Palo Alto Networks Prisma Access is the Gorilla in the Room
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
Pros
- GlobalProtect VPN works amazing. I can set a single policy set in my MU policies that apply to all of my end-users no matter where their home office or location is. I have offices in America, UK and Asia.
- The Remote Networks policies were amazing to have a single policy set for all of my 11 offices instead of having to manage an on-oprem firewall in each office and having to make sure all changes are the same across all 11 firewalls (minus the passive HA devices).
- ADEM allowed us to get proactive information about a GP client's networking/internet position to see if there was going to be a problem with them working based on the last mile and local internet routing information.
Cons
- We were an early adopter (Q4 2019) so there was some growing pains with the CloudGenix acquisition and Palo rebranding it and shoe-horning it into the Palo Alto Networks Prisma Access ecosystem
- Support was a huge problem recently. If you had an SDWAN (remote networks) you had to get transitioned to a different team. If you had aPalo Alto Networks Prisma Access problem with ADEM or Mobile Users, you got transitioned to a different team. If you had no idea if the problem was SDWAN related or GP related, then it got bounced around
Return on Investment
- Palo has increased their pricing and subscriptions lately and is causing us to revisit out position. We have been on Palo for 10 years with on-prem and 5 with Palo Alto Networks Prisma Access so we have a lot of in-house knowledge on how to use and administer Palo Alto Networks Prisma Access but the costs are making use do a cost benefit analysis against some of the other players in the magic quadrant. Especially if we can save costs.
- Positive note is that when I do client audits (about 70 a year), once I tell them we are on Palo Alto Networks Prisma Access, they immediately check the box for meeting compliance with their requirements.
- Another negative though is the many recent issues having to update certificates or zero-day vulnerability security updates. When you do this, it causes downtime. We're on 3 continents and run 24x7 so any downtime is difficult to navigate.
