We have cloud security posture management and CWPP. We are also using Cortex, another Palo Alto product. We needed another cloud security tool to create an additional security layer on our CSPM solution. It's essential to secure our infrastructure against any zero-day attacks.
Prisma Cloud (Annual Contract)
Palo Alto NetworksExternal reviews
External reviews are not included in the AWS star rating for the product.
It can provide solid visibility even if your cloud infrastructure is complex
What is our primary use case?
How has it helped my organization?
We needed a cloud security tool to identify misconfigurations in our cloud infrastructure. We were using AWS Cloud Cover since we only had one cloud provider. We onboarded the SysTrack and were able to find the most configurations. In a short period of time, we detected the issues and got alerts.
Before we implemented Prisma Cloud, we were unable to detect misconfigurations based on the policies that we set up. Prisma has that capability. You can add custom policies, and the tool can handle the reconfiguration.
You can also get feedback from the customer's side about custom policies that can be added on Prisma. We can see the custom policies contributed by other organizations, which has upskilled my knowledge. The primary benefit is the layer of security added to our other infrastructure.
We started seeing the benefits immediately once the solution was fully deployed. After about a month, we could start digesting data into the tool. Then, we started enabling all the features that we secured for other organizations. After around two months, we could use the features and see the things we were unable to detect. We were able to set up remediation on the tool. Other teams like the developers and tech ops were able to get the details over Jira since it was integrated with SysTrack.
Our development lifecycle was already prebuilt, and Prisma has absorbed it. There's nothing that Prisma doesn't cover or that isn't reported to the organization. The developers are able to see best practices for any type of resource. They secured training from the product team, and Palo Alto's developers attended it. They shared their knowledge base so we could make the right decisions about resources before making any changes to the AWS cloud.
Prisma can provide solid visibility even if your cloud infrastructure is complex. It can divide the infrastructure into different parts to give you visibility into vulnerability management, configurations, or workload protection. It doesn't matter how complex your cloud infrastructure is. Prisma can digest it and provide the right guidance.
Prisma was able to quickly integrate and onboard our account. As a fintech company, we need a cloud security tool with modules that can benefit the organization. It has a feature that gives you recurring reports for a specified period.
The solution is handy for the team that handles the Jira tickets because it enables them to automate the tickets. We had to add them manually in the past, so Prisma has absorbed a significant chunk of their workload. It helps us to discover risks throughout the pipeline using the CWPP features. You can quickly identify a misconfiguration and resolve it. In addition to the features it adds, Prisma has helped us to solve tickets faster.
It creates an alert in under a minute. The software team receives this and notifies the owner of the resource within five minutes and resolves the issue according to the SLA. It helps us resolve zero-day cases. It would cost us a lot of money. Prisma helps us to resolve those issues promptly.
What is most valuable?
I like Prisma's ability to integrate with other tools. We can integrate it with Jira so that when Prisma triggers an alert, it opens a ticket in Jira. That was a big selling point for the product. There's a feature called the guest custom template that allows you to trigger alerts in Jira based on the template. That can also be added as a feature on Jira.
Prisma can work with multiple cloud types and hybrid environments. We use AWS, but Prisma also offers hybrid or multi-cloud features. You can onboard AWS, Azure, GCP, or any other cloud provider. You can do more with Prisma than basic cloud scanning. It can detect and handle misconfiguration on the local network or the cloud.
The solution can control access and automate some tasks. For example, if any automation needs to be built on any of the API calls, we can have a consolidated page for any processes that need to use the API. You can use the APA. Once you establish console access, you can build automation and integrate it with Prisma.
The CSPM module has so many features for developing a preventative approach that you don't need to look to any others, but the IAC security module lets you store infrastructure as code securely. You can scan an IAC template from a tool like Terraform and compare it with the CSPM modules.
I have one example of a threat that Prisma proactively prevented. In 2021, Prisma discovered and resolved a Log4J vulnerability shortly after it was introduced.
What needs improvement?
It would be nice if Prisma Cloud merged its modules for CSPM and infrastructure as code. It would simplify the pricing and make it easier for customers to evaluate the solution because there are different modules, and you need to add it to your subscription separately.
Overall, Prisma is continuously improving. They do feature requests by allowing the users to vote on things. If a recommendation receives enough votes, they will add it to the solution.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have used Prisma Cloud for two-and-a-half years
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Prisma Cloud is stable. I've never experienced any downtime aside from the scheduled maintenance window.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Prisma Cloud is scalable. You can add a hundred master accounts more than on the SysTrack Lab.
How are customer service and support?
I rate Palo Alto support nine out of 10. Their product team has been helpful. I just had a conversation with them. They answer all my questions even if it's after hours. When you send them a message, you get a response in a minute or two.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We had previously used PingSafe. I feel like switching to Prisma was the right decision. PingSafe lacked multiple features that Prisma has. After we did our PoC with Prisma, we found that these features added value to our cloud infrastructure security. Once we switched, we noticed an improvement at the management level. We also reduced the number of data tickets that we needed to manually create.
How was the initial setup?
In the first phase, we did a PoC, and the initial deployment took around a month. We worked with Palo Alto's customer success and technical teams. We worked closely with them in the first year, but after that, our deployment was highly mature, so we didn't need to bug them so much. All of the implementation steps were provided by email. Two members of our team were involved.
Prisma is a cloud-based solution, so it requires no maintenance on our side once it's deployed. Maintenance is handled during a scheduled window, and they send us advance notification the day before.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Prisma costs a little more than our previous solution, but it has more features. Our previous solution lacked the features we expect from a CSPM tool.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We didn't look at anything else once we learned about this product and did a PoC. And once we evaluated Prisma, we discussed it internally with our team and made the decision to book it.
What other advice do I have?
I rate Prisma Cloud nine out of 10. If you're considering Prisma, I suggest starting with a PoC. Consider all the features and go for the ones that are suitable for your organization and add value. You could adopt the solution blindly, but there are some additional costs for the add-ons.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
The dashboard is very user-friendly and can be used to generate custom RQL based on user requirements
What is our primary use case?
We use the CSPM (cloud security portion management) product from Palo Alto Networks for our day-to-day activities. We use this product every day, almost 24/7. I am a cloud security engineer in my organization, and I use this product to identify misconfigurations from the account level. We use AWS accounts in our organization. We have more than 150 accounts in our organization, and we get support from this product to identify the misconfiguration among all those cloud accounts.
Along with misconfiguration, we use it to generate custom RQL based on our requirements in our day-to-day activities. We use the solution for user access and onboarding Defender into our product to identify the vulnerabilities in our cloud environments. We see if the instances are publicly enabled or encrypted.
It also helps us to check if some changes have to be done on load balancers ELB 1 or ELB 2 in our environment.
Almost from the product level, with all the cloud accounts, 1,600 global policies and 1,200 AWS-related policies are provided. We used to customize based on compliance and integrate it with Jira. Using Jira, we inform the end users about the misconfigurations in day-to-day activities. Finally, we'll try to get the solution for the alerts generated by the tool.
What is most valuable?
The solution's dashboard looks very user-friendly. The misconfigurations alert tab also looks good. The solution has both positives and negatives, but this product is the best compared to other solutions. According to our requirements, we can very easily identify the solutions based on cloud accounts, single accounts, or multiple accounts. The graphical way JSON was recently launched is very good to get the proper exact RQL based on the requirement.
What needs improvement?
We have a suggestions team, and we used to write our thoughts on the dashboard or website. The website is reviewed by users working with the product team. Recently, we discussed a new thought with the product team that the misconfiguration or the work done by the user should be at the user level. The dashboard can be created at the user level instead of the cloud account level, which will help save time.
They can create a folder for their work, directly go to that folder, and work with it on day-to-day activities. It's a new idea we suggested to the product team. When 1,000 members are working on the product, the product team cannot implement all the 1,000 thoughts invented by everyone. We used to submit our thoughts on our product website bi-weekly or bi-monthly.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks for more than two and a half years.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Prisma Cloud is a scalable solution. More than 250 users are using Prisma Cloud in our organization.
How are customer service and support?
Prisma Cloud's technical support team used to resolve all our issues within no time.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I previously used PingSafe, which is more cost-efficient than Prisma Cloud. When I started working with PingSafe, I thought it could be a good product. However, when I changed to Prisma Cloud, I thought it might be more efficient when compared to other products.
What was our ROI?
We have seen a return on investment with Prisma Cloud, and our organization is completely satisfied with the solution.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Prisma Cloud is a highly expensive solution.
If 50,000 employees work in a single organization or an MNC company, the company should use a high-level product, not a low-level product. It's based on the company, and it's based on the product. For my organization, I completely agree with Prisma Cloud's licensing part. I cannot discuss whether it's efficient, but I completely agree with the product features.
What other advice do I have?
We are using the compliance module of the solution.
We use the solution to secure the cloud accounts in our organization that we maintain. We launched this tool for our security. We used to choose the products in the market based on the budget. Prisma Cloud was already launched and onboarded before I came to this organization. We used to onboard other tools, like Defender Cloud or Prisma Cloud.
CSPM is different from Prisma Cloud; they are two parts in a single product. For day-to-day activities, we use CSPM almost 100% and Prisma Cloud for almost 30% to 40%. CSPM identifies the alerts and misconfigurations from the account level for day-to-day activities. We inform the DevOps team to close the alert by getting the solutions from their account-level site.
We chose this product to identify the misconfigurations based on the severity level. For critical, it should be done within one or two days; for high, it should be done in three to five days. Based on the time period, we used to get these solutions in time. Sometimes, users may face many exceptions for the solution or alerts.
For example, there will be some internal ELBs (elastic load balancers) from the account level. Internal ELBs cannot be published because they'll be used internally to share the data. The policy may identify the alert from the internal ELBS also. So, we need some exceptions so that the internal load balancer can be accepted but not generate an alert from the Prisma side.
We used to change our RQL query based on the requirement. Otherwise, we approached the product or support teams to get the solution from them. They'll provide the RQL with the changes based on the requirement, and we'll get the solutions as quickly as possible. Most of the time, when there is a problem, there will also be a solution.
Maintaining an organization with multiple million dollars is not an easy thing at the market level. So, it's important to have a product that effectively identifies the issues. Nowadays, hackers send a simple link to an unknown user. When users click the link, their bank account gets hacked, and the amount gets deducted from the customer side.
When a single user gets this type of attack, an organization should be equipped to effectively identify these attacks. This product works very effectively to identify such attackers. The solution can not only help identify present attackers' thinking, but we can think about the future and customize the queries based on the attackers' mindset. We can identify the attackers' way not to get marketed in the banking sector.
Prisma Cloud is a monitoring tool that continuously monitors 24/7. It's not about getting the solution but identifying the misconfiguration. When it continuously monitors the cloud accounts, the product identifies the issues, and we get the solution.
Getting the solutions is in our hands, but identifying the issues is the product behavior. The product behavior to identify the issues is highly appreciable. Then, we get the solution based on the requirement.
Whatever automation Prisma Cloud provides to the policies is a good way to get this solution, but automating the complete tool has its positives and negatives. It's a debatable question because Prisma is not a testing tool. The tool identifies misconfigurations
The solution can't provide 100% security at the market or organization levels. If we secure a product by 99%, there is still a chance of a one percent attack. So, there should be some monitoring as well as automation. However, going for only automation or monitoring is a debated question.
We continue using Prisma Cloud because we are 100% satisfied with it, not only from my side but also at my organization level. In my organization, we started a gap analysis. We are maintaining more than 150 AWS cloud accounts. So, there are a lot of alerts for misconfiguration from the product level.
Since January, we have started one requirement to reduce the alert. We collect all the alerts in an Excel sheet, and we used to share with the DevOps HOD that these are the misconfigurations for your account. Then, the HOD used to share the sheet with the team members.
I can proudly say that we started with more than 8,600 alerts for all the cloud accounts in the month of January. Now, the count is reduced to almost 2,400 alerts for more than 40 sensitive policies. We identified almost 60% to 70% alert reduction. We are using Prisma Cloud effectively to identify misconfigurations and implement many more features to secure the cloud accounts in our organization.
We use 100% of CSPM and only 30% to 40% of the CI/CD pipeline, like Prisma Cloud. For CSPM, I'll rate it a ten out of ten. Otherwise, nine and a half out of ten because no product will satisfy a customer 100%. So, nine and a half out of ten for CSPM to secure the cloud accounts internally or prevent getting attacked by attackers. I would definitely recommend this product.
We will launch CI/CD like Prisma Cloud in the future, and the organization should also consider the budget. Prisma Cloud is a little high-budget affair. Prisma Cloud is a mandatory tool to identify the CI/CD level vulnerabilities while doing email scanning only. Our time will not be wasted by using this tool.
If we do not scan an image for vulnerabilities while deploying a code into it, it's a waste of time deploying a code that any attacker can handle. This product identifies the vulnerabilities by email scanning only, which helps to have more time for the DevOps team to get more deployment.
We used to suggest new thoughts on how it can be more user-friendly. There is an API with which we can share our thoughts. It should be selected by other users and business organizations using the product. If more people suggest that option after we launch that thought into the API, the Prisma product will think about that thought. If it is valuable, they should definitely get this solution.
Currently, we can identify the misconfigurations based on the list of policies. Suppose five to ten members work with Prisma in an organization. In that case, they cannot go daily to the dashboard and identify all the misconfigurations singly or as a group.
We suggested a new feature: a list of misconfigurations should be identified based on the user, either a single user or a group. If three members work with a particular cloud account, then those three members should create a group, and that account should be added there. This will also reduce the time of a customer working on the product.
Whatever DevOps requirement was not presented in the product, they used to discuss it with our team. If it is a requirement we need in our organization, then we will go to the product team and tell them it is a requirement from our organization level for the DevOps team. If it is a proper requirement, the engineering team will work based on it. The product team comes up with new ideas. Since the recent launch is a better version for the product team, we also used to launch the better version from the product team.
it works both ways. Whatever new features the DevOps team suggests, we discuss them with the product team. When the product team suggests new features to help the organization, the same can be discussed with our internal team. Our manager will discuss it with the HODs of the DevOps team. If it is a genuine requirement, we will try to convince the DevOps team, and based on their approval, we will launch that feature.
It's highly recommended since the dashboard is very user-friendly. The Prisma Cloud tool is integrated with Jira. Whenever any alert is generated, it will automatically trigger Jira based on compliance. It will work based on the compliance we onboarded to Jira. We used to create compliance for Jira and day-to-day activities, like generating reports based on the accounts.
Prisma Cloud is a user-friendly solution. When managing more than 50 cloud accounts, we can get the issues and misconfigurations from the single account level, the group account level, or the total account level. We can get everything based on our requirements. The solution will secure all the cloud accounts, a single cloud account when there are multiple cloud accounts, or a group of cloud accounts based on complete requirements.
Whenever we have some issues, we approach the product team to get this solution. Recently, we faced some issues with the policies tab, which we use to create policies, and the investigation tab, which we use to create a new RQL. Whatever RQL query is implemented, there is no point in creating all the RQL queries to a policy. We get the data by creating an RQL query, and we create a policy to monitor the product. The count should match when there is a single RQL query from the investigation type and the policies tab or alert tab.
Recently, we faced an issue with a mismatch between the alert tab count and the investigation tab count. We approached the product team, and they suggested the solution within a very short time. There were some issues with the pipeline, but they fixed that bug within no time, and we got a 100% solution from them.
Three to four teams are working with a single product. The security, SOC, and DevOps teams are working with the product team to identify the misconfigurations in their environment. It's not just a single person who identifies the issues from service or product levels.
The DevOps or SOC team may identify an issue and inform our security team. Also, we may find some issues and inform the product team. A combination of all groups will work to identify issues and ensure that the product will work effectively. So, all the things will happen in a single process.
We have to close cases within a specific period based on the severity. Critical cases should be closed within one to three business working days, high-severity cases within three to five working days, medium-severity cases within five to eight working days, and low-severity cases within eight to fifteen working days.
We use some budget for the product based on the agreement. Besides that, we save a lot of money compared to the security level. I'm not talking about the product level. Product-level money is different based on the agreement. In the last one and a half years that I started working with this product, only one time without a product level or service level, we entered some credits by enabling some policies. If we have some knowledge of the product, almost 95%, there is no waste of money.
Prisma Cloud is a completely user-friendly product. The product is highly recommended for the cloud environment level. Whatever requirements we have, we can get by creating a new RQL based on our requirements. It is not only related to work. Whoever works with cloud security in an organization is greatly noticed.
If someone identifies an issue in your work, you'll remember that person. In the same way, when I notified some issues from the cloud account level, I used to interact with the entire DevOps team, not only a single person. The product helps you get more recognition.
Previously, we used the solution globally. However, because there may be a chance of data being made publicly accessible, we are currently onboarding only on the internet from the Prisma site. This secures the data and prevents it from being made publicly accessible.
I would recommend Prisma Cloud to other users or organizations looking to secure their organization in any cloud environment without budget constraints. I'm only talking about AWS because we have an AWS environment, but the solution can secure any cloud account effectively.
Overall, I rate Prisma Cloud a nine out of ten.
Great for identifying misconfigurations and vulnerabilities with excellent technical support
What is our primary use case?
In my organization, we use Prisma Cloud to Protect the cloud environment to identify misconfigurations and send the reports to the cloud account owners. We can use Prisma Cloud based on location or based on cloud accounts.
The policies that we are using in our organization help us to work more effectively to identify misconfigurations based on severity and the dashboard is very user-friendly to work with.
I am very happy to use this product and find it to be highly impressive.
How has it helped my organization?
Prisma improved our cloud environment. It helps to identify the misconfigurations by monitoring regularly which helps to secure the organization's cloud environment.
This product helps our organization in various ways, including identifying account-level misconfigurations. It will protect the environment in many ways. With this, we can avoid data leakage and avoid/identify public and internal cloud-level misconfigurations will be identified.
What is most valuable?
Identifying misconfigurations and vulnerabilities from the cloud account level as well as the development and operational level helps to secure everything effectively.
Vulnerabilities can be identified before deployment - which helps our DevOps team to minimize or reduce time in an effective way.
Identifying misconfigurations and vulnerabilities at the first stage itself will help the organization save time and money - which is highly appreciated.
What needs improvement?
For some custom policies, we need more features. For example, at the investigation tab level, while adding columns for required fields, you can't have more than three or four custom fields. New cloud policies can be added in the next release to address severity changes for the cloned policies. It would be nice to have alerts at the dashboard level. For example, if five members are working with 50 different policies, based on the user name, policies should be assigned with alerts that can be displayed either in a graphical or listed way.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've used the solution for three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I'd rate the stability 4.5 out of five.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I am highly impressed with the product's scalability. Whenever I have issues with the solution, I will get an immediate response from the product team. They will try to close the issue as soon as possible - which is highly impressive.
How are customer service and support?
I am very happy with the customer service. Whenever I have issues with the solution, I will get an immediate response from the product team and they will try to close the issue as soon as possible. This level of service is highly impressive.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
This is my first solution. I did not previously use anything else.
How was the initial setup?
The product team helped us when the Initial setup happened.
What about the implementation team?
We implemented through a vendor team and I'd rate the service five out of five.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
When compared to other products, Prisma Cloud is high in pricing and licensing. However, when there is high security it can be expensive. Smaller organizations can't afford Prisma Cloud.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
As this is my first solution, I didn't choose any other product other than Prisma Cloud.
Solved our design and architecture problems, is scalable, and has impressive stability with no downtime
What is our primary use case?
We use Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks for architecture and design.
How has it helped my organization?
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.
What is most valuable?
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.
What needs improvement?
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.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've worked with Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks for four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
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.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I found Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks scalable, and it's an eight out of ten for me, scalability-wise.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support for Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks was very good. I would rate its technical support eight out of ten.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks is what my company has. It's the solution my company wants to use.
How was the initial setup?
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.
What about the implementation team?
Our team deployed the solution.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks has helped the company save some money. Cost-wise, it's okay.
What other advice do I have?
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.
Best tool for cloud Security and workload protection
Great CSPM when integrated with other Prisma products and small number of cloud computing accounts
The other was the renewal. We were licensed by cloud account, not by resources, etc, so renewal was from 5 accounts to 90-ish and it was way way WAY cost prohibitive for us, so we had to drop it.
I like automated tool for migrating user data from other systems
What is our primary use case?
Financial companies want to restrict user access, which means the users need to go through a subnet to access their services. When the user connects to the internet via the Prisma Cloud VPN, they can use different types of IP addresses globally. The changing IP addresses can be pretty complex. It costs a lot for the application site to apply for access.
We negotiated with Palo Alto to get 20 servers, and the customers will be added to those 20 subnets. On the Spectrum Access side, we only need a white list of those twenty subnets, and we won't have issues in the future.
The solution is managed by Palo Alto. We're using Panorama, a popular management tool, for managing the connection between the physical portal, firewall, and VPN, as well as Prisma Cloud.
How has it helped my organization?
The user experience is better than our previous solution. It gives us visibility into all the traffic.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature is the closed VPN connection, which provides better performance than traditional VPN boxes. For example, let's say a user in New York State normally connects in the East, but if they travel to the UK, they can connect to the same portal, which automatically redirects to any VPN gateway. We can control traffic based on Active Directory groups instead of the user's IP. That means a user in New York can access his application based on his user ID and AD group access when he travels to the UK or anywhere else.
Prisma Cloud can provide decent security across cloud environments, depending on how each company sets security policies. Prisma Cloud makes adding new users and managing access more flexible.
I like Palo Alto's automated tool for migrating user data from other systems. We previously did this manually most of the time, but now we can update twice hourly automatically.
What needs improvement?
During deployment, we created a tunnel from the cloud to our gateway in the data center because the users need some way to connect with the resources there, but all other traffic goes directly to the Palo Alto cloud. When the traffic goes to the Internet, sometimes it will come up with different IPs, causing some financial websites to be blocked. We needed to work with Palo Alto closely to solve this problem.
Sometimes, when you assign subnets to regions, the IP address will jump from one location to another because it will automatically change substantially. Then, we need to add those IP subnets to our firewall for existing access. The need to update those subnets potentially causes maintenance or access issues. So far, we can only provide bigger customers with six subnets, and a small company may not be able to access those services.
How are customer service and support?
I rate Palo Alto customer service 10 out of 10.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
The migration takes time because we're typically not starting from scratch. We need to migrate everything from the existing VPN. I've used Prisma Cloud for a large financial enterprise with a complex infrastructure, and we worked on that for almost two years. It's less complicated for a mid-sized company, but the migration might take six to nine months.
What was our ROI?
It's hard to tell if there is an ROI in the short term. It may take a long time before you realize a return because there is a substantial initial investment. You can see a significant improvement in performance, but it may not necessarily save money. However, you'll ultimately improve service.
What other advice do I have?
I rate Prisma Cloud nine out of 10. We would recommend it to any large global enterprise because it improves performance and offers a better user experience. It also gives you application-level control instead of regular IP address control. The latest version has many new features. So they can use the in-app Application ID and point to MAC applications instead of regular TCP/IP ports.
Integrates seamlessly with different clouds but should support on-premises implementation
What is our primary use case?
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.
How has it helped my organization?
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.
What is most valuable?
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.
What needs improvement?
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.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is stable. It is a leading product.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
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.
How are customer service and support?
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.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I did not use any similar solution previously.
How was the initial setup?
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.
What about the implementation team?
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.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We evaluated multiple products. Zscaler was one of them.
What other advice do I have?
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:
- Over the next five or ten years, how do you want to grow?
- What is your current IT strategy?
- How are you evolving?
- What would be your technology?
- Would there be any major digital transformation?
- How seamlessly can it integrate?
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.
Enables us to know what security threats are happening in the background but the UI could use improvement
What is our primary use case?
Our primary use cases are for container security and for auditing purposes.
We have multiple clusters.
How has it helped my organization?
Palo Alto enables us to know what security threats are happening in the background.
It provides the visibility and control we need regardless of how complex or distributed our cloud environment becomes.
Prisma Cloud provides us with a single tool to protect all of our cloud resources and applications, like what we need to manage and reconcile security and compliance reports.
We have been enabled to reduce runtime.
Prisma Cloud provides risk clarity at runtime and across the entire pipeline. It shows issues as they're discovered during the build phases.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable features are code security and container security.
It gives us awareness about any security breaches and if there are any vulnerabilities.
Palo Alto provides security scanning for multi and hybrid cloud environments. We need to know where there is a threat. Palo Alto monitors and reports it.
It can be integrated into any alerting tool that has enough automation and capability. It can pull some of the metrics without an agent.
Prisma Cloud provides risk clarity at runtime and across the entire pipeline, like, showing issues as they're discovered during the build phases.
What needs improvement?
There are some operational issues but testing it is good.
The UI is the worst.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Palo Alto Networks for two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability is good. I would rate it an eight out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability is good.
How are customer service and support?
Their technical support isn't on an expert level. They need to improve.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
How was the initial setup?
The deployment time takes around two to four weeks. The understanding of the product takes around six months.
The initial setup was straightforward.
It does not require regular maintenance. You need to do maintenance around every six months by updating the agent.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks a seven out of ten.
Saves troubleshooting time and costs, and provides a single pane of glass for multiple clouds
What is our primary use case?
We were using it for remediation. I was working on a client's project on behalf of our company, and they had multiple subscriptions. They were using not only Azure but also AWS. Rather than managing remediation and governance separately through different clouds, it was proposed to use Prisma Cloud as a single place for remediation of everything.
How has it helped my organization?
Prisma Cloud provided a single window for all security issues, irrespective of the subscription, account, or service provider I was trying to see. The information was totally transparent with Prisma Cloud. Otherwise, it was a daunting task for us to manage everything within AWS itself because each region's or subaccount's data needed to be moved over to another account to see a full picture, and a similar approach was required in Azure as well. The data from a different subscription needed to be copied, which required a batch process to do this job on a daily basis. By integrating AWS and Azure subscriptions with Prisma Cloud, the same task became easier. It was as simple as adding a new account and a credential. That was it. Prisma Cloud took care of the rest of the functions
Prisma Cloud provided security spanning multi-cloud and hybrid-cloud environments. We integrated it with AWS and Azure with multiple subscriptions for each.
With both AWS and Azure, the presentation of the native cloud data was not good. We were more comfortable looking at the same data in Prisma Cloud.
Automation is possible with Prisma Cloud, and that is why we liked it. Automation is still not that good in the native clouds, and Prisma Cloud definitely has an edge compared to the facility that AWS or Azure provides. Although it is an additional cost for IT, overall, there are cost savings. I am not aware of the features provided by GCP. I did not integrate it with Prisma Cloud, but at least with AWS and Azure, Prisma Cloud works much better.
Prisma Cloud provides an agent that can scan container images or Docker images. Otherwise, for Docker images and accounts, AWS provides its own tool and its own format for the report. Similarly, Azure provides its own format to scan those images. We used the agent provided by Prisma Cloud. It unified the approach. Irrespective of the provider, the format of the output and reports was similar. It was easy to compare apples to apples rather than comparing apples to oranges, which definitely is a challenge when we use different cloud providers. Prisma Cloud solved that problem for us.
The level of abstraction is sufficient enough. The complexity is hidden. Only the information that is relevant is displayed, which is better from a developer's perspective because developers do not need to handle that complexity. If architects, like me, need to understand those complexities, they can go into a respective subscription and get the details. The level of abstraction was good enough with Prisma Cloud.
Prisma Cloud provides a single tool to protect all of our cloud resources and applications, without having to manage and reconcile disparate security and compliance reports.
Prisma Cloud reduced the alert investigation time because now, we have a single window. It is quite easy for anyone. A single resource can work on the alerts and memorize similar issues in the past and work on the current issues faster. It has improved productivity.
Prisma Cloud reduced costs. With the different service providers and different subscription models that we had previously, we divided the subscriptions between the analysts. They were responsible for the issues related to the subscription. We had a team of six people previously. After the implementation of Prisma Cloud, all the issues got consolidated, and our team size got reduced to two. The productivity increased because the same analyst could see past issues, revisit those issues, learn quickly, and fix similar issues. They got an idea of how to fix a similar issue, so the overall productivity increased, which reduced the cost.
What is most valuable?
When we work on, for example, AWS, we need to consolidate the data from different regions, which is an exercise in itself. The same exercise or similar exercise can easily be done in Prisma Cloud. It is as easy as registering a new subscription to AWS, and you start seeing all that data. For example, it is very easy to do analysis of the Defender data, which can include warnings, errors, etc. Although it is natively AWS data, the presentation is not easy for a developer. Prisma Cloud makes it a bit easier.
What needs improvement?
The first time I looked at Prisma Cloud, it took me a while to understand how to implement the integration and how to enable features by using the interface for integration. That portion can probably be improved. I have not looked at the latest version. I used the version that was available three months back. It is portal-based, and they might have changed it in the last three months, but at that time, integration was a bit tricky. Even though documentation was available, it took a while for a new person to understand what integration meant, what will be achieved after the integration, or how the integration needed to be done on the Azure or AWS side. That was a bit challenging initially.
For how long have I used the solution?
I used it for eight or nine months. I last used it about three months ago.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is stable.
How are customer service and support?
The client's team interacted with the customer support team. We used to highlight the issue to them, and they used to contact Palo Alto's support. We required their support two or three times, but I or my team was not directly involved with their customer support for help.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have not used a similar solution before.
How was the initial setup?
I was involved in the implementation. It was all cloud-based. There is a bit of a learning curve when trying to understand how to integrate it. Although some good documentation is available for Prisma Cloud, it was still a bit difficult to understand the product initially. However, the UI that analysts use to work on issues and remediation is quite good. It is not complex. After you have done one or two integrations with your AWS or Azure account or subscription, it becomes a routine activity. It is easy to integrate more subscriptions, but the initial one or two subscriptions of the AWS or Azure account will take some time because some features need to be enabled on the respective cloud as well. It is not only the configuration on the Prisma Cloud side. Some configuration is required on the AWS or Azure side as well.
It is a website, so deployment is not a challenge. It is as simple as registering an account and making the payment, which the IT team already did before they created an account for us, so, as such, there is no deployment. If we want to use an agent, then certainly some deployments are required on the machines, but that is the agent deployment. The product itself does not require any deployment.
From a maintenance perspective, not much maintenance is required. It is a one-time integration. It will then be set for a few years unless you want to remove some of the subscriptions or something changes in Azure or AWS. There is a limitation on the Azure or AWS side but not on the Prisma side, so maintenance is there, but it is low.
What was our ROI?
There was a cost reduction. That was the benefit that we had visualized while evaluating Prisma Cloud as one of the possible solutions. The complexity of IT operations had also reduced, and the team size had also reduced after implementing Prisma Cloud.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We used the enterprise edition. A standard edition is also there. I am aware of these two editions. I know that there is some cost, but I do not have the exact figures with me. The cost was not on the higher side. Overall, the cost gets recovered with its implementation.
What other advice do I have?
I have not compared it with other tools, but overall, I found it to be pretty good when resolving the challenges that we were facing early on. I did not get a chance to look at the Gartner report in terms of where it stands, but based on my experience with this solution, I was quite satisfied.
It is a good solution. Each team should utilize it. Every good organization is now moving towards or trying to be provider agnostic, so if you are using multiple providers, you should at least give Prisma Cloud a try.
Prisma Cloud enables you to integrate security into your CI/CD pipeline and add touchpoints into existing DevOps processes. I know it is possible, but we were already using some other tools, so we did not try this feature. We already had a good process utilizing other scanning tools, so we did not try that feature, but I know that they have this feature.
Prisma Cloud provides risk clarity at runtime and across the entire pipeline, showing issues as they are discovered during the build phases, but this is linked to the CI/CD pipeline, which we did not implement. We looked at the risk level of the infrastructure deployed. We also looked at which cloud platform is having issues. The risk-level clarity was certainly there. It was possible to see the risk level and prioritize the activities or other items with a higher risk, but we never tried CI/CD pipelines.
Overall, I would rate Prisma Cloud a nine out of ten.