We use Palo Alto Networks VM-Series to offer services to our customers as a managed security service provider. We provide solutions and services to our customers across the globe. For example, if I want to host a firewall in the cloud or somewhere where the physical appliance is not a possibility, we provide that image of the firewall on virtual machines.

It helps in offering advanced protection against malware and anti-spyware, which is based on customer feedback stating the product has very good threat prevention capabilities.

Very good reliability and feature set, such as advanced protection against malware, anti-spyware, and Wildfire. It also has good VPN capabilities and integration capabilities.

The scalability could be improved further. The virtual instances of the firewall are not as scalable as their hardware firewalls.

We have been using Palo Alto Networks VM-Series firewalls for over five years.

I find the solution to be a good, stable product.

The virtual instances are not as scalable as the hardware firewalls.

A separate team handles implementation. I am mostly involved in the designing aspect of the product.

It is hard to get into the ROI aspect. Generally, ROI can be determined by comparing a physical appliance-based firewall versus a virtual instance of a firewall.

Pricing can be an issue when competing with products like Fortinet, which often offer similar functionality at a lower cost.

There are many competitors like Fortinet offering similar functionality.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

All the PwC offices in Pakistan use Palo Alto in their environment. It is a global solution.

Palo Alto is a good product. The features are up to the mark. No other product can compete with Palo Alto’s features. The filtering feature is good. We can block the traffic and examine the report easily. The blocking functionality works very well compared to other firewalls. I rate the ability of the tool to keep up with the trends in firewalls an eight out of ten.

The product must create some awareness in Pakistan. People are less aware of Palo Alto. Everyone knows about Fortinet and Cisco. Very few vendors are promoting the tool.

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

The stability is fine. I rate the stability a seven out of ten.

I rate the product’s scalability an eight out of ten. We have 2500 users. We use the tool daily. All our traffic passes through it.

I rate the ease of setup a seven out of ten. The setup is moderately easy. The product is deployed on the cloud. The deployment takes two to three days since it has global rules.

The tool was deployed in-house.

We have seen an ROI of 60% to 70%.

Companies in Pakistan have limited budgets. Palo Alto is more expensive than other products. So, people are reluctant to put Palo Alto in their environment. It's too costly compared to other tools. I rate the pricing a nine out of ten.

We had deployed the solution in 2018. We used a different product before, but my organization switched to Palo Alto. It was the management’s decision. Overall, I rate the tool an eight out of ten.

Our company sometimes uses a data center edge firewall from Cisco, Fortinet, Forcepoint, or any other vendor, and the solution is used to cover apps and data. 

The threat prevention and WildFire features are the most valuable features. DNS is another good feature of the product. 

The flexible throughput in Palo Alto Networks VM-Series can be improved. The customers of our organization demand 500 meg throughput and the payment also depends on it. The basic firewall from Palo Alto has the size of one gig, and it isn't logical for a customer to buy for one gig when just 500 meg is required. Palo Alto Networks VM-Series should become a more flexible firewall. 

VM management in an environment is difficult with Palo Alto Networks VM-Series, but it can be smoothly managed through Panorama. The vendor can work on enhancing and processing that will not affect the server itself or the VM firewall protection. In our company, we have multiple VMs implemented on the same server, and the Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is used to protect these VMs completely. The tools being used should not affect the operations between VMs. 

I have been using Palo Alto Networks VM-Series for almost four years. 

I would rate the stability of the product a nine out of ten. I am facing multiple stability issues with other competitor tools in our company. 

I would rate the scalability a seven out of ten. I would've rated Palo Alto Networks VM-Series more if the flexible throughput was better. I would rate the scalability of other competitor tools a four out of ten. Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is suitable for businesses of every size or scale. 

The vendor provides two support modules: backline and premium support. If you need to open a case directly with Palo Alto to solve a problem, you must purchase premium support.

Premium support is highly expensive—almost five times the cost of availing backline support. Local distributors of the product manage the backline support and have extended response time, and the team might not have mature knowledge to solve issues. 

The solution's initial setup process is very easy. A hybrid deployment model is available for Palo Alto Networks VM-Series. Panorama can manage the solution's VM, physical, and cloud versions, making it an impressive monitoring tool. 

A more mature and enhanced tool can be used in integration to migrate from other competitor solutions to Palo Alto Networks VM-Series. For instance, if a customer has a legacy firewall from Cisco or Fortinet and there is a need to migrate to Palo Alto, I will require a mature migration tool that will make the process easier for engineers to migrate the rules, policies, and application IDs.  

The licensing model should be improved. Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is the most expensive tool among competitors. 

Palo Alto Networks VM-Series and the competitor products provide multiple series of bandwidth, features, implementation models and capable management tools. But Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is the most stable compared to all other competitor tools. The signature or behavior of the database is more mature in Palo Alto Networks VM-Series than others. 

Palo Alto Networks VM-Series allows you to analyze the behavior of any traffic or probable attack. 

The solution easily integrates with the client's cloud security architecture. If in our company, we get a customer who's depending on the container, then security is required for the container from OpenShift or any other vendor, I use Prisma to secure the environment instead of traditional firewalls. 

The solution's sizing and architecture are highly expensive. It's an effective and stable firewall that detects all attacks. Palo Alto Networks VM-Series can adapt quickly to an organization's changing security or policy needs. Overall, I would rate the product an eight out of ten. I will definitely recommend Palo Alto Networks VM-Series to other users. 

The most effective features for threat prevention are application-based prevention and WildFire. These features cover various threats, such as ransomware, malware, etc. They provide real-time visibility. By applying appropriate policies, threats can be blocked.

The solution needs to improve its visibility. It's not straightforward to use. Understanding the policies, authorizations, and initializing features requires careful review. The product needs to offer proper training. 

I have been working with the product for three to four months. 

I rate Palo Alto Networks VM-Series' stability as ten out of ten. 

The main issue with the tool's support is the delayed response time, ranging from one to two hours. This delay can impact customers who are waiting for support. Additionally, partners may become busy. 

Positive

The tool's improvement in cloud security posture depends on the features used and the licenses purchased. Different suites are available, such as Professional, Core, and Enterprise, each offering various features for endpoint.

Competitors such as Fortinet and Check Point also offer similar features, but I don't know much about their offerings. However, Palo Alto Network VM-Series stands out with its application deployment capability, iOS zone protection, and features like application ID, user ID, and device ID identification. These features enable policy application and on-premises protection, which may not be available in competing solutions.

I rate the overall product a nine out of ten. 

I've mainly worked with the VM-Series, and a few features have been really effective for threat prevention in our networks, like McAfee training, Accountant ID, and apps ID. These features integrate well with our existing environments and tools, such as Panorama. 

 The VM-Series scalability is fast and easy to implement, improving our security posture as our Azure network grows. The only minor issue we've faced is with the apps ID configuration, which requires specific matching for application filtering. Tools like Loopback help us identify open or denied flows between two firewalls and manage the servers effectively. The Palo Alto system easily identifies rules and objects within roles, making maintenance straightforward.

No other major concerns, just the specific issue with Apps ID configuration. Otherwise, overall stability, VPN, IPSec, VRF, and flow management with the VM-Series have been very stable and reliable.

I have been using Palo Alto Networks VM-Series for 2 years.

I've had a positive experience with Palo Alto's support. They usually respond within a few hours, which is satisfactory

Positive

In my experience, Palo Alto and Fortinet offer similar quality and high-level security compared to other vendors like Cisco and Forcepoint. They stand out in terms of reliability and security features. Other vendors may not match their level of performance and security.

It is easy to maintain because we have various tools to manage and monitor the system. 

The pricing for Palo Alto is quite high compared to FortiGate, which is more affordable. I don't have the exact figures as my manager handles that, but from my research, Palo Alto's licensing costs are significantly higher.

I would rate Palo Alto Networks VM-Series as an eight overall. My recommendation for others considering this tool would be to ensure they have the budget for it, as it can be expensive compared to alternatives like FortiGate. Also, they should be prepared to understand and document their application metrics thoroughly to implement the firewall correctly. 

I use the solution in my company to block threats, detect vulnerabilities, and protect the organization's internal network.

The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that its UI is good since it offers options. In terms of being compliant with the firewall security standards, the product falls in the first or second place. The product can also be considered as NGFW. In general, the product is user-friendly.

The reporting part of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required. Compared to Palo Alto Networks VM-Series's reports, FortiGate NGFW provides users with reports that are easy to understand.

I have been using Palo Alto Networks VM-Series for three to four years.

The product's stability is good. Considering the cloud availability, I can say that the product is 99.99 percent stable. The firewall functions properly on the cloud, and there has been no downtime in the last couple of years. Unless the cloud services from Microsoft Azure go down, the firewall works properly.

My company has 1,000 users of the product, but not all of them are connected to the product all the time since my company has three different fire products running in the cloud. I would say there are around 600 Palo Alto Networks VM-Series users.

The technical support for the solution is very good.

The product's deployment phase is not complex. The tool is easy to deploy.

The solution is deployed on the cloud.

There is a need to make payments toward a yearly subscription-based model in which you need to add modules that you want to use in your company.

I can't elaborate on how the product was deployed in our company's existing infrastructure since the product was not deployed by our company, as the vendor handled it. The product can be deployed on the cloud platform you want to use. If you are using Azure's cloud services, then we select VM-Series, take care of the configurations, and upload the required details to get the product.

In terms of the product's ability to improve our company's network security posture, I see that the tool keeps our systems protected since all the network traffic is routed through the tool. The tool provides protection against any malicious traffic that attempts to get into the company network as such networks get blocked and quarantined by the firewall. Been blocked on the firewall network. Malicious components in the network don't enter our company's internal network, so the users are protecting the systems attached to the internal traffic.

My company has not integrated the product with any third-party software.

Speaking about the benefits of dynamic scalability, I would say that my company has not used the product's scalability features. I don't think there is anything wrong with the tool's scalability functionalities.

The tool is good for enterprise-level organizations because it has many options for users in its office. The product also comes with a lot of add-ons. If you can leverage the benefits of everything the product offers, then it can be useful. It is easy if you want to integrate the tool or connect it with other applications or third-party software, and you can do cloud monitoring and SIEM. The tool also works with XDR products. In general, the tool has its pros and is good software.

I have not encountered any issues with policy management in the product.

The product helps find vulnerabilities in the system, especially opened ports and unwanted ports that are open. If there are any issues, you can explore your system further with Nmap and with the help of a given IP address.

I rate the tool an eight out of ten.

The most valuable feature of the solution is the zero-trust security architecture.

The solution's licensing could be improved, and training should be included before installation.

I have been using Palo Alto Networks VM-Series for four years.

There are always glitches in every product, but the solution is reliable overall.

I rate the solution a nine out of ten for stability.

I haven’t faced any issues with the solution’s scalability. Our clients for the solution are large corporate or global customers.

The solution’s technical support is very good.

Positive

The solution's initial setup is easy if you have training and know what to do. The solution's deployment time depends a lot on the customer's requirements. It takes around half an hour to install the solution.

The smaller firewalls, like the PA-400 Series, are very good priced. Some of the challenges come with licensing and support on the larger boxes. Sometimes, it's cheaper to buy a new firewall with licensing instead of renewing the licenses of an old firewall.

Suppose you have a PA-3000 Series firewall. By the time of its renewal, Palo Alto will come up with the PA-1400 Series with better performance than the old PA-3000 Series. If the customer had one of the older ones, it would be cheaper for them to buy a new firewall on a lower tier and then get the licenses.

The solution is deployed both on-premises and on the cloud. Palo Alto Networks VM-Series helps in securing our public cloud infrastructure. It is easy to integrate Palo Alto Networks VM-Series with other solutions. We have integrated the solution with Aruba ClearPass Policy Manager. It is easy to maintain the solution.

It is very important for users to get the solution implemented properly in the customer's network.

Overall, I rate the solution ten out of ten.

We primarily use the solution for cloud firewalling, SASE, ZTNA, and CASB compared to the hardware-based NGFW or cloud firewalls.

The product is easy to use and deploy, and it enhances the overall security posture while deploying the application in the cloud. The most effective features of the solution for threat prevention are Layer 7 inspection, SSL decryption, IPS, and the web filtering profile. You can use the solution to easily protect your data from cyber criminals, including insider or outside-based attacks.

The solution is easy to deploy, easy to manage, and easy to create policies. An organization's overall security posture can be improved by deploying Palo Alto Networks VM-Series firewall.

The DLP functionality or data classification can be improved in the solution's basic firewalling.

I have been using Palo Alto Networks VM-Series for two to three years.

Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is a stable solution.

I rate the solution a nine out of ten for stability.

Compared to Checkpoint Maestro Firewall, the solution's scalability is not up to the mark. We'll need to upgrade the firewall for any tech refresh, throughput requirement, or hardware-based incremental. We have more than 100 customers for Palo Alto Networks VM-Series.

The solution’s technical support is great.

The solution’s initial setup is straightforward.

The solution's deployment time depends on the business application or business requirement. Based on that, the solution is easy to deploy and use.

Based on the customer budget, they can choose from 12-month, 36-month, or 60-month licensing models. The solution is quite expensive compared to Fortinet, Check Point, or Cisco. Customers can go for the solution's premium version, which I wouldn't say is expensive because it secures important data.

We cannot say that we have achieved 100% security by deploying the solution, but we have added one more security layer to protect us from security threats or attackers. For deployment, we have more than 400 engineers handling our SOC, including the MSS part, the security of business center implementation, and manageability.

Deploying the solution does not provide a 100% data safeguard, but it adds another security layer. The solution provides single-pass parallel processing (SP3) architecture, which is more effective than other firewall vendors. From the hardware and architecture perspective, the solution is good compared to Check Point or Fortinet firewalls.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.