FireMon vs. ManageEngine Firewall Analyzer

FireMon is best used in a large environment (for example, I have >100
firewalls in my environment). It's best used when trying to improve
security posture and showing changes in firewall security over time. It
might not be the best choice for smaller environments or those that aren't concerned about security management.

Incentivized

We rely on the application to monitor the bandwidth to know user behavior. It makes the process of keeping your system and information safe super simple and streamlined. It supports multiple firewalls that include Check Point, Cisco, Cyberoam, Fortinet, Sense, Juniper, Huawei, Sophos, and WatchGuard. It helps us to gain insight into security threats and traffic.

Incentivized

• PCI Reporting - After identifying which firewalls and rulesets are in scope, producing a report artifact to satisfy PCI requirements on Firewall reviews is literally a two-click operation.
• Storing Rule Metadata - FireMon stores metadata (prefilled fields, standard fields, and custom fields) for each rule in each policy which is valuable for context during firewall reviews in particular
• API - FireMon exposes most if not all of its functionality via REST API

Incentivized

• Allowed upper management to track VPN usage when employees were not on site and working.
• Gave me real time monitoring of internet usage
• alerted me to potential problems
• Allowed me to track web usage real time

• Some features could be added to the existing functionality which include NAT rules usage
• Rule expiration normalization from firewalls rather than entering them in rule documentation
• .csv exports of the files from the firewall pane only gives usage for 30 days by default and that should be increased

Incentivized

• UI can be improved, not very intuitive.
• Search features can be improved too, I needed to export an excel file to perform an advanced search.
• Automatic direct updates would be great.

Once all the customization has been completed, the business is starting to see the return on investment. The visibility it provides into the network gear that is owned by other IT groups is immeasurable and has allowed us to apply standards across the board. The only thing I have concern with is their support documentation.

Incentivized

It save me time and I'm able to have the review - review the rule independently with using my time.

Incentivized

It is fast to
download the test software and implement. It takes some sometime to understand the
ways you have to on board your firewalls into it. It is nice to buy and just
activate the product that you have already installed. Maybe some wizards could
be improved in order to accelerate these tasks.

FireMon has been relatively stable overall. However, there have been a handful of times where we had issues with the console. For example, we couldn't update which devices to include in a security assessment. The initial suggestion from support was to just reboot it. It seems like there weren't many other options available such as to restart services before going to the extreme of a complete reboot.

Incentivized

I'm not sure we have the largest implementation of FireMon out there but we do have a few 1000 devices being probed by FireMon. Overall, the system's performance has been rock solid. The console refreshes quickly and reports are generated within an expected timeframe.

Incentivized

FireMon technical support is awesome! They respond quickly to our requests and they are well trained and very knowledgeable about the tool. Some issues have to be referred to the development team, but technical support largely provides solutions for any issues that we may have.

Incentivized

Implementation is fairly simple. Most issues can be resolved by referencing manuals.

Incentivized

I has worked with AlgoSec and while they are very similar product, I find the FireMon is easier to understand and get rolling with. While both require some learning, FireMon is by far the easier one. Once you have an understanding of how things are arranged and labeled you can easily import firewalls and begin to work on them to improve them

Incentivized

You’ll be able to discover new devices as well as manage via a single interface. For a network person that may be less experienced with tech setups, this is a handy feature to have. This can be a great option for protection, particularly if you already have other elements of the UniFi system installed.

Incentivized

Firemon Is easily scalable and maintainable with any size team. Although it requires some tech debt, it is well worth the time to invest to ensure compliance is visible and reports are accurate. Although our environment is very large we do not fully utilize the scalability of the Firemon product.

Incentivized

• It helps us save us time in determining what change was made and by whom.
• Real time alerting is a great convenience in helping us know if something went wrong, we can immediately review the last report to determine what has changed.
• Allows us to determine what rules are not used and if said rules are still required.

Incentivized

• Firewall Analyzer has definitely freed up a lot of IT's time, by congregating logs and displaying them in a more useful, visual way.
• The cost for licenses and proactive alerting, compared to the man-hours spent reactively through data, paid for itself in a few months.
• There was no negative impact to users, and only some to IT staff who had to train on the software, which mostly consisted of videos and playing around with the software.

Incentivized