External reviews are not included in the AWS star rating for the product.
We utilize the entire Prisma Cloud suite for container security, API security, and CASB. Our primary focus is on the financial services industry, including banking and insurance.
We implemented Prisma Cloud mostly for compliance to protect against vulnerabilities and weaknesses.
Prisma Cloud's compliance is extremely important to our customers.
Prisma Cloud offers comprehensive security across multi-cloud environments. This is crucial due to the increasing trend of cloud adoption and digital migration. However, some clients still maintain a hybrid footprint across various platforms like Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud. To address this, Prisma Cloud's technology extends to secure hybrid environments effectively. Its coverage goes beyond traditional one-size-fits-all solutions and encompasses both public and private cloud infrastructures.
It offers approximately 80 percent coverage for securing the entire cloud-native stack. While they boast a robust "shift left" component through their API, other products in this space are equally competitive. However, if seeking a single solution that addresses the majority of our needs, Prisma Cloud presents a strong option, especially considering the diverse technologies within our cloud footprint. Additionally, if we choose to standardize Palo Alto across our entire infrastructure, Prisma Cloud integrates seamlessly with other modules within their ecosystem. While not claiming to be the best-of-breed solution in every aspect, Prisma Cloud consistently ranks highly in Gartner reports for most of its functionalities, providing a solid foundation for technology consolidation.
It is a leading full automation product. Their SOAR technologies offer a vast array of integrations, all well-designed and ready to use out of the box. This suggests their overall automation capabilities are indeed top-notch.
Prisma Cloud excels in its field. I believe their solution covers detection and prevention in a world-leading manner. They largely deliver on their promises, demonstrating reliable performance. Additionally, they offer excellent support resources, including comprehensive online documentation, training programs, and a robust learning management system. Their onboarding and development programs are also commendable, providing users with the resources and support they need to succeed.
Our customers' organizations are enhanced because Prisma Cloud improves their compliance posture, particularly for those with SOC teams. It provides valuable insights and seamless integration, offering peace of mind that all security bases are covered.
Although the benefits of Prisma Cloud can be observed within three to six months after deployment, this timeframe may be extended for mature clients who prioritize rapid deployment. It is during the post-deployment phase, which typically lasts three to six months, that the full range of benefits becomes apparent.
Prisma Cloud does a good enough job of consolidating technology for our customers.
It integrates seamlessly with other Palo Alto products and provides one tool to protect all cloud resources.
Prisma Cloud helps provide clarity across our entire pipeline.
Prisma Cloud helps reduce runtime alerts by 50 percent and reduces investigation time for our customers by 40 to 50 percent. There is much less lifting for the operations team.
The two most valuable features are container security and the capability to discover workloads. Many organizations struggle to track workloads that spin up and down frequently. This solution enables real-time evaluation and scanning of workloads as they come online and shut down.
The regional cost of Prisma Cloud in South Africa is high and could be improved. Since it is marketed based on a dollar base, it is primarily an enterprise product and may not be affordable for smaller organizations.
As a software development company looking to secure our cloud-hosted APIs before publishing them, we believe that Palo Alto might overstate its capabilities. We have identified competitive products in the market that offer better protection throughout the software development lifecycle. From a developer's perspective, especially for organizations like banks developing their applications, ensuring API security before deploying them to the cloud is crucial. While Palo Alto claims to excel in this area, we believe that other specialized products may offer a more comprehensive solution.
I have been using Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks for three years.
Prisma Cloud has excellent stability. From a product perspective, they strive to stay ahead of the curve regarding vulnerabilities and other issues. I receive regular email updates, approximately four times a week, informing me of any discovered vulnerabilities. Additionally, they provide articles on new releases or micro releases for patching these vulnerabilities.
I would rate the scalability of Prisma Cloud nine out of ten.
The technical support team has a well-developed portal with consistently updated online documentation. The forum articles are also well-maintained and provide a massive footprint of information. Additionally, the testing forum exhibits a high level of activity, further demonstrating the abundance of available resources.
Positive
While the product itself is not complex, its implementation can be challenging due to factors such as the customer's existing environment, security posture, and understanding of their network and ecosystem. This lack of awareness can lead to unforeseen complexities during the scoping and planning stages. However, a more mature client who is well-versed in their environment will typically experience a smoother deployment.
The deployment time varies depending on the organization's size, but it typically takes one to three months from planning to launch. While further optimization is still required after launch, the initial setup is relatively quick.
We have a well-defined philosophy that is not complex. The first phase is the planning and design stage, where we uncover all the requirements and details of the project landscape. From there, we develop a comprehensive scope of work that includes the project architecture, deployment strategy, roles and responsibilities, and a risk assessment. The client then enters the site preparation phase, where they address any necessary repairs to their infrastructure. We then conduct a site readiness assessment to ensure that everything is prepared for deployment. The fourth step is the deployment phase, which we implement in phases depending on the specific project. We typically deploy, conduct a testing cycle, and obtain sign-off. In some cases, depending on the environment, a pilot phase may be necessary. After a successful pilot, the project goes to full deployment, followed by final testing and documentation. We also offer online training to the client during the deployment phase. Additionally, we provide ongoing knowledge transfer throughout the project and beyond. Finally, we close out the project with comprehensive documentation.
Our typical deployment team includes a subject matter expert or architect, a senior engineer, and a project manager. The subject matter expert or architect may be a cloud engineer or a network engineer, depending on the specific project requirements.
We are encountering some resistance in the African market regarding the cost of Prisma Cloud. The lack of a regional pricing model contributes to this concern, and we believe the current cost is slightly too high for the market.
It depends on our reseller or preferred solution provider. The deployment and support costs are also factors to consider. Additionally, they offer professional services for the SKUs we purchase, which includes assistance with planning, design, technology onboarding, and scoping. So, the cost goes beyond just the license fee. Typically, the additional cost for professional services to help with implementation ranges from 15 to 20 percent of the license cost.
Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks earns a solid eight out of ten from me. The licensing models are well-designed and the technology scales effectively. While the pricing makes it an enterprise-level solution, its capabilities are technically suitable for organizations of all sizes. However, the high cost may not be financially justifiable for small businesses. Despite this, the product's technical capabilities allow it to seamlessly scale down to cater to small footprints while remaining robust enough for large enterprises.
We find that some of our customers may stick some technologies together to build their confidence as a compromise.
Our customer environments vary from 500 users and a couple of hundred workloads to 32,000 users and 2,000 workloads across multiple clouds. We typically run Prisma Cloud at an enterprise scale because of the affordability.
There are two types of support: operational and product. Product support is dependent on the supplies provided by our license. However, we also offer solution support, which sometimes involves interpreting reports and explaining what customers see. The amount of maintenance required depends on the customer's maturity, but it generally only takes a couple of hours per week. Two cybersecurity engineers are required for maintenance.
In our region, we have seen some management changes, and we find that the pricing remains extremely high and aggressive. Specifically in South Africa, Check Point has lost significant market share to Palo Alto. However, this rapid growth phase is now decelerating. The market in South Africa is limited in size, encompassing only a finite number of banks, insurance companies, and large enterprises. Many of these players have already switched to Palo Alto, leaving fewer attractive targets for Check Point. This decreased market potential will likely force Palo Alto to re-evaluate its pricing models. From a business perspective, there is often a pressure to continually outperform the previous year. This, combined with the high operating costs associated with their teams, has arguably led to a level of greed within the company, driving the pursuit of ever-increasing profits. However, the limited market size in South Africa poses a challenge to this approach. While Palo Alto enjoyed easy market penetration and rapid growth over the past four to five years, the landscape is now changing. Their previous strategies are becoming less effective, forcing them to adapt and evolve their approach to gain a foothold.
I recommend confidently reviewing Prisma Cloud, understanding your environment, and ensuring it is properly configured. Additionally, budget allocation should be confirmed.
We use the compliance and vulnerability management modules. We are a bank and have certain controls in place. My business unit is cloud-only, and we need to enforce controls, and for audit purposes, we need to collect evidence of control enforcement. We have a number of controls around cloud resources. We configure Prisma to enforce those controls pretty automatically. Prisma generates evidence of the controls that we can present to auditors when we are audited. If we didn't solve this problem, we could lose our license.
It's hard for me to say how Prisma has improved our organization because it was implemented before I joined. But given the number of security controls that have been automated with Prisma, we have managed to achieve a fair amount of manual cost reduction for our control testers. And the automation and integration capabilities of Prisma have allowed us to save a lot of engineer time on evidence. Without Prisma, we would have to do all these things manually. Overall, it results in a huge FTE reduction.
With the number of controls that need to be tested, we would be talking about a team of around 100 people. With the Australian salaries, Prisma is probably saving us $1,000,000 to $2,000,000 a year.
The framework to configure controls is pretty good; it's pretty sophisticated. We can implement a fair amount of testing for a fair number of controls.
It's vulnerability management is quite good, and its integration functionality is something that we have found to be pretty capable.
We also use Twistlock for container security, which is good.
And Prisma Cloud's security automation capabilities are quite good. We use the periodic scanners, and we feed Prisma filings into our control evidence management system. They tick all the boxes for us.
One thing that is missing is Cloud Run runtime security—serverless. That would be great to have in the tool. It's not that easy to have Cloud Run in specific environments.
We have also found that Google Security Command Center has a little bit better coverage for GCP because it's native. That's why we pay for both tools. But ideally, we should only need one tool. Prisma Cloud's coverage of GCP is okay, but a little better coverage would be better.
Our cloud environment is complex, and Prisma doesn't cover all aspects of it. We don't rely on Prisma for any kind of security discovery. We just rely on it as a control-test and automation tool.
We get a few alerts in Prisma, and it allows us to trace any violations back to the source. It's a pretty straightforward interface.
Another thing that we have found useful with Prisma is its Jira integration. When our integration finds a new alert, it creates a ticket in Jira, so it's fully visible and tracked, appearing in all the dashboards.
I joined this branch of the bank six months ago, and Prisma is my portfolio now.
It's stable enough. I can't remember any outages of Prisma Cloud.
It's a SaaS service and is licensed both for our team and for the enterprise. On our side, there are 1,000-plus user licenses. We have five or six integration points, so in that regard, it's not humongous.
We are growing extremely quickly, and Prisma Cloud provides all the required services without any need for us to do anything to scale. It's pretty elastic. We'll probably grow by 10 times in the next couple of years. So far, I don't have any doubts that Prisma will support us.
I've never dealt with their technical support. Prisma Cloud just works.
Our bank itself is huge and uses all sorts of solutions. My business unit is quite young, it's only three years old, and I don't think there were any solutions in this space.
Deploying it was pretty straightforward compared to other tools. We implemented a fair number of compliance rules pretty quickly. I recently participated in some integration activities, and integration-wise, it was very straightforward.
As for maintenance on our side, there really isn't any. We periodically need to review the controls being tested and the control automation, to make sure that they're aligned with changes in the controls. Other than that, it's pretty maintenance-free.
We have managed to save a fair amount of money and effort in hiring manual testers. That's what automation does for us.
I wouldn't mind if it were cheaper. We are spending a fair amount of money on Prisma Cloud. It's probably okay, but, funnily enough, banks don't have money. Periodically, we have cycles of cost-cutting, so if we could save on Prisma Cloud, that would be great.
We don't use Prisma for build and deploy, we use another set of tools. Right now, we are doing our internal due diligence to figure out if we can replace all of those with a single tool, whether it's Prisma or any other tool. We don't know at the moment.
It's very hard to attribute any kind of runtime alert reduction to Prisma Cloud as we use a whole zoo of tools. Prisma is just one piece of the puzzle. We don't have too many runtime alerts thanks to the joint work between our build tools, deployment prevention security tools, and Prisma.
While it's a good tool, you need to be mindful of serverless because serverless runtime security is tricky and, unfortunately, Prisma doesn't do too much there. Other than that, it's a good tool.
We primarily use the solution to ensure coverage of compliance. It's also used for security. It covers my workload, infrastructure, and applications.
It's improved the organization by providing vulnerability assessments. Having those assessment capabilities helps us assess the security vulnerabilities in cloud environments. Automation also helps us identify and remediate security weaknesses.
We have been using the solution to improve out posture management and network security, as well as identity security. This is important for us as these are the main pillars of our enterprise. It's ensuring everything we do remains seamless.
The product provides very good network security.
The support has been very prompt.
It provides security across multi-cloud and hybrid environments. The offering is very comprehensive. I'm able to have a strong security posture and it helps me take care of and protect my workloads. The network security is strong. It gives me complete traceability.
The automation depends on the technological stack, however, it helps with identifying vulnerabilities. If there is a violation happening, I can see it - plus it helps put in preventative measures. It helps me to identify issues in cloud deployments and also gives a prioritized list to help me maintain my operational efficiency. I can scan and assess weaknesses and have continuous monitoring and fixing with automation of remediation. We were able to realize benefits on day one using Prisma since we were able to see results immediately in terms of operational efficiency.
Prisma offers robust security features and seamless integration with AWS. It has complete capabilities, so I don't have to run my automated cloud resources while ensuring a proxy approach to cloud security.
The agent provides us with more security options. We can also easily integrate seamlessly with our CI/CD pipeline. It's simple. It's plug-and-play.
Prisma offers a single tool to protect all of our cloud resources and applications without having to manage and reconcile security and compliance reports. It's complete. We have everything under one single entity while fulfilling our compliance needs.
The solution provides risk clarity at runtime and across the entire pipeline, showing you issues as they are discovered. It can block according to our complex requirements.
With the increased operational efficiency, I am facing less downtime. It's reduced runtime alerts by two to three hours. It's also reduced alert investigation time.
We've been able to save money. We're getting a good return on investment. We're saving about 20 hours of work a week.
It would be ideal if they could somehow reduce the deployment time. It also required a skilled person to implement.
I've been using the solution for three years.
We've had no issues with the stability.
We only use the solution in one location. About 400 people use it right now.
We haven't had any issues with scaling.
Support is prompt. We are pleased with the level of service.
Positive
We did not use a different solution.
It takes a while to deploy. It took us a week to deploy the solution.
Our goal was to ensure the minimum amount of downtime during the process. Two people were involved in the setup process.
Maintenance is required on a monthly basis.
We had a consultant help us with the implementation.
We have witnessed an ROI with work savings of about 20 hours.
I'm not sure of the exact cost of the solution.
We have looked at other options on the market. We did look at Microsoft Defender and Sentinel One. They both lacked the features we needed.
We're Prisma Cloud customers.
I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.
It's a very good product if you look at the market right now. It offers all types of features, including cloud security, workflow protection, etc. It's all bundled together for convenience.
We used a couple of modules, mostly WAFs. We use it for detection.
We use it for our modern infrastructure, mostly run on the cloud. We use it to measure the security of cloud-native infrastructure and to calculate the risk of the applications we use and APIs we interact with. We also use it to meet compliance requirements. We have plenty of use cases for this product.
We really wanted to capture all of the information. To make something in-house would be too much engineering work for us. We don't have to bui;d something from scratch; this allows us to use something that is highly accurate.
We're a fintech company and we deal with a bank. Doing certain tasks manually, like logging every node, server, and container, can take six to nine months. However, if you can automate the process, you achieve the same results in a short time span to help ensure product security.
We were using common CBE for general identities.
I personally used the web application API security, WAF for in-line controls. It helps with implementing an additional layer of security to block the attacks and get alerts on vulnerabilities. I am just focusing on that side.
The support is excellent. They'll call us personally and keep us updated. It's some of the best support I've dealt with.
It's great for protecting the full cloud-native stack. Being a security engineer, I have the visibility of the solution on the infrastructure. The tool is doing a good job of automating this process and making it less time-consuming for me. I don't need to handle as many manual tasks.
There are various cloud configurations that can help you gain insights. If a threat is on the portal, it will give you insight into the cloud infrastructure to help you improve the configuration to make it more secure. In terms of threat detection, you can see different kinds of payloads coming to the API. It helps you consider fixes, like adding more validation.
It is very easy for us to generate reports and download the findings while working with the team to resolve issues.
It's good for build, deploy, and run, however, we still need to figure out how to better integrate it. We're still in the early stages of exploring this for CI/CD.
The solution does provide the visibility and control we need regardless of how complex or distributed your cloud environment becomes. When we were using our core infrastructure previously, we didn't have the visibility, for example, on which APIs we had or were using. Now, there's a better understanding. It's helped us become more confident in our security and compliance posture. If someone comes tomorrow to audit, we can do a fast report and we can pass that over to show to compliance. It would show the risk factors and what we are monitoring. It's the first thing we would go to during an audit, to provide transparency.
The solution provides a single tool to protect all of our cloud resources and applications without having to manage and reconcile disparate security and compliance details. It's mandatory to have a tool like this to run a fintech in India as we need to have an audit trail in order to be able to submit reports. Operationally, it's helping us stay compliant.
We are able to enable alerts. We are using it more manually. We can see alerts on Slack. We can configure alerts as we like.
The UI is good, however, they could improve the experience. The animations on the dashboard could be better. They may already be working on an update to improve this.
We'd like to understand better how to automate between the pipeline and CI/CD. There's a bridge needed between DevOps and security. We need to understand the alerts. There seems to be a gap in DevOps that we need to reconcile.
I've been using the solution for more than six months.
While running the solution, we have no issues at all.
We have Prisma installed on Google Cloud, across multiple accounts and environments. We also have data recovery in another region. I'm not sure if that is covered by Prisma.
It's scalable. It's not difficult. In fact, it's easy. You just need to add agents to the nodes you want.
Technical support is great. There are two teams. One is always available. Another is creating tickets and looking into issues. Both are quite good. They are eager to support the customer.
Positive
We were using another product previously. It was called Lacework. The virtual business aspect was a reason we switched. We also wanted to have more functionality and more insight and control into APIs. The visibility was also better with Prisma.
The deployment was handled by the DevOps team, not the security team, which is the team I am a part of. There was a requirement to install it on every node of the infrastructure. However, my understanding is it did not take too much time. My understanding is that it was easy to install and it was done within 30 minutes to an hour. It was deployed in a very short amount of time. One person was able to deploy it; we didn't need a team.
There may be some maintenance required.
I'm not sure of the licensing terms or the exact pricing.
We did evaluate multiple tools. We knew what we needed the tools to do and we were comparing them all together. We realized that Prisma did a better job and decided to go with them.
I am a customer and end-user.
I'm not sure if the product is useful in a multi-cloud environment. I hope it is. We just have the one cloud environment we use it in. That said, we are using it in multiple staging environments.
We have not enabled the Code Security module. We still need to integrate in that sense with Prisma. We did do the integration with cloud infrastructure.
For any product you choose, it's good to consider security. I'd recommend Prisma as it offers good security.
I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. There isn't really anything missing in the product. However, there's always scope for improvement.
We initially wanted something to protect our infrastructure. We acquired Prisma Cloud, so at least our containers are secure because we already installed agents in the containers. Our infrastructure is being monitored by Prisma Cloud. Then, we started with the WAF (web application firewall) service to enable API discovery and to understand what our APs are doing.
We can protect our APIs in case of a DDoS attack. We are currently working on CI/CD integration so that we can enable Slack CLI in our pipelines. Whenever there is a vulnerability, it will automatically be produced into the Prisma cloud.
The most valuable feature of Prisma Cloud is WAF. AWS also provides web application security, but it is outside the VPC. Since the agent is already installed in the container, we can protect it directly from the application side. We have a UI-based view of the request.
If I want to know how many SQL injection attacks happened in a day, I can just make a filter. Instead of typing, I can select the filter and get the details. It's much faster, and it is very easy to find out attacks and discovery from the user's perspective.
A couple of exporting functionalities should be more user-friendly because if I want to export something, I can get a lot of data visible to that particular CSV. There is no filter for what kind of data I want to export. That is something that I have missed as someone from the management side. When we see any CVE issues, proper information, including the path, should be mentioned.
For example, in the case of vulnerable packages or images, whether a base image is vulnerable or the package under the base image is vulnerable should be mentioned. That visibility is sometimes missing there, although not every time. It took me some time to figure out what kind of issue it was trying to resolve.
For example, one issue was that an image should be run with a non-route user. Only the discussion was there, but how to validate and fix that was not there.
I used Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks for around one month in my previous company. I've been using it for the past four months in my current company.
Prisma Cloud is a stable solution.
It is a scalable solution. We have more than 20 people using Prisma Cloud in our organization.
I rate the solution's one-on-one technical support session a six out of ten. The support team usually provides only a half an hour session, which sometimes is very little for us when the issues are big. However, their support through email is good. The solution's one-on-one support session should be extended by at least half an hour. Since their one-on-one sessions are based on their availability, I don't get instant assistance when I need it.
Neutral
I have previously worked on different tools like PingSafe. PingSafe is only into cloud security posture management, but Prisma Cloud has everything enabled in it. As a cloud security posture management tool, both the tools have their own advantages and disadvantages.
I can compare only one functionality, which is the CSPM module. For the CSPM module, Prisma Cloud's finding is good because it has access inside a containerized agent. PingSafe was more into the basic CIS benchmark things where we were able to identify the issues. PingSafe was also good, but Prisma Cloud has more advantages and configurations enabled.
The solution's initial setup was pretty straightforward. It's a bit complex for a new person, and some guidance will be required. However, the documentation is quite enough to reduce those things. The initial setup is neither too hard nor too easy.
The DevOps team does the solution's deployment. I was not a part of the deployment process. When I discussed it with them, they told me they had some script or documentation. They started that, and the deployment was completed in a day or two.
We are using cloud protection, virtual protection, and the CI/CD modules of Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks.
The comprehensiveness of the solution for protecting the full cloud-native stack is pretty good. We need to monitor those things. We initially did all the configuration from the container or API side. Now, our work is only to monitor periodically. It has a report functionality on a mail and download basis.
Periodically, we'll receive a mail asking us if we want to work on the weekly summary of our findings. There is a rescan functionality that I can use to rescan and confirm if someone has fixed a vulnerability so that it will not be shown in the results the next time. Prisma Cloud provides comprehensiveness that covers most of the areas.
When we didn't have this tool initially, we had to run around for different open-source tools because there was no one-stop solution. We had to go for different open-source tools for different functions. Prisma Cloud is a one-stop solution that covers multiple things like API security, container security, infrastructure security, AWS cloud security, and CI/CD security. So, it's a complete package for us to look around and figure out the issues in every area.
We did not immediately realize the solution's benefits from the time of deployment. It took an initial one month to understand the functionalities and their uses. After one and a half months, we were able to identify the benefits of using these services.
The solution provides the visibility and control we need. Initially, we did some access analysis to know what kind of permissions these particular agents are running. Then, we got to know and understand the agent's particular privileges.
The solution has reduced runtime alerts by around 15 to 20%. As soon as we use any image, we decide to run the scan and get the finding immediately. We have a time window to figure out the issue.
In case of an incident, Prisma Cloud requires some maintenance. If something happens because of the tool, we have to stop those agents, rerun them, and then check the logs. Sometimes, the services are disrupted when we enable something amid permission issues. So, that part definitely requires some maintenance.
I would recommend Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks to other users. Prisma Cloud is a one-stop solution where you get multiple tools within one tool. That is a great thing because you don't have to run around for different kinds of tools.
Overall, I rate Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks an eight out of ten.
We use Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks for architecture and design.
We found Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks very important in solving architecture and design problems within the company, and it improved our company because it showed us different ways of doing things and gave us a better understanding of an architectural entity.
Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks has helped our company progress.
From the time of deployment, it took a few months for our company to realize the benefits of the solution.
Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks is a valuable solution. It is useful as it provides some security on multi and hybrid cloud environments, which is very important to my company.
Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks is also a comprehensive solution that helps protect the full cloud-native stack and helps us secure the entire cloud-native development, which is another reason it is useful for the company.
The solution also has good security automation capabilities and is useful for helping my company take a preventive approach to cloud security.
It provides the visibility and control we need, and it helps a lot in giving us confidence in our security and compliance postures.
Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks also enabled the company to integrate security into our (CI/CD) pipeline.
We also found how seamless Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks touchpoints are to our DevOps processes, and we find them very helpful.
The solution even serves as a single tool to protect my company's cloud resources. It does not affect our operations.
Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks provides risk clarity at the runtime and across the entire pipeline. It shows us the issues, and the developers can correct them without affecting our operations.
The solution also helped in reducing runtime alerts very quickly. It also reduced our alert investigation time because it's all automated.
We had some teething issues with Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks, but overall, it did what we expected. It has some areas for improvement, but I cannot remember exactly off the top of my head.
I've worked with Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks for four years.
I found Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks stable. I'm impressed by its stability. I cannot recall any downtime with the solution. I rate it as eight out of ten, stability-wise.
I found Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks scalable, and it's an eight out of ten for me, scalability-wise.
The technical support for Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks was very good. I would rate its technical support eight out of ten.
Positive
Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks is what my company has. It's the solution my company wants to use.
I was involved in the deployment of Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks, and I found its initial setup straightforward. It took a few months to deploy the solution.
Our team deployed the solution.
Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks has helped the company save some money. Cost-wise, it's okay.
I advise others who may want to implement Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks to check it in a test environment first to ensure it does what they expect.
My rating for Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks, overall, is eight out of ten.
I do not personally use it in my organization. I am a consultant, and I support my clients. I understand the environment, and based on that, I suggest they implement Prisma Cloud. My job is to do a technical evaluation of the product and recommend it to my clients. I give my recommendation to the client as an advisor. I tell them about the features and capabilities of Prisma Cloud and how they can utilize it. I also do a price or cost-effectiveness comparison of different products, but in the end, my clients decide whether they want to choose the technology over the cost or vice versa.
There have been multiple use cases of Prisma Cloud. The use cases vary based on a client's requirements. It is not necessary to implement all the features and capabilities of Prisma Cloud, but generally, it is for continuous compliance monitoring. The Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) feature identifies vulnerabilities within your IT organization or ITOps environment. The main part is to ensure compliance with industry standards such as GDPR and CIS Benchmarks.
Vulnerability scanning has been a major problem for clients. Nowadays, clients do not have just one cloud. They are not using just AWS or Azure. They have multiple clouds. For example, the primary site is on Oracle, the disaster recovery site is sitting on AWS, and some of their applications are on Azure, so there are three hybrid cloud environments. We try to identify the best solution that can seamlessly integrate with all three cloud providers. Our clients want a centralized Cloud Security Posture Management solution for monitoring vulnerabilities and threats. This is one of the major use cases for which we recommend the Prisma Cloud CSPM solution to our clients.
Prisma Cloud can seamlessly integrate with all clouds. When you go into a cloud, there are multiple landscapes. Some are Windows machines, and some are Linux machines. There are different APIs, different databases, and different types of environments with microservices, Kubernetes, etc. Prisma Cloud has the capability to integrate with all these. That is the beauty. This seamless integration is very critical in every product.
There are multiple CSPM products in the market. The key feature of Prisma Cloud is seamless integration. They have thousands of in-built APIs. You do not need to do much customization. It can seamlessly integrate with multiple clouds. It can integrate seamlessly with Azure, AWS, Oracle, Alibaba Cloud, etc. This is the main feature and the key selling point of Prisma Cloud. For example, today, the client is using only Azure Cloud, but tomorrow, the requirement might come for AWS or Oracle Cloud. It does not mean that they are going to buy a new product for CSPM. That is the beauty of Prisma Cloud, and this is where Prisma Cloud scores. It integrates seamlessly. It does not mean that other products cannot integrate. They can integrate, but they might not seamlessly integrate, or they might integrate only with AWS and Azure but not with Oracle or Alibaba Cloud. All of my client base is in the GCC region. I have clients in UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, and Oman. Oman has Google Cloud. Saudi Arabia has Alibaba Cloud and Oracle Cloud. UAE has AWS Cloud and Azure Cloud. In Saudi Arabia, there are even private clouds. Prisma Cloud can even integrate with your private cloud. You can integrate your on-premise cloud.
Prisma Cloud can protect the full cloud-native stack. It is great, and it can solve your needs from a security point of view. The whole purpose of Prisma Cloud is to scan vulnerabilities.
Prisma Cloud's security automation capabilities are good. For example, you can define a policy for virtual machines. The policy hits an API and scans all your virtual machines. It can identify a virtual machine that is not supposed to have access to the Internet, but its ports are open. If you have set the rules, it can also remove the access of the port or the VM to access the Internet. This capability is definitely there, but it is based on the defined rules and policies and how you do the configuration.
Prisma Cloud provides good visibility. The dashboard or UI is user-friendly. You get a holistic view of your entire infrastructure.
Prisma Cloud integrates security into our CI/CD pipeline at the resource, component, and infrastructure levels, but at the application level, it is limited. For application-level security, you need to do something else. You need to have an additional capability or additional security solution.
It provides a single tool to protect all of our cloud resources and applications, without having to manage and reconcile disparate security and compliance reports.
It provides risk clarity at runtime and across the entire pipeline, showing issues as they are discovered during the build phases. It discovers issues at the scanning level. It also has the capability to rescan. For example, if you have discovered an issue or vulnerability, after resolving it, you can rescan the same resource to identify whether it has been mitigated or not.
Prisma Cloud has reduced runtime alerts by 60% to 70%. It has also reduced alert investigation time by 60% to 70%. With these time savings, you also save money. By preventing any vulnerabilities or threats, you also save your organization's reputation.
It has a feature for customized security policy. I implement it in banking, health insurance, and other sectors, and every organization has its own customized policies and procedures. In Prisma Cloud, you can customize policies, and based on that, you can do monitoring.
It has multiple capabilities, such as threat detection and remediation. You can even orchestrate. For example, you can set a rule that a specific set of users need to have XYZ access. If any user is identified as having an additional level of privilege, which he or she is not supposed to have, Prisma Cloud can scan and identify it. If you have set the policy, it can also do mitigation. It can remove the access accordingly.
One major observation is that it is not possible to implement Prisma Cloud on-premises. This is the limitation. Prisma Cloud itself is on a cloud. It is sitting on AWS and Google Cloud. It is a SaaS solution, but some of my clients have a local regulatory requirement, and they want to install it locally on their premises. That capability is not there, but government entities and ministries want to have Prisma Cloud installed locally.
It is stable. It is a leading product.
It is a SaaS-based application, so we need not to worry about scalability. It is their responsibility. They have to ensure its scalability and high availability.
From what I know, their support is good enough. They meet the SLAs. They have been good so far. That could be because they are new in the GCC market, and someone from Europe or the UK might have different feedback.
I did not use any similar solution previously.
We provide consultancy. We do the implementation but with the support of the vendor. It is not just about buying the product. It is about how you design and configure it. We ensure that the implementation is done as per the defined design.
The key point for a successful product implementation is how you configure it and what is your use case. Every client has different requirements and different use cases. It depends on how you drive it. You need to define the use cases, the policies, and the procedures, and you need to ensure they are aligned with your business objective. You may have the best product in the world, but if you do not know how to configure it based on your use cases and your environment, it will not work for you. You will have vulnerabilities in your environment even after you have invested millions.
The vendor takes care of the implementation, and we validate and guide them with the implementation.
In terms of maintenance, it is not a set-it-and-forget-it solution. It is based on your IT environment. Generally, small organizations do not use a CSPM solution. It is used by mid to large organizations. In such organizations, there are multiple changes in the IT resources. The environment is agile. Every day you add something or change something, and you need to ensure that it is integrated with Prisma Cloud. It is an ongoing operational activity.
We evaluated multiple products. Zscaler was one of them.
My clients are quite happy with this solution. Some of my clients are also based in the UK and Europe. So far, it has been good. It met their expectations. Their use cases are met, and they are able to monitor all their infrastructure. It has been good so far, and it worked for all the generic or standard use cases. That does not mean that it is going to solve all the use cases for all customers. If you want to go for a CSPM solution, you need to do a technical evaluation.
If you are looking into implementing a CSPM solution, I would advise first understanding your existing cloud landscape or your on-premise landscape. Understand your local regulatory requirements and local laws. After that, define the use cases. Define what exactly you are looking for and then go to market and evaluate different products. You can check whether there is an integration with AWS, Oracle, Alibaba, or any other cloud. If your regulatory requirements are that you cannot host your solution outside your country or you need to have it on-premises in your data center, not someone else's data center, you have to choose accordingly. You cannot go for Prisma Cloud. If you do not have any such regulatory requirements, you can go with Prisma Cloud or any other solution.
You should also understand your future landscape in terms of:
You need to consider multiple parameters. It is also about money. It should also meet your financial budget.
Overall, I would rate Prisma Cloud a seven out of ten.