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

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security

Check Point Software Technologies | R81.20-631.1856

Linux/Unix, Other Gaia 3.10 - 64-bit Amazon Machine Image (AMI)

Reviews from AWS customer

22 AWS reviews

External reviews

194 reviews
from and

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


4-star reviews ( Show all reviews )

    Alfonso Peterson

Offers ease of administration and excellent scalability

  • March 15, 2024
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

We primarily use CloudGuard Network Security to deploy cloud firewalls in Azure, safeguarding our applications, and managing them using Terraform.

How has it helped my organization?

CloudGuard Network Security streamlines processes by automating tasks, reducing human effort, and enhancing security for cloud deployments.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features are the ease of administration with the cloud management extension and the cloud licensing model.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using CloudGuard Network Security for about four months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We haven't had any stability issues so far.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability has been great. We utilize scale sets, deploying two gateways per region with settings ranging from two to ten.

How was the initial setup?

The initial deployment using the ARM template in Azure was straightforward, but migrating to Terraform added complexity, although we managed to make it work.

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

Our existing Check Point discounts make the licensing competitive and budget-friendly.

What other advice do I have?

CloudGuard provides unified security management across hybrid clouds and on-premises environments.

Unified security management simplifies our operations by centralizing logging and integrating seamlessly with our existing solutions, ensuring security teams have a single point of reference without needing additional configurations.

My advice would be to consider the solution as it performs well and seamlessly integrates with existing systems, streamlining processes and proving to be highly beneficial.

Overall, I would rate CloudGuard Network Securit as an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Microsoft Azure


    Aaron Vivadelli

Robust protection with advanced threat prevention, seamless scalability, and centralized management, ensuring comprehensive security for cloud environments

  • March 15, 2024
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

Many traditional on-premise customers transitioning to the cloud often prioritize solutions like CloudGuard, especially when dealing with scale sets and clusters. These customers are accustomed to constructing their own network infrastructure and are drawn to CloudGuard for its compatibility with these setups. This primary use case highlights the appeal of CloudGuard for organizations seeking to maintain control over their network security while migrating to cloud environments.

How has it helped my organization?

The unified security management significantly impacts security operations and management positively. It's undeniably beneficial, offering streamlined processes and enhanced control. With the rise of infrastructure as code and tools like Terraform, there's a shift towards a separate manager pushing policies to gateways, which can introduce complexity. However, advancements like dynamic resets, enabled directly on the gateway without manager intervention, represent a significant leap forward, simplifying operations and propelling the company towards more efficient security management.

The most significant benefit for our customers lies in the familiarity and comfort of transitioning from on-premise Check Point solutions to CloudGuard's unified management system. This seamless continuity offers reassurance and confidence in navigating the cloud security landscape, making the transition smoother and more intuitive for them.

When compared to other migration solutions in terms of identity-centric security threats, Check Point stands out for its efficacy rates, particularly evident in its threat cloud and AI capabilities. The integration of various security features, along with the collaborative aspect where information from all Check Point Gateways feeds into a collective pool, underscores the robust security aspect of the platform. This is where Check Point consistently sets itself apart in the security landscape.

We maintain a high level of confidence in our security posture, provided everything is configured correctly. Check Point offers additional solutions to address gaps beyond the firewall's capabilities, especially in scenarios where threats may circumvent it or exploit other entry points. Network security alone may not suffice, but Check Point's supplementary solutions, such as Network Calabrio, complement our defenses effectively, serving as a solid foundation for our overall security strategy.

Our clients appreciate the familiar look and feel of Check Point's interface, which maintains the security standards they've come to trust. While there are numerous reports comparing efficacy rates of cloud-native solutions, they often fall short in comparison to third-party vendors like Check Point.

What is most valuable?

The auto-scaling feature is undoubtedly one of the most valuable aspects of having Check Point security in the cloud. It provides excellent protection by dynamically adjusting resources based on demand. Additionally, the centralized reporting and management, accessible through a single pane of glass, offer consistency and efficiency across multi-cloud environments. This unified approach ensures seamless security management regardless of the cloud platform, making it a highly advantageous feature of Check Point's cloud security solutions.

What needs improvement?

Check Point's primary competitor, Palo Alto Networks, offers a SaaS firewall solution that can be deployed in both traditional virtual networks (VNETs) and virtual wide area networks (VWANs). This firewall solution features auto-scaling and consumption-based pricing, allowing users to scale according to their needs seamlessly. While Check Point does offer some VWAN offerings, they appear to be more static and less tailored to cloud-native environments compared to Palo Alto's dynamic and flexible approach.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been working with it for approximately five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

In terms of stability, I've never encountered any issues where a gateway went down or experienced faults. My experience across various environments has been consistently positive, without any instances of gateway crashes or failures for any specific reasons.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability aspect functions seamlessly, although there's a significant process involved, particularly with the CME and management components recognizing new gateways and pushing necessary files. Despite the complexity, the CME serves as an effective tool for deploying scripts and managing tasks. However, the requirement for management to push configurations to the firewall adds an additional layer of intricacy beyond simply pushing to the gateway.

How are customer service and support?

The technical support provided by Check Point is commendable. Once a case reaches the right hands, resolutions are often swift. However, there can be challenges in initially getting the case directed to the appropriate personnel, which is not uncommon for organizations of our size. I would rate it seven out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

What about the implementation team?

I've implemented various deployments, with one of the most extensive being a multi-tier architecture utilizing different scale sets for handling ingress, egress, and east-west traffic internally. This particular deployment spanned across two regions, with a total of twelve instances distributed among the scale sets, each serving a distinct function. Essentially, it aimed to replicate a traditional data center environment in the cloud, catering to the specific needs of the organization.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Lately, I've been engaged in numerous discussions surrounding cloud-native firewall solutions like AWS Firewall or Azure Firewall, as well as offerings such as Palo Alto's SaaS firewall and CloudGuard NGFW.

CloudGuard compares favorably, offering a familiar and user-friendly experience akin to Check Point's traditional products. The trend towards cloud-native solutions is evident, particularly among non-security-focused individuals. The flexibility to assist in migrating customers who are embracing cloud-native approaches, integrating seamlessly with platforms like Azure WolfStack and AWS real stack, is a significant advantage. This ease of migration is a notable strength of competitors like Palo Alto.

What other advice do I have?

It functions well, especially the auto-scaling feature, despite the complexity involved, particularly with integrating Azure load balancers. Consolidating these components would be beneficial, but without a SaaS offering, reliance on Azure's resources or cloud-native resources remains a factor. Overall, I would rate it eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Microsoft Azure


    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.


    Dan Ramsell

Helps to handle increased loads and firewalls

  • March 03, 2024
  • Review from a verified AWS customer

What is our primary use case?

My customers use the solution for technical and internal Azure resources, including remote access VPN.

What is most valuable?

Some retail customers find the scale-up and scale-down features valuable, particularly with scale sets. This is useful for handling increased loads on devices and utilizing firewalls, similar to on-premises setups with active standby configurations.

The solution allows customers to migrate workloads securely into the cloud space with a trusted vendor, maintaining everything under a single platform. This ensures visibility into their cloud environments similar to on-premises setups, all managed through a single smart console. 

Unified security management simplifies operations by providing visibility into both cloud and on-premises infrastructure. The skill set required to manage it remains the same for both environments.

The level of confidence in CloudGuard Network Security, both for myself and my customers, is very high. The product operates familiarly, consistent with what customers are used to, and it is a trusted name in the space.

What needs improvement?

Based on my previous experience, there were improvements, especially in in-place upgrades. Regarding cost, it might be potentially cheaper considering resource utilization in Azure and VM costs, but licensing could be improved, possibly moving towards a simpler model.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the product for four to five years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

CloudGuard Network Security has improved its stability. It is a stable platform. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The tool has improved its scalability over the four years. 

How are customer service and support?

The support experience can be hit or miss. It depends on the expertise of the support representative. Some are highly skilled and knowledgeable, while others require more guidance. There might be room for improvement in this aspect.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

How was the initial setup?

The tool's deployment is straightforward, whether through the marketplace or templates. It offers flexibility for making amendments before deployment. 

What other advice do I have?

On a scale of one to ten, I would rate the solution an eight. The ease of deployment, the single management function, and the features it provides, especially in terms of scale sets and scaling, contribute to it being a solid platform. Many customers are increasingly interested in using it to protect their assets within Azure and AWS, which are the two main areas of operation.

If a colleague is considering purchasing the solution for its security features and licensing, my advice would be to ensure correct deployment. While the solutions are generally straightforward to deploy, there are nuances, especially in Azure infrastructure, that can make troubleshooting more challenging. It's crucial to either use a knowledgeable partner for deployment or ensure a clear understanding of the process before proceeding, as it may be more complicated than anticipated.


    reviewer2353203

Makes security operations faster and error-free

  • March 03, 2024
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

We use the product for network security and cloud workload protection. 

How has it helped my organization?

It's easy to set up in Azure Cloud. The ease of setup helps us save time.

What is most valuable?

It offers an easy and nice way to manage the gateways, similar to on-prem hardware. It has packet filtering features. Our security operations are faster and less prone to errors. We selected CloudGuard Network Security due to its visibility. 

CloudGuard Network Security more or less provides us with unified security management across hybrid-clouds as well as on-prem. We manage both environments on the same console. It makes our security operations faster and less prone to error. 

What needs improvement?

The solution needs to improve the interruptions that happen during gateway upgrades. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the product for two years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

There were no major stability issues, although switching gateways could cause some downtime, approximately a minute until the new gateway is fully deployed.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

CloudGuard Network Security's scalability is good. 

How are customer service and support?

The tool's support is good. Their responses can get delayed due to time zone differences. 

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

I have only used the built-in solutions from Azure. 

CloudGuard is easier to understand. CloudGuard is very easy to translate and easy to incorporate features. CloudGuard has better features like packet filters, EPS, threat prevention, and filtering.

We chose CloudGuard because of the visibility. It's much better.

How was the initial setup?

The setup process saves us time, especially in the Azure cloud, as the system continually improves.

What was our ROI?

We have seen ROI through its visibility and through understanding attacks on the workloads.

What other advice do I have?

For us, the solution was easy to understand. The syncing of the CloudGuard Network Security is like that of the gateway on-prem. Translating in a very easy path to bring the features is very easy. I rate the product a nine out of ten. 


    reviewer2353200

Protects network security with threat detection

  • March 03, 2024
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

The solution helps protect network security by offering threat prevention, addressing vulnerabilities, and utilizing blades. 

We use it for the protection of our internal services. We're a Telco company, our internal users are on the machines. We also have some external services that we protect. We protect our customers and our public cloud with it.

VMware is our public cloud provider. 

How has it helped my organization?

Threat prevention is the biggest benefit we see from it. 

What is most valuable?

The network security is the most valuable aspect of CloudGuard. I am a network engineer so it's the most relevant feature to me.

CloudGuard Network Security provides us with unified security management across hybrid-clouds and on-prem. We manage all of those environments through this one solution. 

It's user-friendly. It's a multi-domain solution. CloudGuard is really, really good. 

I have experience with FortiGate and Cisco. I worked with them at previous jobs. FortiGate is easy and user-friendly when it comes to the configuration, but it is unstable in some countries and the routing tables have problems. The configuration of the network is in the same management platform, which might be better for some.

In comparison, CloudGaurd is very stable.

Cisco is hard to use, FortiGate is easy and CloudGuard is somewhere in the middle when it comes to ease of use. 

When it comes to identifying security threats, CloudGuard is really good compared to its competition.

I am confident that CloudGuard's Network Security can protect us. It enables me to sleep very well at night.

What needs improvement?

We utilize logging systems, and geolocation is crucial for us as some applications must only be accessible from our country. However, there have been occasional issues with this feature. It drops requests. It's not always precise. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the product for two years. 

My team has been using it for five to six years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

CloudGuard Network Security is very stable. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have 28 licenses. We have 800 servers on our private cloud. 

How are customer service and support?

Their support is fast. They answer quickly.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

We integrate with NSX. The setup wasn't hard.

What was our ROI?

We have seen ROI. It saves us time because it's stable. It's easily administered. We have time to do other tasks. It is easy. 

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

Licensing is complicated. When a license expires, we have to renew it and the process is complicated. They should make the process easier.

What other advice do I have?

Using CloudGuard Network Security saves time due to its stability and ease of administration. The solution is not complex, allowing administrators to focus on other tasks. The configuration process is straightforward. It can integrate with NSX. 

I rate the product a nine out of ten. We manage a total of 800 servers that host a variety of components, including our infrastructure, customer applications, databases, application sites, and disaster recovery systems

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Other


    reviewer2353149

Offers central console management that ensures we have uniform threat prevention policies

  • March 03, 2024
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

I use it to protect our public cloud workloads today. It safeguards them directly from the internet and also from the corporate network. We have interconnected our Azure environments with our on-premises network, including our data centre. CloudGuard Network Security helps protect workloads within Azure from both the corporate network and the internet.

How has it helped my organization?

CloudGuard Network Security has significantly improved our operations. Its automatic scaling capability, based on the network load, eliminates the need for capacity planning. 

We don't need capacity planning anymore or do proactive actions in order to always have that capacity planning, it does it automatically. Our network engineers now focus on administering the entire cluster rather than managing individual members and their loads.

Our confidence in our cloud network security is pretty high, largely because of central console management. It ensures that we have uniform threat prevention policies applied globally, which significantly boosts our confidence in the system.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature for us is the scale set, which allows us to scale horizontally, vertically and dynamically depending on the traffic load.

It provides us with unified security management across both CloudGuard and on-premises environments. We use CloudGuard Network Security for Azure and have a single management console that allows full visibility into logs and consolidated logs across all environments. This ensures we maintain consistent IPS, IDS, and threat prevention policies across all regions and data centres.

What needs improvement?

There is room for improvement in the integration with PaaS services from the public cloud. It would be very helpful. A more cloud-native approach is needed because even it is PaaS services require public cloud resources, even if the traffic load is low. These resources are still required for high availability and resiliency.

So, a full PaaS solution with improvements on that end, basically.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using it for five years now. 

How are customer service and support?

We have many different firewalls worldwide in our environment. Check Point support provides direct, 24/7 support, even when some components may be outdated. Since almost 95% of our hardware is supported, they're still able to provide support for the remaining 5%, which is greatly appreciated.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

We opted for CloudGuard primarily due to two factors, which ultimately became three. 

  • First was the Azure consumption cost, which was lower compared to competitors. 
  • Secondly, its plug-and-play capability is straight out of the box, as deployment is directly made from the Azure Cloud Marketplace. In contrast, with competitors, you have to manually import and deploy the image they provide, which isn’t off the shelf. 
  • The third factor was the scaling solution offered by CloudGuard, which we found to be the fastest.

How was the initial setup?

I was involved. It was straightforward, out of the box, plug and play. 

What about the implementation team?

We didn’t use a reseller or integrator; it’s really simple to deploy, and we had the capability to set it up on our own.

What was our ROI?

I haven't calculated it because we deployed CloudGuard Network Security as part of our cloud journey. The ROI wasn't calculated solely on that part; it was more about the overall process of closing the data centre and moving to the cloud.

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

The licesning has some good features. For example, the scaling feature is free of charge, allowing multiple scale-ups and scale-downs over a two-week period, which is pretty good. 

However, since we are still on an IaaS infrastructure, we end up paying for firewalls that are operational without actually handling traffic loads. This is why a PaaS approach would yield more benefits for us.

What other advice do I have?

Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten. The reason it's not a ten relates to the need for a more cloud-native solution that fits today's requirements. The deployment was five years ago, and we're still waiting for Check Point to evolve to truly have cloud-native capabilities.

I'd advise looking into the scale set feature and the out-of-the-box capability, which were really the silver bullets for us. It was a strong requirement, and if anyone is seeking that kind of solution, I would greatly recommend it.


    Achim Buettner

Protects the file server on the cloud and comes with threat prevention features

  • February 26, 2024
  • Review from a verified AWS customer

What is our primary use case?

Our use case for the product is to prevent or protect the file server in the Cloud. The plan is to gradually integrate more solutions behind it. We work with Azure and AWS. 

What is most valuable?

The tool's most valuable features are threat prevention and protection mechanisms. 

What needs improvement?

The connection to the on-premises management requires using the CLI. It's not just a click, and you cannot edit in the management to prepare everything. You need to do it online and in real time. After that, you must execute a script, and then you should be happy that it appears in the management.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the product for five years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

CloudGuard Network Security is stable. I haven't encountered any issues with its stability. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The tool is scalable. 

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

Choosing between Palo Alto and Check Point is more of a personal preference based on the management you prefer. However, in terms of protection, both provide a comparable level of security, making you feel equally safe. The choice between Palo Alto and Check Point often depends on the customer. If a customer is already using Palo Alto, it might be challenging to convince them to switch to Check Point. 

How was the initial setup?

Deploying the product on different cloud platforms, like Azure or AWS, poses challenges due to variations in terminology and identification methods among platforms.

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

CloudGuard Network Security's pricing is fine. 

What other advice do I have?

In most cases, we use the smart management on-premises. With the hybrid solution, we have one log visibility of every single management, which is an advantageous concept. I rate it an eight out of ten. 


    Darren Fine

Appreciate the CME plugin for automatically understanding assets within the cloud

  • February 26, 2024
  • Review from a verified AWS customer

What is our primary use case?

We use the solution for the ingress and egress, often for VMSS auto-scaling groups. This involves linking on-premises to the cloud and managing incoming traffic within the same cloud environment.

What is most valuable?

Customers appreciate the CME plugin for automatically understanding assets within the cloud. This information appears in the manager, allowing users to tag the assets and adjust policies and rules accordingly.

The IT personnel who transition from on-premises to the cloud experience the same understanding, knowledge, and comfort with the cloud environment, using the familiar interface they had on-premises.

What needs improvement?

People don't know about the tool's features. There's a lack of skill. Users require more knowledge on how to integrate it into the cloud environment and orchestrate routing. So, it's not necessarily a CloudGuard Network Security or Check Point issue but more about integration, knowledge, and understanding.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the product for six years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The product's stability is good. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution's scalability is good. 

How are customer service and support?

The solution's support is good. 

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

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

The tool's pricing is good. Customers want it to be cheap. I consider the pricing to be elastic. CloudGuard Network Security is perceived as cost-effective compared to using the built-in tools provided by the cloud. Specifically, the VPN functionality is more economical in CloudGuard Network Security, where users can create multiple VPNs without additional charges for each VPN, paying only for the bandwidth. This is contrasted with cloud providers that may charge for each VPN on a per-minute basis, including Ingress and Egress costs.

What other advice do I have?

Unified Security Management provides a consistent interface and knowledge base, allowing those who were trained in Check Point for on-premise use to apply that same understanding across various cloud environments such as Google, AWS, Alibaba, Oracle, and more.

I rate the product an eight out of ten. There is always work to be done. However, some customers may find other technologies more understandable, and there could be a perceived difficulty in the human-computer interaction with Check Point. This might create challenges in comparison to competitors, as customers may find competitors' solutions easier to use.


    Erez Zelikovitz

Has features like next-generation firewall features, including anti-spam, IPS, and URL filtering

  • February 26, 2024
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

We offer a full security and connectivity solution leveraging SD-WAN and SASE technologies. We partner with service integrators and providers who, in turn, sell the solution to business customers. Our solution is built on SD-WAN and SASE, facilitating the connection of offices and home users to the organization through various WAN connections. By aggregating multiple connections over the Internet, we deliver security and connectivity to meet the needs of retail and finance. We can help any vertical that needs a connection between the branch and the cloud.

What is most valuable?

We primarily secure our network using CloudGuard Network Security's next-generation firewall features, including anti-spam, IPS, and URL filtering. Our chosen package for the go-to-market strategy is NGTP. For customers seeking more features, we provide options to upgrade to the tool's advanced packages.

The product serves as a complement to our solution. While we integrate some firewall functionality into our edge device, we do not develop complete security solutions for the cloud. The combination of CloudGuard Network Security with SD-WAN connectivity allows us to offer a holistic solution.

What needs improvement?

The product needs to offer multi-tenancy. 

For how long have I used the solution?

Eight months ago, we initiated the integration with CloudGuard Network Security, and currently, we are taking it to the market and presenting it to customers. We have three customers who are on the verge of signing agreements with us.

How are customer service and support?

Currently, the technical support we receive is from the US. While there is a team in the US supporting us, there is a need for this support to extend to other regions.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We got discounts on pricing. 

What other advice do I have?

We utilize the tool's SmartConsole integrated into our management system. However, we encounter challenges with multi-tenancy. Since we integrate it as an application on the cloud we can integrate it with any other provider. We do think that the synergy with Check Point is very good because we also allow Check Point to move from the edge to the cloud while we provide security connectivity from the edge to the cloud. So we can support its transition from on-prem security solutions to the cloud. It looks like a very good win-win situation for both Check Point and BBT, and we see it in the market, bringing us big deals in Japan and France.

We can go with others as well in terms of architecture because our architecture is very open. We are a small company and cannot engage with everyone. We have good connections with Check Point in Israel. We also have some connections abroad. So far, we are getting good support. 

We have an application that is running on our cloud. Normally, our main cloud provider is Google, but we can run over any cloud. It could be a private cloud or any data center that provides virtual machines and connectivity. We are agnostic.

We are in several POCs in France, Japan, and Thailand, and they are progressing well. However, we need more presales support. There is a lack of knowledge about the solution in the regions, and we are finding it challenging to get sufficient support from those regions. There seems to be a gap in support that needs to be addressed.

It seems that the product is the answer that we need. We haven't identified any missing components in the security suite, apart from the operational challenges related to working in a multi-tenancy environment. I rate the product an eight out of ten.