We are still on Palo Alto Networks products because it is delivering value to our organization. We are using the products ourselves, so we function as a customer. We do not have much cloud presence, so most of our solutions are on-premises. We utilize the traditional features such as GlobalProtect and are not using anything from Cortex. We have two PA-850 firewalls that are being managed by Palo Alto Networks Panorama.
Palo Alto Networks Panorama
Palo Alto NetworksExternal reviews
External reviews are not included in the AWS star rating for the product.
Monitoring and managing multiple firewalls has become more efficient through centralized oversight and reliable logging
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
I utilize Palo Alto Networks Panorama's centralized view for monitoring. Palo Alto Networks Panorama serves as our log collector, with all logs from the firewalls being pushed to it. Palo Alto Networks Panorama has an ACC tab that I use to conduct monitoring.
We do not currently have a SIEM solution, so we are heavily relying on the monitoring features of Palo Alto Networks Panorama to conduct our investigations and log reviews. It is really heavily used because if you want to get visibility into the telemetries coming in and out of our network, Palo Alto Networks Panorama is what we rely on because we do not have a SIEM solution.
I do utilize Palo Alto Networks Panorama's advanced reporting, which comes with out-of-the-box features. I do reporting using Palo Alto Networks Panorama as part of my day-to-day activity. Every month, I need to send a report to my boss, and I use the Palo Alto Networks Panorama reporting feature to do that.
I think Palo Alto Networks Panorama's application and threat visibility features are solid because the App-ID feature is excellent. It helps me to better understand the kind of traffic that I am monitoring by providing details of the protocol and application type. The threats monitoring feature is great, and comparing Palo Alto Networks to other competitors, while Palo Alto Networks is quite expensive, I am really satisfied with the threats monitoring features because I feel my company is getting value for what we are paying for.
Palo Alto Networks Panorama's ability to manage multiple firewalls is solid as long as you ensure that you have the required resources for it, depending on the number of firewalls that you want to place under Palo Alto Networks Panorama. My Palo Alto Networks Panorama is a VM version, not a physical box, so from time to time, I have to ensure that the ESXi host hosting Palo Alto Networks Panorama has better capability in terms of IOPs, CPU, and memory. Once the resource requirement is adequate, Palo Alto Networks Panorama does a very good job because the log syncing ensures that the firewalls being managed by Palo Alto Networks Panorama are in sync and communicate with each other very well. Having Palo Alto Networks Panorama makes life easier because we cannot afford downtime, not even minimal downtime. With Palo Alto Networks Panorama, it helps you achieve high availability, whether active-passive or active-active, with ease.
What needs improvement?
I would say that while Palo Alto Networks Panorama reporting capability is functional, it is not really intuitive. The presentation is not really as advanced as what an advanced solution would have provided.
I would like to improve the dashboards on Palo Alto Networks Panorama, especially because I work in an environment where my managers are not really that technical. They do a great job leading us, but they do not have a technical background. If the dashboard could be improved to suit more executive use cases when it comes to reporting, that would be excellent. It is basic as far as I am concerned, and from an executive standpoint, it is not really that good.
I would rate Palo Alto Networks Panorama as a product nine or 9.5 out of ten because there is always room for improvement, especially on the dashboard. I think if they could improve the dashboard, I would give them ten out of ten because from a technical standpoint, the dashboard is good, but at an executive level, it is not really that good. I usually struggle when doing presentations to my bosses because the dashboard and reporting from Palo Alto Networks Panorama are not as polished as they could be.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Palo Alto Networks Panorama personally for the past five years.
How are customer service and support?
I think the technical support by Palo Alto Networks is great because the response time is solid. Palo Alto Networks is so reliable that we hardly actually raise a ticket. It almost never breaks, so we rarely rely on technical support.
I get advisory from Palo Alto Networks from time to time if there is a new Pan-OS or if there are vulnerabilities on the existing Pan-OS. We also conduct a BPA to address any security gap by ourselves. So we hardly actually rely on their technical support.
We have had some issues related to SSL decryption. The SSL certificate we used had expired, so we renewed it. However, implementing it on Palo Alto Networks still presents pending issues. We raised support for that, and it has not been closed yet, but it is not entirely a Palo Alto Networks issue. I think it is more about the certificate. It is a pending issue, but it is not really critical, so we have not revisited it.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
What other advice do I have?
Palo Alto Networks firewall is expensive as a whole product.
In my region, which is Ghana, West Africa, most people usually use Sophos and FortiGate firewalls, so the price comparison was actually on Sophos and FortiGate.
Sophos and FortiGate do not have any advantages over Palo Alto Networks Panorama because their machine learning capabilities are not top-notch as compared to Palo Alto Networks. That is why we are so satisfied to stay with Palo Alto Networks.
We do not have Palo Alto Networks' threat intelligence platforms or data loss prevention features in our subscription. We have other ways of dealing with DLPs, but on the firewall, we do not have that feature activated.
We are dealing with DLP by other vendors, not Palo Alto Networks. We utilize Microsoft Office 365, which has a feature called Purview for DLP capability. We are dealing with Microsoft products, specifically Exchange. Our Microsoft licensing includes E5 and E3, which come with certain features, and we utilize all those features.
We go through a dealer regarding our partnership with Microsoft and Palo Alto Networks. We are not directly partners.
We also use CyberArk PAM, and it is great to hear that Palo Alto Networks acquired CyberArk. My overall review rating for Palo Alto Networks Panorama is nine out of ten.
Centralized management and troubleshooting enhance operational efficiency
What is our primary use case?
I use Palo Alto Networks Panorama for the management of all the firewalls. Apart from that, I use Cloud Prisma for VPN management, as well as connectivity to the production, non-production environment. I use three flavors of Palo Alto Networks: Panorama, Cloud Prisma, and the on-prem, physical Palo Alto firewalls in the data centers.
I use Palo Alto Networks Panorama for all our production, non-production firewalls, which are onboarded on Panorama. Whatever changes I make in the individual firewall, I push that to the Panorama, and Panorama pushes to the individual devices.
What is most valuable?
The granular control of Palo Alto Networks Panorama stands out for me, as you have centralized management or a centralized view for all the firewalls. It's easy to create security policy, easy to create NAT policy, and easy to do any configuration. Second is easy troubleshooting, so rather than going to all the firewalls, I can centrally troubleshoot. If any issue occurs, I have a centralized monitor tab, and centralized logs are there, so I can easily troubleshoot any issues from the Panorama itself.
In terms of logging and reporting capabilities, there is centralized logging with Palo Alto Networks Panorama. In terms of ease of configuration and ease of troubleshooting, all individual firewalls forward logs to the Panorama, and Panorama forwards logs to the Syslog server. That is ease of configuration. The second thing is ease of troubleshooting, as all the centralized logs are present in the Panorama itself. Based on any issue occurred, I can troubleshoot it on the Panorama itself rather than going to the individual firewalls.
It's very easy to integrate with infrastructure and other systems.
What needs improvement?
I do see some disadvantages with Panorama. If your staff is not technical enough, you have to be very careful if you have production devices on Panorama because once you push any changes, those get pushed on the individual firewalls. In terms of operation, it is quite important that the staff managing the Panorama should be technically sound enough, and they should know exactly what they are doing. If you break anything in terms of config push, that could lead to an outage. That is one of the most important things I would say. Apart from that, I don't see any disadvantages as such.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using it for more than five years.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Earlier we were using bare-metal hardware devices in the data center. Now we migrated to the AWS cloud, so we deployed the Palo Alto Networks Panorama firewall in the AWS cloud, and we manage it from there.
What was our ROI?
I'm not at that position to comment on ROI since I started using Panorama.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
If you go with the cloud-based deployment, it is pretty much affordable. If you go with the physical bare-metal hardware, then it is quite expensive.
What other advice do I have?
This solution receives a rating of 10 out of 10.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Panorama in Focus: Centralized Firewall Management at Scale
- Consistent Policy Enforcement: You can push security policies, device configurations, and updates across all managed firewalls, ensuring uniform protection and compliance.
- Panorama collects logs from all managed devices, enabling centralized analysis of traffic, threats, and user behavior
- While the VM version of Panorama is flexible, hardware appliances strictly enforce device limits. Exceeding the licensed number of managed devices can cause commit failures.
- Problem: Managing configurations, policies, and updates across dozens or hundreds of firewalls is time-consuming and error-prone.
- Solution: Panorama provides a centralized platform to push consistent policies, monitor traffic, and manage updates across all firewalls
Inconsistent Security Policies
- Problem: Different teams or sites may apply varying rules, leading to gaps in security posture.
- Solution: Panorama enforces uniform policy templates and device groups, ensuring consistent security across the organization.
Limited Visibility into Network Activity
- Problem: Without centralized logging, threat detection and incident response are fragmented.
- Solution: Panorama aggregates logs from all managed devices, enabling unified threat analysis, application monitoring, and forensic investigation.
Extensive report customization provides essential insights
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
What needs improvement?
For how long have I used the solution?
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
How are customer service and support?
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
What other advice do I have?
Centralized monitoring enhances control while seeking greater flexibility and rapid response
What is our primary use case?
I am still working for Lotus. We work with Palo Alto three series, Panorama, and Firewall Banu, specifically Firewall three series and five series.
What is most valuable?
I find this solution valuable for full monitoring, centralized control for reporting, and centralized management. These features are instrumental in achieving effective results.
What needs improvement?
The solution requires more flexibility and quicker response times. High-speed replies are crucial.
Additionally, the AI module should be on-premises, not in the cloud. It should support more flexibility and OpenShift Direct, not just the basics.
The virtualization feature needs to be more advanced.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using it for about one year.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is very good in terms of scalability.
How are customer service and support?
I would rate customer service as seven out of ten.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The setup cost is too high.
What other advice do I have?
Consider the environment, as it is very high priced. If you have money to spare, it's a good option. I would rate it a nine out of ten.
Palo alto Networks Panorama Review
The Solution that Palo alto offers is that allows the centralized creation and the enforcement of security policies, that can be applied across all the managed firewalls in the network of the company.
From my point of view, the benefit that i can observed is that the consistency in the security posture and a stronger defense against differents attacks, that offers Palo Alto, and the security policies are uniform across the whole environment, it will reduce the chances of a policy loophole and a hard time for the company.
Paloalto security
Centralized management enhances firewall control
What is our primary use case?
I primarily use Palo Alto Networks Panorama for the global administration of firewalls and managing the GlobalProtect services. It is used for logging and standard firewall activity, and opening firewall rules. Additionally, it centralizes various tasks on the platform.
What is most valuable?
The main value of Palo Alto Networks Panorama lies in its ability to centralize management, similar to FortiManager. It provides a single dashboard for all firewalls, allowing centralized control over different feeder systems based on Palo Alto. It's a comprehensive solution for managing firewalls globally.
What needs improvement?
There is room for improvement in the graphical user interface (GUI), which is becoming outdated, especially the NAT section. However, it still meets expectations and works well for our needs.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Palo Alto Networks Panorama for three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Stability is rated highly at nine out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Scalability depends on whether it's a hardware or virtual machine model, and I rate it at eight out of ten.
How are customer service and support?
I rate technical support at seven out of ten. It depends on the case, with room for improvement in both quality and response time.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
In comparison, I prefer Panorama over FortiManager because Panorama includes all the modules needed for troubleshooting, unlike FortiAnalyzer. From an operational perspective, Panorama is better.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup for Panorama is simple.
What other advice do I have?
Overall, I rate Panorama an eight out of ten and would recommend it to other users.
Efficient firewall management and firmware upgrades with SD-WAN features
What is our primary use case?
Panorama is primarily a management solution to manage Palo Alto firewalls. Customers with a large number of firewalls need this solution for efficient management.
What is most valuable?
Panorama has the capacity for SD-WAN configuration, which is appreciated alongside its capabilities for firewall management and firmware upgrades. The SD-WAN capability is particularly valued because it allows for easy management of firewalls remotely. It also provides a single pane of glass to manage its entire portfolio, offering cost savings as less manpower is needed.
What needs improvement?
From a storage perspective, I would like to see an improvement where logs can be compressed to make some space available. Such a feature could enhance performance.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with Panorama for more than five years now.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support from Palo Alto is rated around nine out of ten. The response time and quality are satisfying.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup of Panorama is pretty simple. The appliance itself is easy to set up, and it isn't complex to execute. It does require some experience for managing other firewalls.
What about the implementation team?
For setup, the customer and engineer needed to collaborate, but for configuration, our help was definitely required. The setup involves downloading a Hyper V file and providing it to a virtualization expert. Management requires good experience.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Commercially, compared to Fortinet, Palo Alto is more expensive, however, it has remarkable features like SD-WAN capability that make it worth its price.
What other advice do I have?
Overall, I rate Panorama a nine out of ten. I would recommend it for medium to enterprise-level companies, however, not for small businesses due to its cost and features.
Unified firewall management streamlines operations across branches with prompt support services
What is our primary use case?
The primary use case for this solution is the management of the entire firewall portfolio across various branches.
How has it helped my organization?
Palo Alto Networks Panorama has simplified management by providing a unified interface for firewall management and configuration.
What is most valuable?
One of the key advantages of Palo Alto Networks Panorama is its unified platform that is quite similar to the firewall interface, making it easier for tech consultants to manage.
What needs improvement?
The integration between Strata Cloud Manager and Panorama could be enhanced to allow customers to stay on Panorama for many years while still utilizing Strata Cloud Manager for deployment.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have sold Panorama for four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
To my knowledge, the solution is very stable. There are always some issues, however, I haven't heard any major complaints from the consultants.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Scalability is primarily enhanced by Strata Cloud Manager as it is much easier to scale in the cloud than in an on-premises installation.
How are customer service and support?
The tech support I've encountered has been good, prompt, and fast. However, some consultants have mentioned it can be cumbersome, particularly if the issue is not well-documented before contacting support.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
The installation process is pretty straightforward. It's possible to have one technician handle the setup.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
In large installations, it can be expensive with hardware appliances, however, virtual Panorama is well-priced and is sold every time there's a solution.
What other advice do I have?
Palo Alto Networks Panorama could benefit from some integration improvements with Strata Cloud Manager, to maintain customer efficiency without selecting between the two.
I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.