGuard Network Security provides unified security management across hybrid-clouds as well as on-prem. We are able to combine different aspects into one place.

I am confident in our cloud network security. Check Point is a great company. They stay up to date on everything that is happening, and they keep us informed about anything that needs to be done to maintain that security posture.

What is most valuable?

The visibility is most valuable. It allows us to see all of our devices from one place, and it gives us the ability to manage push updates and things like that from one place.

What needs improvement?

Its price is fair, but it can be more favorable.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using CloudGuard Network Security for about two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It feels very stable to me.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Its scalability is good. It is being used across multiple departments. There are 300 users and a lot of endpoints.

We do not have any plans to increase its usage this year. We might do that in 2025.

How are customer service and support?

Their support is great. I would rate them a nine out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We did not use any similar solution previously.

How was the initial setup?

I was not too much involved in its deployment. My role is not as technical as it used to be.

We worked with partners to help us with the deployment who had expertise in this, so it was pretty straightforward. Our implementation strategy was to work with a partner.

What about the implementation team?

We had a Check Point partner for implementation. Our experience with them was good.

What was our ROI?

We have seen an ROI in terms of time and labor costs. People do not have to spend as much time on different things. They have one interface to manage different things.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

It is fairly priced, but it can be a little expensive from time to time.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I am not aware of any solutions that we have evaluated. Check Point is our firewall vendor, so we went with them. We were able to have just one partner and one point of contact for any issues. Having a bunch of different products creates problems of its own. You do not know whom to call and whom not to call for an issue. Having one single contact to oversee all that is beneficial to us.

What other advice do I have?

I would advise taking your time. Be patient, and you will see results. It does not take much time, but some people want to see a return right away. It took us about 90 days to see the return. It is more based on you getting in it and doing things with it, but be patient.

I would rate CloudGuard Network Security a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud


    AmitSingh14

Ensures robust protection and centralized management for cloud environments, though it may require some initial learning and lacks comprehensive tech support

  • March 07, 2024
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

We've implemented CloudGuard in Azure, configuring it as firewalls and file management systems. These functionalities skillfully oversee our API application and various aspects of our data center environment. Our entire infrastructure, hosted within Azure's data centers, is effectively managed by CloudGuard, ensuring comprehensive security coverage.

How has it helped my organization?

One of the notable benefits we've observed is the ease of deployment in our environment. It offers remarkable flexibility in how we configure and utilize the resources. This flexibility allows developers to seamlessly collaborate with network security experts to ensure that our applications are secure. This level of assurance has instilled confidence within our teams, knowing that we're deploying solutions that will be effectively managed.

CloudGuard Network Security offers unified security management across hybrid cloud and on-premises environments. With this comprehensive feature set, we benefit from enhanced flexibility. We can seamlessly manage both on-premises and cloud environments from a single interface, simplifying our operations and providing a centralized view of our data.

On a scale of one to ten, our confidence level in CloudGuard Network Security stands at an eight. This rating signifies that it surpasses the average level of confidence. While we acknowledge that there's always room for improvement in technology, we believe that CloudGuard Network Security has demonstrated its effectiveness and reliability.

What is most valuable?

The data center objects, checks, and other components are thoroughly examined, allowing us to incorporate them into our policy definitions. This approach has proven to be highly effective, akin to the standards typically seen in on-premises environments.

What needs improvement?

There is room for improvement regarding the technical support provided. Having a more refined and advanced feature would offer significant benefits.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using it for three and a half years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

In terms of stability, it's rock solid. I haven't encountered much trouble over the past three and a half years.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It performs well in terms of the use case scenario where deployment is required, and its scalability is satisfactory. Overall, I would say it's good enough for our needs.

How are customer service and support?

In terms of tech support, I would rate it a four on a scale of one to ten, which is lower than it used to be. Previously, I would have rated it a seven. Over the years, I've noticed a decline in the technical expertise of support staff. While I have extensive experience with Check Point products spanning fifteen to twenty years, I find it increasingly challenging to get the level of assistance I need. Support personnel nowadays seem to specialize in only one or two products, making it difficult to get comprehensive assistance for complex issues. This lack of holistic understanding delays problem resolution and frustrates customers.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We've been loyal users of Check Point products for quite some time now. The company has a strong reputation in the industry, and I have more experience with Check Point products compared to others. It offers some of the best services available in the industry.

When comparing CloudGuard Network Security to other solutions for identifying security threats, it emerges as one of the leaders in the field. Our statistics demonstrate its effectiveness, with a notable ninety percent or higher success rate. Check Point covers the majority of our security needs, achieving a remarkable ninety-nine percent success rate, which is among the best in the industry. In terms of setup and reliability, we have a strong preference for CloudGuard.

We opted not to proceed with our vendor's cloud firewall solution because it lacked a comprehensive understanding of our network infrastructure. These solutions are primarily tailored to the specific environment of the vendor, which may not align with our needs. Instead, we prefer utilizing an NGFW appliance or a more versatile NBI device, such as those offered by Check Point. This approach allows us to avoid vendor lock-in and leverage familiar security devices. By partnering with third-party vendors like Check Point, we gain flexibility and can choose products specifically designed for security purposes. This contrasts with relying solely on the cloud service provider's offerings, which may prioritize their products over comprehensive security. In my opinion, solutions like those from Check Point offer a more mature and reliable approach to network security.

What about the implementation team?

During the initial deployment phase, we encountered a learning curve as we transitioned from traditional firewall deployment methods to cloud-based environments. One concern was whether the throughput would match that of physical appliances. However, we ultimately found the performance to be satisfactory and were pleased with the results. We engaged with both Check Point and third-party experts to assist with deployment, given that it was a new process for us. Drawing on their expertise proved invaluable in navigating the deployment process smoothly.

What was our ROI?

The return on investment has become evident over the past three years. As a global company, we've successfully migrated over two hundred applications from on-premises to the cloud. This transition has provided us with greater flexibility and enhanced security measures, allowing us to efficiently patch and maintain applications without significant downtime. Overall, it has significantly improved our operational efficiency and streamlined our processes.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

We explored both pay-as-you-go and build-your-own-licensing models, and found both to be competitive. While everyone desires lower prices, we're content with the current pricing structure, as it meets our needs effectively.

What other advice do I have?

Overall, I would rate it seven out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud


    reviewer2355813

Provides the ability to manage the entire solution consistently and easy to deploy

  • March 07, 2024
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

We use it for security in public cloud implementations, specifically in AWS and Azure.

How has it helped my organization?

For my customer's organization, it's important because they can work with the same kind of solution. They don't need many different solutions in many different use cases. And then they have better management of the solution in general.

CloudGuard Network Security provides unified security management across hybrid clouds as well as on-prem. It's very important because when I have unified security, I have better control of the situation.

If there's an attack or something like that, we can react faster. It's easier for everyone in the organization to work with the Infinity platform.

What is most valuable?

The integration in the Infinity portal. It's very important for someone to consider the solution if you need to work through a purchase partner. Because they can manage the entire solution consistently with the on-premise Quantum solution and the cloud solution in Azure or AWS without that integration, it's valuable.

What needs improvement?

It needs to cover additional kinds of infrastructure, like containers and serverless options. It's somewhat limited in that area.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using it for six months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is a stable product. I haven't heard any problems or complaints from my customers.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's quite scalable because we scale by compute units. It's very easy for us to make a new deployment.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We used to replace cloud-native solutions from Azure directly or AWS. We don't implement those originally.

It's important for us because we have had a lot of traditional customers. Then, it's a good way to extend this security to the new deployments in public clouds. It's very important for us.

Additionally, the customer is going to find another choice in the market.

How was the initial setup?

The deployment is easy.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The price is fair for most of the customers. We don't find the price excessive. It's okay. We can sell it. It's not really hard.

So, the pricing is good.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend using it.

Overall, I would rate the solution a nine out of ten. It is very good. Because it's very well integrated with the traditional platform, especially the Infinity portal part. The unified security concept is very sound for that.

However, there is always room for improvement, we always have to extend the capabilities to other use cases.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud


    Allan Vasquez

Makes policy management easy and helps to improve security score and uptime

  • March 07, 2024
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

We use it to analyze all the traffic in our network. It is the main tool for security services and networking in our company.

How has it helped my organization?

We increased our security score by introducing the tool. We are continuing to grow and improve. In terms of policies, we have a lot of benefits in terms of the security cluster and how it works.

CloudGuard Network Security provides unified security management across hybrid-clouds as well as on-prem. We have a hybrid scenario in the company. We have 3% of services in the cloud, and we can use the same clusters and the same policies that we have on the on-premise side for our cloud services. We have the same benefits for both.

We are pretty confident in our cloud network security using CloudGuard Network Security. We are not exactly an Internet-exposure company, but we have a cloud setup. We are pretty confident with its configuration assessment. With Check Point as our partners, we are protected, and we can be confident in our security.

What is most valuable?

Microsegmentation is very useful for us because we minimize the surface attack. The easy management of the policies is great for us because we are a small team and having easy management is great and useful for us.

What needs improvement?

At this point, we are very happy with what is happening with their horizon. At CPX, we heard that we can see all the things on the same platform. That is what we have been asking for, and hopefully, we are going to start seeing it this year.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using CloudGuard Network Security since 2020.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is stable. I cannot remember a time when we had any issues with it. Our operations are 24/7.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is scalable. We do not have any problems with it.

How are customer service and support?

We have had a good experience with the support and customer service, and we are happy with them.

I would rate them a nine out of ten. A unique issue that we have is related to the language. When the first level of support cannot resolve an issue and the issue needs to be escalated, we have a language challenge because the team is based in India. There are some limitations on both ends.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We used our cloud vendor's security but did not get as many details when we had any issues. We immediately moved to Check Point, and we are more confident of Check Point.

At first, we used Azure and Defender, and before we changed to CheckPoint, we used ESET. So, we had ESET and then we started rolling out Check Point. We had a mix with the cloud vendor solution, and then we went for Check Point.

How was the initial setup?

We have a mix of on-premises and cloud. We use the Infinity services.

My team deployed it. I have three security engineers on the team, and with the help of Check Point, we deployed it. We upgraded very recently in December, and it was a good experience. It has been running well.

What about the implementation team?

We used the services of a company based in Panama. With the Infinity contract, we had some professional time with Check Point, and they helped us set up some of the things. They reviewed some of the things that we deployed, so we have all the best practices.

What was our ROI?

I do not have a lot of details on that, but our uptime is pretty high.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

It is an expensive product, but when you realize that you need it, it does not feel so expensive.

We have had a good experience with them as partners. They have helped us with designing and having good architecture and the best equipment at the best prices. We find it a good deal.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We evaluated Microsoft's security suite. The thing that made us decide on Check Point was that Check Point had the least zero-day attack score. We have a lot of solutions from Check Point, and we stayed with Check Point.

We are now not evaluating other solutions because, since 2020, we have chosen Check Point as our partner. It continues to be the best solution for us to improve our score. We are not looking for software solutions from other vendors.

We always keep track of the service and the score, and with Check Point, there has always been the highest score.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate CloudGuard Network Security a ten out of ten. We are happy with the uptime and management. It is a good tool, and it provides a lot of value for us. We are happy.


    reviewer2355798

Provides the network security and performance we expect

  • March 07, 2024
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

We have deployed CloudGuard in our environment to protect conversations between different network segments. For example, we can protect north-south traffic and east-west traffic.

We deploy our production workload in different cloud provider environments, such as GCP, Azure, AWS, and IBM.

How has it helped my organization?

CloudGuard Network Security enhances our network security from an end-to-end connectivity point of view. We can deliver high-performance security to our different functional teams to support our business.

CloudGuard Network Security provides us with unified security management across hybrid-clouds and on-prem. We have one unified platform to manage on-premises gateway and CloudGuard gateway. We have a unified and standard way to ensure compliance and enforce all the definition requirements and process outcomes.

Check Point is at the top end of the market when it comes to security and threat prevention. They have a service called ThreatCloud. We get frequent updates from ThreatCloud. We can look at the numbers, signatures, and bad IPs they provide to us, and we can compare this information with other vendors or competitors. It gives us confidence that they are better in terms of threat detection.

What is most valuable?

All the features that we subscribe to from CloudGuard NGTP are valuable. All the threat prevention and access control features give us the network security that we expect.

What needs improvement?

From the policy optimization point of view, they can do better. This is not just for CloudGuard. CloudGuard is one little piece managed by Check Point. They can also integrate a third-party policy management solution to improve that. For example, Tufin is focused on policy optimization and management.

They can also offer solutions faster to address customer concerns.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using this solution for five or six years in our environment.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Check Point overall is pretty stable. We can rely on them. This is one of the key reasons why we stuck with Check Point for more than 20 years.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is good. They have all kinds of solutions from on-premises to the cloud. There might be some limitations to their partnership with certain cloud providers. They can speed up to give us better solutions, especially for CloudGuard. I know some competitors offer solutions to address customer concerns faster than Check Point. It is an area for improvement.

How are customer service and support?

Our experience has been good. Their sales engineers and support engineers are pretty good, but they also have some gaps. They can improve that. I would rate them an eight out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

What was our ROI?

We have seen an ROI because they fixed the gap. We were able to put a solution to fix a gap. It gives us confidence about how secure our environment is.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

We have a pretty good partnership with Check Point. We have a global subscription and agreement. They give us a pretty good corporate discount.

We have a global subscription to cover everything, not just the cloud but also the on-premises gateway. We have all the threat prevention subscriptions as well, which makes us stick with Check Point. Even though we get a better price offer from competitors, this global discount makes its pricing a better deal for us.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Before deploying it, we did compare it with other vendors. We looked at the major players in the market, such as Palo Alto and Fortinet.

We did not go for a cloud-native solution because they could not provide the same security as Check Point. We deployed CloudGuard in all of our cloud environments because we felt that their native solutions could not satisfy our requirements. We were also able to add selective threat prevention features, which native-gateway solutions might not have had. This is a value-add when we deploy CloudGuard in a cloud.

CloudGuard Network Security is easy to use for us. Because we have been using Check Point, it is easier for us to integrate new features, rather than deploying a new environment.

What other advice do I have?

Overall, I would rate CloudGuard Network Security a nine out of ten.


    reviewer1832184

Provides virtual machine scale sets and multi-domain security management server

  • March 07, 2024
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

When we began our digital transformation, we had already invested in on-premises Check Point firewalls. We desired the same level of security in the cloud along with the elasticity that the cloud demands.

How has it helped my organization?

We have a standard security policy across the organization. Our layered security, including North-South and East-West firewalls, is fantastic.

Compared to the other solutions for identity-based threat detection, the malware and threat prevention capabilities are key features that we have enabled – we actually use all the available features.

On several occasions, we've benefited from zero-day protection. It acts immediately when something is discovered, while other solutions might take much longer to react.

I'm confident that as long as we keep up with the advancements that Check Point continues to make, our security posture is in good hands.

What is most valuable?

The virtual machine scale sets were crucial, offering the ability to scale up and down.

It was very easy to install the solution, and the architecture meant we didn't have to worry about exceeding the solution's capacity.

CloudGuard Network Security provides unified security management across our cloud and on-premises environments.

We integrate our management servers with the Check Point Multi-Domain Security Management server. This allows it to interact with Check Point CASB and our SIEM. As alerts arise, we're able to triage them effectively.

What needs improvement?

In future releases, I would like to see the data loss prevention (DLP) feature could scale along with the virtual machine scale sets.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using CloudGuard Network Security since approximately 2019.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The overall stability is there. Our firewalls monitor our most crucial systems. If those firewalls went down, it would take out almost our entire cloud network.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is great.

How are customer service and support?

We have Check Point's Diamond support, and they have been fantastic. It's a true partnership, and we always work together to find solutions for anything that's needed.

We have weekly meetings with our sales team, our architecture team, and their team. They are truly integrated as part of our organization.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We had our native cloud firewall. Our native cloud firewalls lacked intrusion prevention and advanced malware protection.

They offered basic stateful firewalling, and we wanted a more robust solution for our security needs.

When we designed our cloud architecture, Check Point was the primary solution we chose.

How was the initial setup?

It's simple to set up and easy to tear down or upgrade. This provides us with a lot of flexibility in testing.

What about the implementation team?


Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did evaluate other solutions. We evaluated other web application firewalls (WAFs).

The ease of use is great. Creating firewalls within templates is straightforward.

The overall depth of features within the solution is one of the key reasons why we chose Check Point as a long-term partner.

What other advice do I have?

Overall, I would rate the solution a ten out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud


    Scott Chambers

Helps to have unified policies and stands out with high-availability gateways

  • March 07, 2024
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

We are using it for in and out of our cloud from on-premises. Security from our SD-WAN and express route connectivity is our main use case.

We also have vendor integrations. SAP RISE was the big one that we recently had where we were using dedicated CloudGuard network gateways for straight vendor implementations.

How has it helped my organization?

The ease of deployment has been a benefit. Having Check Point on-premises definitely helped with moving to the cloud. It feels very similar after you migrate. It was not as cumbersome as on-premises, and it was a little less scary for others. It enabled others within our company to adopt.

We have unified security management across hybrid clouds as well as on-prem. We are using just gateways to the cloud, and we have the same management server and the same console as on-prem gateways. It definitely allows you to have unified policies across the board. This seamless integration is a huge plus. Smart-1 Cloud is the next portion to go up to, so we can remove the complexity of management, such as login and whatnot, from our responsibilities.

By using CloudGuard Network Security, we have a good foundation. The history of Check Point has a reliability that I trust. Most of the improvements we do are more internal. There are actions that we, as customers, need to do. It helps to have vendors like Check Point who will go out of their way to help you make their product seamless. It is only as good as how you use it. That has been a big positive, and we have had a good accounts team that has been able to bring proper resources to us, and we encourage those additional resources they provide to us to help us be successful.

For identifying security threats, our company uses a portfolio of different kinds of vector spots and inspection spots. Some of that is handled by another team, and I do not have direct insight into that. However, it has definitely added some automatic reaction with our on-premise setup, which has helped us integrate cross-platform. That portion has been great because no one wants to be too vendor-dependent. You want to be vendor-agnostic. The fact that we can utilize it across multiple vendors has been a positive for us.

What is most valuable?

We are using gateways, and I appreciate the high-availability gateways they have. They stand out more than the competitors.

The Check Point architecture team adapting fluently to the architecture that each cloud has is valuable. They are adaptive to customer solutions, which is a big advantage.

What needs improvement?

Some more built-in marketplace templates would be nice. It would be nice to see more vendor assistance in deployments and backup of recoveries versus having customers rely upon that themselves. That would make it a lot more seamless and aligned with the standard on-premise model that is there. Check Point can extend the same posture that they have to CloudGuard and make that transition very seamless.

Check Point does not have as big a footprint in engineering teams as Cisco or Palo Alto has, especially in the US market. Therefore, finding someone who understands Check Point is a lot harder. If Check Point can make it easier for seamless transitions, it will build the confidence of engineers and help with the adoption of a new vendor for those engineers. Anything they can do to help with that is a competitive advantage, and it works for any company looking into it.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using CloudGuard Network Security for about three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is very stable, but in any virtualized environment, you are still dependent on your cloud provider. If Amazon, Microsoft, Google, or any other cloud provider reboots the gateway because they are doing some maintenance and did not tell you about it, it is not Check Point's fault. It is something where you have to correlate whether you had an outage or lost a node. You still have to report that. It still looks like that your Check Point firewall went down, so guilty until proven innocent type of deal comes into play. That has been a little bit more challenging than when it is your hardware on-premises. Outside of a power issue or an upstream switch, if something goes wrong in the box, it is not on Check Point. At that point, you can hammer down to the cloud. Having shared resources makes it a little bit difficult to delineate. You have to go case by case.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I have not directly experienced the need for scaling, particularly horizontally. Based on studies, presentations, documentation, and architecture, scalability is definitely there, so I have confidence that if my business needs to shift to high throughput and high sessions, Check Point will have a solution for me to do that seamlessly.

How are customer service and support?

I have always had challenges with TAC. There still seems to be a difference in the type or level of tech support you get based on the region you call into. That has been a little bit more challenging. We have had issues with getting the same candid answers where they were regurgitating without looking through. At the support level, we have had some challenges back and forth, but when we talk to our account team or our sales engineer and say that we have a problem, their reaction is very quick. Their escalation internals take care of that. They get us the right people.

For additional deployments from the cloud perspective, we have always had great contacts to get to. I have been very happy with the level of support Check Point has given us for new deployments' design ideas and problems. The feature roadmap they chose has been excellent.

Overall, I would rate their customer service and support an eight out of ten. I am dropping points because of the TAC issues that I have had.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We do use another vendor that does a similar function. The vendor is Fortinet. Both vendors have their own pros and cons. The big difference between the two from a cloud network security perspective is that the high availability model that Check Point has is not what the competitor has. So, you are still relying upon load balancers, and you are still relying upon cloud failover, which adds a little bit of complexity. This high availability has been a huge plus. We have not seen our current vendors or other vendors be able to do so.

We, as such, have not switched. We have a different vendor we use, and we have not made the decision to switch. We are still at that deciding factor because we are seeing where things fit with both platforms. From an ROI perspective, switching would not be advantageous to us at this point based on what we are getting, but it is definitely something that is looked upon as we look at life cycles. We can then make a decision one way or the other to meet our business needs.

The decision to go for CloudGuard instead of our cloud vendor's cloud firewall was predated. There were some implementations that were already there. We have made additional investments where we did go between vendor A and vendor B and made a decision. I made the decision and chose Check Point, not just for the single pane of glass and ease of management but also for the high availability. For the high availability that we were deploying, there was no other solution that could give us the seamlessness we were looking for. We could not get that from other vendors, so it became evident that going for Check Point was the right decision to make.

How was the initial setup?

We are a Microsoft Azure Shop, and the deployment model would be high-availability gateways. We are not using gateway low balancers. We are just using the high-availability deployments.

In terms of ease of deployment, I cannot speak for the earlier years, but I did hear that there were some pain points. That was more of a combination of cloud maturity in Microsoft and Check Point integrations. There were other challenges related to intermixing and the knowledge base. This was when Check Point was new to our company, and we probably did not have the right MSP support. A lot of those gaps and failures were due to the support and not having that strong knowledge base and operating support afterward. Recent deployments, from 2020 to 2024, are different. There is a night and day kind of difference. We had instant Check Point support. They walked us through and sat on the call while we deployed in real-time with our CloudOps teams. It was seamless. We ran into a gap, and we were easily able to fix it right then and there. They were very collaborative. It has just been a night-and-day type of scenario.

What about the implementation team?

For the first implementation, we used an MSP consultant in collaboration with Check Point. We did the recent deployment in-house directly with Check Point.

What was our ROI?

We are yet to figure that part out. There is a lot of tuning on our side, and we have definitely seen its remediation and prevention capabilities help us in very critical situations. Knowing that we could be proactive instead of constantly being reactive has definitely put me at much more ease at night. There are some improvements to that.

Investment-wise, this is where you look at the consolidation and realize that you might have different vendor technologies that might be doing the same thing. This is something we will have to look at. It is not necessarily a Check Point problem. It is something that we, as an enterprise, have to look into.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

My experience has been extremely positive. It was not a concern because I had an account team that fought for pricing for our company. They were not pushing me to professional services for certain help. I was instantly getting a CloudGuard architect to help us out. They understood our environment and bridged the gap where we needed that help with our public cloud provider and with Check Point, in this case. That is what made the experience. They allowed us to scale it well, and that is where Check Point has done very well.

They realize that customers need to be adaptive in their cloud deployments, and they are much quicker than on-prem. They know that in the end, their product speaks for itself, so pricing has always been very competitive compared to other vendors. I have always had account teams no matter what company I have worked for, and they have always done a good job of meeting that gap. So, its pricing was not the reason we made the decision.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate CloudGuard Network Security a nine out of ten. The ease of template deployment would have been nice. There was also a little bit of weirdness with the licensing models for our on-premise management. That is pretty much it. Otherwise, I am extremely happy with it. They are not negatives. It is still great.


    Financial Services

Shielding Networks in the on cloud applications

  • March 06, 2024
  • Review provided by G2

What do you like best about the product?
Its comprehensive threat protection capabilities, which seamless integrate with cloud environment traffic logs, while offering robust threat analysis, network traffic visibility, and user account activities on all our applications.
What do you dislike about the product?
The cost of licensing and maintenance could be a drawback for organizations with budget constraints, especially for smaller businesses or startups.It has the limitations the network security is only supported on vpc traffic and cloud trail logs only.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
It will helps us to monitor and analyse cloud network logs continuously and will reduce the risk of traffics from the attackers and malicious requests.


    Jan Vobruba

Offers a user-friendly and efficient interface

  • March 03, 2024
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

I can easily secure communication between our Azure Stack Hub and local Azure environments using CloudGuard gateways. This ensures that when I deploy applications in Azure, I can securely access databases and other resources in my local environment through a VPN channel. It is a straightforward way to keep everything protected as I work between the cloud and on-premises infrastructure.

What is most valuable?

The central management feature is a big plus, allowing us to manage both local and cloud gateways from one platform. Another advantage is the unified logging system, which makes it easy to track all communications. Index logs enable us to see all of the logs with all of the features in one place. Unlike other solutions like Palo Alto's Panorama, where checking logs can be cumbersome, CloudGuard's interface is user-friendly and efficient. I have to manually click on every log, one at a time. This helps streamline our deployment process, as I focus on the initial setup before handing it off to other departments for ongoing management.

CloudGuard's ease of policy creation and centralized logging are definite strengths.

What needs improvement?

There is room for improvement in addressing bugs and support issues. Communication with support, particularly with certain teams, can sometimes be challenging and slow, impacting problem resolution.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been working with CloudGuard Cloud Network Security for almost eight years.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We use CloudGuard to manage 15,000 people. We have ten applications and 14 subscriptions.

How are customer service and support?

The Israel tech support is better than other regions because they respond quickly and help us resolve our issues.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Check Point's management interface is easier to use compared to products like Palo Alto's Panorama and FortiManager.

Palo Alto and FortiManager are more complicated than CloudGuard.

When it comes to identifying security threats, CloudGuard is on par with other solutions. While Palo Alto doesn't have zero-day protection, it ultimately depends on how customers configure their security rules.

How was the initial setup?

I'm quite pleased with CloudGuard because it is incredibly easy to deploy. Whether I'm using the marketplace or SmartConsole, setting up the gateway takes just a few seconds or minutes, and connecting to local or cloud management is seamless.

Deploying Check Point CloudGuard has been generally straightforward, but we have encountered challenges with Azure Stack Hub due to feature discrepancies with public Azure. The absence of a console in Azure Stack Hub and outdated versions can pose issues. However, if project preparation and resource allocation are done correctly, deployments usually go smoothly. Typically, we purchase between two to six cores for our deployments.

If we prepare the right CPUs it's okay.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The pricing is okay. I know the cost for the competitors and CloudGuard pricing is fine. It is cheaper than other firewalls.

What other advice do I have?

Overall, I would rate CloudGuard Cloud Network Security as a ten out of ten.


    Raimondo Lemma

Enables connections between the cloud, data center, and hybrid infrastructure

  • March 03, 2024
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

Our use case is simple. We utilize CloudGuard Network Security with a bridge to connect all components in the cloud directly to the on-premise. By establishing peering with the bridge, we route traffic to the Google Cloud-based cluster. We apply our standard on-premise environment rules to CloudGuard, utilizing threat prevention, EPS, etc.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature for us is the simplicity of creating this environment. Even though our current cloud usage is limited, the process of setting up machines in the product and establishing an HR system was straightforward.

CloudGuard Network Security helped us create stable VPN connections from our Google Cloud to our data center. This was important because we had issues with dependencies between Google, the data center, etc.

We have an on-premise management system, and it's straightforward. We use it within the same management of our other files.

What needs improvement?

In the past year, I noticed that the challenging part, especially in the cloud, is upgrading to the next release of the firewall. Unlike on-premise upgrades, it's not as simple in the cloud. You need to recreate the machine, which makes the process more complex.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using CloudGuard Network Security for four years now. We initially adopted it when we began using the Google Cloud platform. It helps us enable connections between the cloud, data center, and hybrid infrastructure.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is stable.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The tool's pricing is not cheap.

What other advice do I have?

I rate the solution a nine out of ten.