Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) software is the core OS for the ASA suite. It provides firewall functionality, as well as integration with context-specific Cisco security modules. It is scaled for enterprise-level traffic and connections.
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Zscaler Internet Access
Score 8.8 out of 10
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Zscaler Internet Access™ (ZIA) is a secure web gateway (SWG), delivering cloud native cyberthreat protection and zero trust access to the internet and SaaS apps.
We moved our operations entirely to the cloud a few years ago. We loved the stability and scalability of the ASA and wanted to, somehow, keep using it. We discovered that ASA was available in the cloud as well and it was branded ASAv. We tested it and noticed that it was equally robust and a perfect fit for us. During the entire migration period, we used ASAv for cloud operations and put a lot of load on it. ASAv performed very well and gave us an easy transition from on-prem to the cloud.
Zscaler Internet Access has extremely powerful category selection and it is very easy to create your own destinations for inspection and policy exceptions (SSL exception specifically). It is also very affordable and just as powerful (if not more) than some of the other solutions I have used in the past to achieve internet security.
The depth that Cloud App control policies can go into. Being able to control individual actions within an application, more than just all or nothing access.
The UX/UI design makes it really easy to navigate the portal.
Understanding how cloud app/url control policy gets evaluated and creating/editing existing policy is extremely straightforward.
The Java based ASDM can botch commands and isn't compatible on some more locked down systems.
Monitoring. Really the same complaint as above, the monitoring available through the ASDM is crappy at best. A much better solution is to send the logs and mirror packets to a SEIM, but that can create issues of its own when looking for realtime analysis.
Compatibility across other ASA models. ASA 5520s don't play well with 5525X which don't play well with older 5510s. Each is great on it's own, but it's next to impossible to logically stack them or have them as layers of firewalls in an infrastructure.
Lack of cloud based management. The Cisco Meraki security devices do this well, but the ASAs are still behind in this regard.
To be honest there has been now great products out in the market compared to Cisco ASA. I beleieve Cisco has to do a lot of improvement in this area. The other defeiniete factors is the cost when it comes to renewals which is always a premium on Cisco products
While Zscaler Internet Access (ZIA) delivers critical value in cloud security and RBI compliance, I rate renewal likelihood 7/10 due to evolving needs versus platform limitations. Below is my rationale:
The application is easy to install and configure on all Windows devices. To troubleshoot any internet issue, we can easily collect all the relevant logs from Zscaler and check the exact issue. The only problem is with the uninstall, as a dedicated crew needs to provide the password.
I generally have not noticed the outages, however since it's a machine it can malfunction, we need to implement the firewall infrastructure in such a way that it is highly available with device failure, region failure etc. Else any solution will be having the issues if they are not build with resiliency.
The support is usually very good and gets back to you very quickly. However I had some instances of when two engineers will give me wildly different answers to what I thought was a simple question. Overall however I do rate the support highly and they are generally always very good.
Zscaler's ZIA support is quick and knowledgable. They respond within 1-2 hours of you submitting your ticket. They are very thorough and are typically ready to jump on a live troubleshooting session. Our ZIA platform and how we use is it unique so at times tickets can be open for weeks but we alway get quality support compared to other unrelated product support in our enterprise
It was quite a good one, how ever requires an expertise to deploy hence the SMB segment would be finding it difficult to implement this product. The one good reason is that there are lot of ASA certified engineers in compared to the other certified engineers. Hence this resembles positively on the deployment as you have quite a lot of experienced engineer on your deployment
Cisco has made it easy to buy, set up, and manage all of our firewalls with the central FirePower Management Center. All licensing is done via one license portal too. Tech support is standardized for all ASA devices and like support engineers who know the different models to provide timely help for any issues. Cisco Talos is a premier could platform which scours the internet looking for threats and develops protections for the ASA's and as such provides zero second coverage when it best can detect global issues.
Zscaler Internet Access is most akin to ZPA - we bought both at the same time to handle all traffic internally and externally. In terms of quality - I would make the statement that Zscaler Internet Access is a simpler product but that's also cause there are no App Connectors involved in that process.
The 5510 is still being used in one of our setups, and still doing its job this is a lot of Return on Investment.
We have managed to turn around projects quickly because most of our engineers understand this firewall very well. We deploy them in a matter of minutes[.]
Has allowed us to remove other products that were suboptimal
Saved us money overall by stacking it with other Zscaler products
Created a more secure work environment for our users through intelligent internet policies that are not needlessly restrictive while still maintaining security best practices
