We use the GlobalProtect module within Prisma Cloud to ensure the security of our mobile users.
Prisma Cloud (Annual Contract)
Palo Alto NetworksExternal reviews
External reviews are not included in the AWS star rating for the product.
It helps save time, improve our security, and consolidate vendors
What is our primary use case?
How has it helped my organization?
Prisma Cloud provides security spanning for multi and hybrid cloud environments.
It includes automation capabilities that we can deploy if the environment is suitable.
Prisma Cloud has enabled us to migrate from multiple vendors, creating a more user-friendly experience for everyone.
Prisma Cloud enhances the security of our cloud-native development lifecycle from start to finish.
One of the advantages of Prisma Cloud's GlobalProtect module is that it provides a centralized tool for monitoring applications, user connections, and latency. Additionally, it allows us to track the percentage of availability.
Prisma Cloud saves the equivalent time of one full-time employee.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable aspect of Prisma Cloud compared to other VPNs is its security and performance.
In the GlobalProtect module, we can easily guide users experiencing connection issues through the notification column. Within that column, we can submit and escalate notifications on host entries for troubleshooting purposes. Additionally, we can troubleshoot by collecting direct logs during user data connections. On the security front, we have a wide range of SaaS-based items at our disposal. Using Prisma Cloud, we can send internet-based reminders about the option to create a VPN tunnel internally.
What needs improvement?
Palo Alto needs to add more support staff to improve their response time.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks for two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I would rate the stability of Prisma Cloud ten out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I would rate the scalability of Prisma Cloud ten out of ten.
How are customer service and support?
The support response time is slow, with resolutions sometimes taking up to two days.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
How was the initial setup?
The initial deployment is straightforward. I have experience with two deployments. In my previous job, the deployment took six months to complete. Currently, we have 15 tenants to deploy and have successfully deployed ten within the first seven months.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The price for Prisma Cloud is reasonable.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks eight out of ten. However, the delay in support time negatively impacts my overall assessment.
We have 90,000 accounts and have already migrated 50,000 users over to GlobalProtect.
Palo Alto does the maintenance.
I recommend Prisma Cloud to others, as long as the solution meets their requirements for cost, support, and number of locations.
Provides visibility and control that our customers need
What is our primary use case?
I am a cloud security architect. I assess the cloud infrastructure for customers and help implement security control. I use Prisma Cloud for assessment. After we have the visibility, we deploy security controls, such as perimeter firewall control, proxy control, and endpoint security control.
We have purchased the enterprise license that provides all the capabilities such as CSPM, CWP, and DSPM.
How has it helped my organization?
Prisma Cloud provides security spanning multi- and hybrid-cloud environments with Azure, GCP, and AWS clouds. It provides comprehensive security for all these CSPs.
By default, Prisma Cloud supports integration with ServiceNow and Remedy. There are a few more default integrations. Cortex is their own native solution, but in terms of overall automation, Prisma Cloud supports a lot of integrations. It is very helpful for organizations to be able to automate these daily tasks. Different organizations use different security tools. A few of them are directly integrated with Prisma Cloud and a few of them are not. However, most organizations use solutions like Remedy and ServiceNow, so these direct integrations are very helpful. They can save about 70% of the time.
Prisma Cloud provides comprehensive visibility into cloud-based resources. Most organizations are shifting their workloads from on-prem to the cloud. Nowadays, everyone is using the cloud infrastructure, and it is a very big challenge for every organization because, without a CNAPP solution, they do not have much visibility into their cloud resources. CNAPP solutions like Prisma Cloud provide visibility into any misconfigurations, threats, or anomalies. They are very good for code-to-cloud visibility.
Prisma Cloud provides code-to-cloud visibility for the application development cycle of an organization. Some organizations use SAST and some organizations use DAST. Prisma Cloud is a combination of both. You can integrate your GitHub or your IDE environment with Prisma Cloud. You can have a view of the vulnerabilities inside your IAC or application code. You also can integrate it with CI/CD. It is very comprehensive. Not many can leverage the complete benefit of Prisma Cloud. In my last organization, we only used it for runtime protection. We did not use it for CI/CD or code and build. In my current organization, we are using it end to end. It is a good tool. We have the complete capability. The first stage is code and build. The second stage is deployment, and the third stage is run time. It provides complete development life cycle protection.
The time to value is usually immediate. At times, the deployment can take some time, but as soon as the deployment is complete, you get the findings.
The visibility and control Prisma Cloud provides completely align with the customers' needs. At times, we have to create some custom policies. It is completely compatible with the needs of the customers.
It provides end-to-end visibility from development to deployment to production. It prevents the development teams from pushing vulnerable code to production. A lot of things can be prioritized and resolved before deployment. By fixing things beforehand, you save a lot of effort or workload later.
Prisma Cloud's findings help us to create policies. In our organization, the vulnerability reports go to the network team or cloud infrastructure team. They analyze the alerts and create organization-level policies. For example, if there is an instance that is using a public IP, based on that incident, they would create a policy at the org level so that in the future, no one assigns any public IP to an instance. It helps them to create better policies.
What is most valuable?
Different modules are valuable for different customers. We are leveraging CSPM. It is one of the best solutions for comprehensive visibility into cloud resource configurations and compliance. It has a lot of out-of-the-box policies, and the visibility that we are getting is impressive.
The DSPM module is valuable. This is the latest one that Palo Alto procured from Dig Security. No competitor provides this functionality in a single pane of glass. The support for Linux and container security is also very good. That is the beauty of Prisma Cloud. However, in terms of Windows security, Prisma Cloud is lacking because currently, there is no runtime protection available.
The UI is very good. We get all the things within a single UI. It is easy to use. A new user can easily understand it. It is very user-friendly.
What needs improvement?
It does not provide runtime security or protection for Windows Server. It is currently lacking in terms of Windows environment. They are integrating their Cortex solution with Prisma Cloud. Once they have a unified agent, I am sure that these challenges will go away.
DSPM is a bit limited in terms of data security and storage capabilities. It only supports a few databases or storage accounts. There is still a long list of services that they need to support.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Prisma Cloud for four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I would rate it an eight out of ten for stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is working smoothly. There is no issue. Scalability also depends on the environment. It depends on how much credit you have purchased. If you go beyond that, they notify you. They will not allow you to onboard more accounts. It totally depends upon the credits that you have purchased, so scalability within the credit limit is good. It is 100%.
We have about 40 to 50 people using this solution.
How are customer service and support?
Their support is average. It is not too good and not too bad. For about 50% of the cases, they have to reach out to their engineering team. The engineering team takes a couple of days or weeks to revert. They are usually unable to provide support without the involvement of the engineering team.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have worked with CrowdStrike's CNAPP solution and Aqua Security. Prisma Cloud is the best in my opinion. It is a market leader.
Prisma Cloud has more than 100 compliances built in. It supports almost all the services inside the CSPs, whereas other CNAPP solutions only support a few of the services or most commonly used services such as compute, databases, or networks. Prisma Cloud supports maximum services from the CSP side and more than 100 compliances. It has the capability of RQL, so you can create custom queries and get the required data.
How was the initial setup?
It is very easy if you have an understanding of the solution. If you are new to this field, you can face challenges during implementation. Without proper knowledge of the roles, IAMs, and infrastructure, you will face some challenges during the deployment.
I can deploy it within an hour, but before that, we have to fulfill some prerequisites. We have to create a role for Prisma Cloud. We have to create a service credential. Every organization has its own procedure. They might take a day or a week to create the required service credential and assign necessary permissions to that. Once we have all the prerequisites, within an hour, we can deploy it. After the deployment, it starts providing visibility. It takes approximately 24 hours.
Our environment is hybrid. We are using AWS, Azure, and GCP. We also have an on-prem environment for which we have deployed Defender for CWP capability. Prisma Cloud provides us with cloud-native security and visibility.
They are regularly implementing new features in Prisma Cloud. They are doing regular updates in the backend, and they keep us informed. Mostly, they are performing these kinds of activities at night so that there is minimal impact.
Maintenance-wise, there is not much. Everything runs smoothly. They take the feature requests and notify us when they implement those requests. They are regularly changing and updating it.
What was our ROI?
I do not have any metrics for cost savings, but it certainly helps with security and compliance. The visibility it provides helps to fix any vulnerabilities. A data or security breach can cost an organization a lot in terms of money and reputation.
What other advice do I have?
Prisma Cloud provides visibility into vulnerabilities, but it is an organization's responsibility to fix those vulnerabilities. Prisma Cloud only provides visibility. It is only an assessment tool. The team has to fix those vulnerabilities. The time taken to fix the vulnerabilities varies because different teams work on it.
I have not explored all CNAPP solutions. Overall, I would rate Prisma Cloud an eight out of ten.
Good threat hunting and security automation with easy integrations
What is our primary use case?
We're using the solution for container monitoring in one project and workload security in another. We've installed the agents on the servers to monitor for threats.
What is most valuable?
We haven't had an issue with the product for over a year.
Its threat-hunting capabilities are very good. Security is a major thing for us.
We're using it in a banking setup and are using it only on a private cloud.
The security automation is very useful.
Compared to AWS, the cost management is very low. The automation ensures we have limited tasks to do. In other security tools that I am using, there is no automation option at all.
We can integrate it very easily.
It's very easy to remotely connect. We can do that within fractions of a second.
We are getting a lot of visibility and control.
We've been able to reduce runtime alerts with Prisma Cloud.
What needs improvement?
We'd like to have more tools for threat hunting.
Sometimes, on the Azure side, there are issues. Some errors aren't being found on Prisma Cloud.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've used Prisma Cloud for my past two projects. I've used it for one and a half years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We haven't had issues with downtime.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution is scalable.
How are customer service and support?
We've contacted support during some deployments on Windows servers in order to open ports. We had issues when we opened some ports and had no connection. Sometimes, their responses were slow or late.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
The solution was very easy to deploy and integrate. We had a three-member team working on the setup. We only have ten to 20 servers.
There is no maintenance needed after deployment.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing can be a bit costly. However, it has low cost management.
What other advice do I have?
We're a customer.
I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.
Works very well for multi-cloud environments and is more cost-effective than cloud-native tools
What is our primary use case?
I am using Prisma Cloud CSPM. It is a business as well as an enterprise license. We have the licenses for data security and host security for particular tenants. We have IAM, Code to Cloud, CI/CD pipelines, and scanning of code. These models are activated.
We are getting alerts and vulnerabilities for cloud asset misconfiguration and identity access management. We are using Prisma Cloud to find out these vulnerabilities and remediate them manually and automatically.
We have a multi-cloud environment. We have on boarded multiple client clouds. The data is on the AWS, Azure, Oracle, and Google clouds. All the organization-level accounts or individual accounts are onboarded into Prisma Cloud. Instead of using cloud-native CSPM solutions such as Security Hub for AWS, Security Command Center for GCP, and Microsoft Defender for Azure, we have integrated all cloud accounts with Prisma Cloud. So, centrally, we can manage and monitor all the vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and cloud environments. We have all the logs. It may be the audit log. It may be the virtual network log, network flow log, firewall log, or any cloud trail log.
How has it helped my organization?
We can monitor all the cloud assets and cloud resources. For example, if a user has wildcard permission or is a power user but only requires read-only access, Prisma Cloud lets us know. It recommends the access that needs to be given to the user. We can create custom policies according to the customer usage over the last 90 days.
If some users and service accounts have access keys that are not rotated in 90 days, Prisma Cloud alerts us that a key has expired or not rotated in 90 days. We then manually rotate the keys and update them in the cloud environment. Prisma Cloud provides best practices for insider threats and external security exposure.
If a VM or S3 bucket is publicly exposed, Prisma Cloud alerts us about it. It also suggests a way to fix the issue. It provides remediation and also provides information about the severity. The recommendations are given based on best practices and ISO standards, and we can then remediate those alerts.
Prisma Cloud provides security spanning multi- and hybrid-cloud environments. They are also launching Prisma for MSPs. It is in progress and not yet officially launched. That will help with the next-generation cloud security.
Prisma Cloud continuously scans the cloud assets we have, such as virtual machines, S3 buckets, IAM configurations, CloudTrail logs, and VPC flow logs. It continuously scans and generates alerts. There is also a feature for the outbound integration with Splunk, Teams, or Slack so that you can get alerts in these solutions.
The remediation team takes action on generated alerts. The recommendations that it gives speed up the remediation. We can remediate issues or threats before they spread in the cloud environment.
It has a lot of features. It has different modules for application security, cloud security, DSP, etc. There are different versions. Prisma Cloud provides overall network security, application data security, and customer data security. If a customer has a Palo Alto firewall installed on their on-premise data centers, its logs can be integrated into Prisma Cloud. From the cloud infrastructure perspective and the network infrastructure perspective, Prisma Cloud helps to improve the overall security posture. It is very helpful.
Because of Prisma Cloud, we have reduced asset misconfiguration within the asset inventory. We have also reduced the risk and improved governance and compliance. We get proper alerts and recommendations to improve the security posture. It also helps from the application security perspective.
Its benefits can be realized very quickly. Once a cloud account or a cloud environment is integrated with Prisma Cloud, it takes seven to eight hours for Prisma Cloud to scan it. After the logs are ingested into Prisma Cloud, it assesses misconfigurations and generates alerts.
From the operations perspective, it is good. The console availability is there. They notify us about any upgrades and maintenance. For any data or logs being ingested, it creates alerts and provides the recommendation.
It categorizes the risks based on their severity. We are confident about our security and compliance postures. We can create our own compliance rules or follow the compliance standards applicable to an industry such as HIPAA, SOC2, etc. It is a good feature.
It is comprehensive. It can scan all cloud assets. It can scan Docker images, so image scanning is there. Infrastructure As Code scanning is there. Agent-based scanning is there. Container security is there. We can scan these and find out the vulnerabilities. Prisma Cloud supports application security and container security.
It reduces the remediation time. The critical alerts that we get also provide the remediation steps. We can remediate an issue in five to ten minutes.
They have data security posture management. We can apply the data loss prevention policies to S3 buckets or the data assets we have in the cloud. It is a good tool for securing our sensitive information.
Prisma Cloud is more cost-effective than cloud-native tools. We can remediate the multi-cloud environment and improve the overall cloud security through this single tool. As compared to the other solutions, Prisma Cloud is good. There is runtime protection, container security, and other things for multi-cloud environments.
What is most valuable?
With the query language, we can analyze logs and find out which IPs are malicious. It also provides a graphical representation. It provides the overall visibility and how the traffic is flowing. We can see where the malicious IP is and whether it is an insider threat or an outsider threat.
We also have the reports tab. We can easily capture reports for the last month and the type of vulnerabilities and alerts we are having.
From the compliance and governance perspective, we can create custom policies or custom compliance and governance rules as per various industries or compliance standards, such as HIPAA, PCI DSS, and NIST. From the compliance and governance perspective, we can track the cloud environment. It is a good feature.
What needs improvement?
Some of the clients onboard individual cloud accounts into Prisma Cloud. When any new service comes into the AWS, Azure, or any other cloud, Prisma Cloud generates a warning about the new service and any missing permissions to be able to ingest the logs. We then manually run a Terraform template for Azure or a CFT template for AWS. It is a manual task that we have to do as and when needed. It is a repetitive and manual task. They should find a way to automatically update the role with the CFT or Terraform template. It would be best if this task is automated. When an account is onboarded, if it is missing any permission, it should automatically be updated with the required permissions and policies.
If they can do something from the AI security perspective, it will be helpful. I am not sure if it has any AI capabilities, but it would be helpful to have AI integration for finding out issues and remediating alerts.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with Prisma Cloud for the last three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is stable. The cloud environment is dynamic, so the tool must be dynamic. We have not had any issues with it.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is scalable. It scales up properly.
Currently, we have multiple locations. We have about 20 companies with multiple cloud accounts. It is a multi-cloud environment.
How are customer service and support?
The support from the Palo Alto team needs to be improved. Sometimes, we do not get an immediate response. It does not happen regularly, but more interactive support is required for Prisma Cloud.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I worked with Wiz in my previous company. Wiz's GUI was better than Prisma Cloud. They provide remediation and recommend which policy needs to be created and how we can create the policy. From the GUI perspective, I like Wiz, but Prisma Cloud is improving.
Wiz was also better from a cost perspective. I am not sure about the current price, but at the time, the client went to Wiz from a cost perspective. However, for runtime protection and continuous security, Prisma Cloud is good. Wiz did not provide these features.
How was the initial setup?
It is tenant-based. If you have a multi-tenant environment, it is complex.
In terms of the implementation strategy, a customer requests us to onboard an account to Prisma Cloud, and we check with the customer what exactly they want. We first enable VPC Flow Logs and CloudWatch Logs in the AWS environment. We create a tenant with the help of the Palo Alto Networks team. After the tenant is built, we onboard the particular cloud account into Prisma Cloud. The alert rules, user access, and policies are created. This is the way we implement this solution.
It is not difficult to maintain. Only the cleanup process is there. If a user leaves the organization, we need to manually remove the access for the user, so the cleanup process is there. Apart from that, there is no maintenance. When a license expires, we need to renew those licenses.
What about the implementation team?
From a deployment perspective, currently, we have three to four people, depending on the task. If a customer has a multi-regional cloud environment or a multi-cloud environment, it requires more time. Generally, four to five people in coordination with the Palo Alto team can handle those tasks.
What was our ROI?
The ROI is good from the security perspective for the multi-cloud environment. It is cost-effective. To secure the cloud environment, Prisma Cloud costs less than the cloud service provider's solution. The monthly cost of Security Hub for AWS or Security Command Center for GCP is more than Prisma Cloud. Prisma Cloud is a better solution in my opinion.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Its licensing cost depends on the type of license such as the business license or the enterprise license. The enterprise license is costlier than the business license, but we get more visibility and more modules.
If you have a multi-cloud environment and subscribe to each cloud's native CSPM tool, it is costly. If you are using a single tool like Prisma Cloud, with a single license, you can monitor all environments, such as Google Cloud, Azure, AWS, and Oracle Cloud. The cost of Prisma Cloud is less than the cost of subscribing to the CSPM tool of each cloud provider. This is where Prisma Cloud can save costs.
What other advice do I have?
If you are looking for cloud security posture management, application security, and container security, Prisma is the one. It is the best solution to track and monitor all the security postures for your cloud environment and the application and code environment. I would recommend using Prisma and its various flavors.
I would rate Prisma Cloud a nine out of ten for its capability.
It gives you one console to see all of your assets, review their configurations, and build your processes
What is our primary use case?
Prisma Cloud is the amalgamation of multiple products. The main component was acquired from Twistlock. The main use case is to perform cloud security posture assessments of your cloud workload. You can connect multiple cloud providers to Prisma Cloud and review the security configurations.
The two Prisma modules I use are cloud security posture management and cloud workload protection. The compute part of Prisma Cloud Cloud can also be deployed on-prem. It's mainly for an on-premise environment. You can deploy a standalone host to protect or review the configurations if you have a Kubernetes Docker host.
How has it helped my organization?
I work for a system integrator, so I deploy these solutions to customers, but I don't typically operate them. Clients are looking for visibility into their multi-cloud environment. When you have an environment distributed across AWS, Azure, etc., controlling all the cloud environments from different consoles is difficult.
Prisma Cloud gives you one console to see all of your assets, review their configurations, and build your processes. If you have a development team or your organization is developing a product, you can use Prisma Cloud to secure the product development lifecycle. You can integrate Prisma Cloud with your CICD pipelines to scan the containers and ensure they aren't vulnerable to any known CVEs.
It's a single pane of glass that covers all aspects of your cloud environment. It also provides your DevSecOps or DevOps teams with an excellent tool. Prisma Cloud is a collection of acquisitions, so you have multiple products within one tool.
None of the solutions that promise to reduce alerts have done that, but Prisma Cloud gives you meaningful alerts. In rare cases, I've experienced alert fatigue or some false positives. It identifies guaranteed alerts. I can prioritize alerts based on several factors. If you have a resource on the cloud that has given vulnerability, it will check to see if the resource is exposed to the Internet and prioritize it accordingly.
What is most valuable?
Most customers use Prisma Cloud for visibility and compliance. Prisma has so many features, but many organizations do not use them. They primarily use the visibility part to connect all their cloud accounts and hosts for visibility to see if they are missing any security controls or if they have any misconfigurations.
You can connect it to cloud environments such as Azure, AWS, Oracle Cloud, Alibaba, etc., or to an on-prem data center. Prisma Cloud gives you so many options to automate processes related to your daily operations. When it comes to cybersecurity, you can automate things with their existing APIs. They also have out-of-the-box integrations with many solutions.
I have not seen any limitations. Everything is customizable. You can do whatever you want, defining the reporting and custom use cases. They recently updated the UI, so it's much better than before.
What needs improvement?
These tools have a set of signatures or rules that will alert you whenever something meets the criteria. In the future, they might include some machine learning or AI feature that allows you to ask questions about the context of the alert, and it will provide you answers based on the data that they have. Most vendors are doing it, and I believe they will do it in the future. The reporting bar could also use AI to add context based on the environment.
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?
I rate Prisma Cloud nine out of 10 for stability. I haven't seen any incidents with Prisma Cloud aside from the usual false positives you get with any solution.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
There aren't any limits to Prisma Cloud's scalability. I have seen Prisma Cloud working with organizations that have more than 800,000 assets in their cloud environment.
You must have a large multi-cloud enterprise to realize Prisma Cloud's full value. A mid-sized enterprise with one cloud provider will not benefit from it. However, a mid-sized enterprise with a multi-cloud environment can get something out of it because it's difficult to track the number of assets and spending across all cloud environments. You need a cloud monitoring solution for them.
How are customer service and support?
The quality of Palo Alto support depends on the region. Some regions have a higher priority and better teams to support clients, but others outsource the support to other countries. Generally, it's above average.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Aqua Security was their main competitor. I have not worked on Aqua Security, but Tenable acquired the company recently, and it became Tenable Cloud Security. It's similar to Prisma Cloud, but it doesn't have the same functionality as Prisma Cloud. It's less comprehensive.
How was the initial setup?
The setup process depends on the customer's environment, but deploying Prisma Cloud is straightforward. SaaS solutions are easy to set up. You don't need to worry about setting up any servers. You just deploy the agents and provide the credentials of your cloud environment.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I'm not sure about the pricing. I have seen some commercials, but the pricing is variable. It isn't expensive compared to the value it will give you. It's like a choice between a 2024 Mercedes or a 2019 Toyota. It's a high-end product, but you get an excellent value.
What other advice do I have?
I rate Prisma Cloud nine out of 10. A cloud solution for configuration review is essential for any organization with a multi-cloud environment.
Provides a single portal to manage all the modules, improves visibility, and saves costs
What is our primary use case?
We specialize in all Palo Alto modules, including visibility, compliance, governance, threat detection, data security, and hub security. Our comprehensive suite of services covers all aspects of these modules. We leverage the SaaS security product for advanced threat detection, and for all-encompassing monitoring, we utilize Cortex XDR from Palo Alto.
Many customers store sensitive data in on-premises data centers and require robust security measures. Prisma Access licenses can protect internal networks, but some customers prefer avoiding internet exposure. To address this, we offer gateways that create a secure environment for internet access. With the rise of remote work, we provide VPN connections, such as GlobalProtect, for secure access to both internal and external resources. Customers can deploy multiple gateways in different regions to meet their needs. Traffic flow typically involves a VPN connection to a gateway, followed by routing through internal service connections and potentially a data center firewall before reaching the desired resource. For external access, traffic is routed directly to the internet through the VPN.
How has it helped my organization?
Prisma Cloud offers comprehensive security across multi and hybrid cloud environments. For instance, our ADEM tool, considered industry-leading, requires installation on user machines to enable continuous monitoring of all ADEM-equipped users. This includes detecting anomalous activity outside the corporate network and tracking user online time, providing valuable insights into network usage.
Security automation and EA Ops significantly reduce manual configuration and management tasks compared to previous methods, saving valuable time. Now, we only need to configure a few minor details rather than handling everything. For instance, with service connections and gateways, we don't have to manage multiple VPN gateways; Palo Alto is managed on the backend. Our primary responsibility will be monitoring after initial tunnel creation. We've preconfigured connections to on-premises firewalls, whether third-party or Palo Alto, eliminating manual configuration. Automation is in place, and we'll only need to purchase licenses. The autonomous system further enhances automation for all processes.
Intune security automation has significantly reduced our costs, making us more financially efficient making us more financially efficient. Automation is now highly valued as it eliminates the need for engineers to configure and manage systems manually. With AI-driven automation, we can effectively monitor configurations through a dashboard, providing a complete overview. This automation simplifies tasks like creating BGP connections, which previously required complex CLI commands. Prisma Access Palo Alto's GUI interface automates tenant creation with minimal input. Integrating Prisma MDM and Palo Alto device deployment further streamlines the process, reducing manual intervention. Overall, this automation saves money and frees up engineer resources by eliminating time-consuming configuration tasks.
Palo Alto Networks is a global leader in cybersecurity, providing top-tier protection to its customer base of over 90,000. Traditionally, customers relied on on-premise hardware firewalls, but the shift towards cloud-based solutions has driven a demand for more flexible and cost-effective security options. In response, Palo Alto Networks offers cloud security solutions that leverage its existing global device infrastructure. Customers only need to purchase licenses to activate cloud security features, tailoring protection to their specific needs for internal, external, or network environments. For customers seeking complete independence, Palo Alto Networks also provides interconnect licenses that eliminate the need for a service connection.
Customers do not directly purchase Palo Alto products or deploy them into production. Our professional engineers provide a lab environment for customers to test any desired Palo Alto services, from essential Prisma Access to advanced cybersecurity solutions like SaaS security and Cortex XDR. Once customers are satisfied with the lab environment, they can deploy the chosen products into production. If they encounter any issues during deployment or operation, the support team promptly addresses them.
I have resolved numerous customer issues, closing over 400 or 500 cases globally. While many cases can be resolved within a week, some complex issues may take up to a month. Palo Alto Networks aims to provide timely support for all customer issues, regardless of severity. When a customer encounters a VPN connection problem, they can create a case with varying priority levels. Critical cases are assigned to engineers immediately, with hourly updates provided to the customer. If the issue persists, the case is escalated to senior resources. Prisma, a relatively new platform, is constantly being monitored for bugs. Any issues identified are addressed promptly and communicated to customers. Our goal is to deliver exceptional support services.
Prisma Cloud offers complete visibility across our entire environment, from end users to the data center. We'll have full control and oversight within a single unified portal, eliminating the need to juggle multiple platforms as often required by other solutions. Prisma Cloud provides dedicated applications for various functions, such as SaaS security, threat and vulnerability management, cloud identity engine, and log analysis. These applications work seamlessly together, automatically connecting through APIs once deployed and licensed. For configuration management, the Strata Cloud Manager handles Prisma Access and Prisma SD-WAN. This centralized approach allows us to efficiently manage multiple aspects of our security infrastructure within a single platform.
Prisma Cloud offers SaaS security and data loss prevention as separate features requiring additional licensing. Both can be managed through a single portal. For threat prevention, they provide Cortex XDR, a recent cybersecurity offering from Palo Alto. When combined, we have a single tool to protect all of our cloud resources and applications.
Prisma Cloud helps reduce the number of runtime alerts. Users will only receive live alerts generated when Prisma detects an issue within the environment. For instance, if Prisma Access observes an attack, it will generate a live alert visible in the startup cloud manager's dashboard.
Prisma Cloud effectively reduces the overall number of alerts by prioritizing them into categories: critical, high, medium, low, and informational. Less critical warnings are consolidated into the informational category, minimizing alert fatigue. Critical alerts persist until resolved, and recurring issues can be configured to trigger email notifications for proactive monitoring, ensuring timely attention even when engineers are unavailable.
Prisma Cloud offers significant cost savings for customers. Previously, customers managed multiple firewalls, including internal and external devices. With Prisma Access, this complex management is eliminated, as Palo Alto handles firewall management. Customers configure and purchase a license to access gateways for end-user connections. This eliminates the need to purchase expensive individual firewalls, which can cost billions. While customers retain visibility through a provided portal to monitor traffic, the primary benefit is the streamlined management and cost reduction achieved through Prisma Cloud.
What is most valuable?
Visibility and control are valuable features. Customers desire complete oversight to monitor resource access, both internal and external, and verify user activity. ADEM, a purchasable license, enhances network visibility by tracking traffic patterns and identifying potential threats through a dashboard. Our Strata Cloud Manager platform unifies Prisma access and cloud management, while also accommodating next-generation firewall administration. The dashboard provides in-depth visibility into threats and vulnerabilities.
Prisma Cloud's most valuable feature is its user identification capabilities. By integrating with Active Directory or LDAP servers, it efficiently manages user access to cloud resources. Previously, determining user access required multiple hops through internal resources, consuming significant bandwidth. Prisma Cloud's Cloud Identity Engine directly connects to identity providers, streamlining user authentication and authorization. This improves performance and security by eliminating the need to constantly query Active Directory. Additionally, Prisma Cloud offers full visibility into network threats and vulnerabilities through a unified dashboard, reducing the need for multiple tools and licenses. This centralized approach enhances threat detection, response, and overall security posture.
What needs improvement?
The speed at which Palo Alto resolves bugs should be improved to prevent customers from experiencing issues while waiting for resolutions.
Palo Alto Prisma Cloud is relatively new, with only three years of history. While the documentation continually improves, it still has limitations compared to the extensive resources available for older products like hardware firewalls, which have been around for approximately 20 years. Despite these shortcomings, Prisma Cloud's documentation is growing, and knowledge base articles can be helpful for troubleshooting issues.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Prisma Cloud for two years.
How are customer service and support?
The quality of technical support varies depending on the issue a customer faces. High-priority cases demand immediate attention and daily follow-up to prevent customer frustration. I have resolved hundreds of Palo Alto cases, including critical ones. These cases require engineers to provide half-hourly updates and expedite troubleshooting. A recent critical case involved a customer migrating Panorama configuration and experiencing Prisma Access account verification issues. The initial engineer engaged with Prisma Access but encountered licensing problems. I escalated the case, collaborating with licensing and engineering teams to resolve the API-related issue and restore service. While such cases are time-consuming due to limited resources, a global team of engineers can address troubleshooting needs.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
The initial deployment was smooth due to excellent support from Palo Alto's professional services engineer. They provided a clear overview of our deployment needs, considering the customer's two branches and primarily remote workforce. We determined six VPN gateway connections were required, two in the US, India, and Europe, and two branch office connections. Palo Alto created a lab environment, presented the network topology, and demonstrated traffic flow. Additionally, they introduced the split tunneling feature, allowing specific traffic like Google search to bypass Prisma Access and access the internet directly. Overall, the top-tier engineers at Palo Alto delivered exceptional customer service and ensured a seamless implementation.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Prisma Cloud nine out of ten. I am deducting a point because of the limited documentation.
Spans multi-cloud environments, saves us time, and enhances our security posture
What is our primary use case?
How has it helped my organization?
Prisma Cloud provides spanning for multi-cloud environments. We are using GCP, AWS, and Azure.
Security automation is beneficial. By hosting applications and containers in the cloud, we can implement policies to automatically detect and shut down unauthorized network access attempts, simultaneously alerting us to the potential threat.
The security automation has saved us around ten percent of our time.
Prisma Cloud has significantly enhanced our cloud security posture. When deploying applications to the cloud, prioritizing robust security is essential, especially within the complex Kubernetes environment. Prisma Cloud's comprehensive toolbox enables us to design and implement robust security systems, including RBAC. This unified platform allows for proactive security measures and rapid response to attacks, eliminating the need for multiple third-party tools. Its consolidated approach to scanning, monitoring, and traffic control proved highly effective during our previous engagement.
I quickly recognized the value of Prisma Cloud after reading about the effectiveness of its CSPM module in securing enterprise environments.
The software development lifecycle was previously handled as a separate task. I was involved in the build process, where developers frequently introduced security vulnerabilities that went unnoticed until Prisma Cloud was integrated into the system. The recognition of Prisma Cloud's value in addressing container security issues on the cloud became apparent. There was no integration between the SDLC scanning, building, deploying, and running and deploying systems. However, a process was being developed to enable full end-to-end monitoring by the development and security teams, including the desktop team, to identify security issues before applications reached the cloud. Prisma Cloud continues to monitor for vulnerabilities and security breaches even after deployment to the cloud.
Prisma Cloud provides visibility and management, allowing us to understand and control our environment. When we identify potential issues, we notify our superiors, who can take further action, such as removing a container. Due to our limited privileges, our role is primarily to report anomalies. Prisma Cloud offers valuable insight into what's happening in our environment, not just in terms of visibility but also in terms of access control. It's a reliable tool that has proven helpful in our work.
Prisma Cloud reduces our costs by consolidating multiple third-party tools into a single platform, eliminating the need for separate contracts with various vendors.
Prisma Cloud significantly reduced runtime alerts.
What is most valuable?
Prisma Cloud's most valuable asset is its ability to provide detailed visibility into container activity. It offers insights into application networking, container behavior, potential issues, and immediate remediation suggestions.
What needs improvement?
The training documentation provided for the two-hour boot camps is notoriously poor and disorganized. It might be beneficial to restructure the documentation into a step-by-step format that is more straightforward for beginners to follow.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks for one year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Prisma Cloud is a stable solution.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Prisma Cloud is designed to be highly scalable due to its cloud-based architecture.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support was good.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
How was the initial setup?
Some aspects of the deployment were straightforward, while others presented challenges due to the complexity of engineering. The entire process took between one and two months to complete.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Prisma Cloud is a high-end enterprise solution, making it quite expensive. As I am based in Nigeria, I have limited knowledge of its usage here, as it appears to be more widely adopted in North America and Europe.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks eight out of ten. It's a complex, dynamic world with countless security challenges arising daily, and Prisma Cloud is a valuable tool for addressing many of them. While not an omnipotent solution, Prisma Cloud effectively tackles numerous security issues. However, as the threat landscape evolves, we must continually reassess and adapt our security strategies. Despite these challenges, Prisma Cloud remains an excellent tool for now.
Prisma Cloud was deployed in around 15 locations.
I suggest conducting a proof of concept in the desired deployment location for Prisma Cloud. Given that cost is a primary concern, I recommend discussing the matter with a Prisma Cloud solution architect before proceeding to the next stage.
The solution enables us to implement SOC 2 compliances
What is our primary use case?
We use Prisma Cloud to check for vulnerabilities and handle integration with the Azure Cloud.
How has it helped my organization?
Prisma benefits the company by securing our infrastructure and monitoring the logs. We realized the benefits immediately. For example, our Windows Server went down the other day, and Prisma Cloud quickly caught it.
It has helped us build confidence in our security and compliance. Prisma Cloud enables us to implement all these SOC 2 compliances and check the security. It provides visibility and control regardless of how complex our environment is.
Prisma Cloud offers a single tool for checking all this information. It's saved us time and money, reducing the time we spend on these tasks by around 10 percent. It also decreased our runtime alerts by 10 percent.
What is most valuable?
I like Prisma's identity and access management features. The AI event-driven model has helped us a lot.
What needs improvement?
The cloud integration is too complex. It should be simple to integrate Prisma Cloud with any cloud environment. Policy management could also be simpler.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have used Prisma Cloud for two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I rate Prisma Cloud 10 out of 10 for stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I rate Prisma Cloud nine out of 10 for scalability.
How are customer service and support?
I rate Palo Alto support seven out of 10.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We previously used FortiGate, FortiAnalyzer, and FortiCloud, but management decided to switch to Palo Alto.
How was the initial setup?
Deploying Prisma Cloud can be straightforward or complex, depending on the client. Previously, I worked for a managed service provider. We have multiple clients on the cloud, so it depends on the client's situation. We mostly work for large enterprises and some SMEs. It takes around a week to deploy by a team consisting of me and two or three managed service engineers.
What other advice do I have?
I rate Palo Alto Prisma Cloud eight out of 10. I would recommend it to large enterprises.
Has good visibility and control with helpful support
What is our primary use case?
We use the solution for cloud security, multi-cloud environments, compliance, and governance.
How has it helped my organization?
We have not had interruptions. It helps us to prioritize and gain resolutions faster. We can see what is happening in any particular environment.
What is most valuable?
The visibility and control are very good. It offers good runtime protection. Risk prevention is also a valuable aspect.
Prisma Cloud provides security in multiple and hybrid cloud environments.
Prisma Cloud plays a crucial role as it is one of the key pillars in our security tech stack. It helps us secure the whole multi-cloud cloud infrastructure and protects the deployments, which are crucial to our production environment.
The automation capabilities are there. In the general context of automation, it offers policy customization to eliminate false positive alerts and fine-tune detection. It constantly gives us more and more facilities to fine-tune the configurations over time. The automation itself also helps save time.
The real-time protection and management of compliance (of multiple standards, such as ISO, and SOC 2, et cetera) is useful. We can custom-add policies for enhanced protection.
We began to observe benefits immediately after integration. When it comes to real-time protection or risk prevention, there were some initial drawbacks. Over time, however, when we started working on it and fine-tuning the alerts, we started seeing the results.
It provides comprehensive security from the initial phase of spinning up the instance to the termination of the instance. In that life cycle process, it is giving us visibility and control.
Prisma Cloud provides the visibility and control we need regardless of how complex or distributed our cloud environments have become.
This positively affected our confidence in your security and compliance. No matter how complex the environment is, the seamless integration from the top layer itself gives us immediate visibility on the number of services. The way Prisma Cloud is structured makes it so that even if the environment is complicated, the categorization will give us a clear picture of where we should focus, what it lacks, or which specific areas we should have more control.
Prisma Cloud provides us with a single tool to protect all of our cloud resources and applications without having to manage or reconcile disparate security and compliance reports. Managing all of the infrastructure, security, compliance, and reporting can be done on the console itself.
The fact that Prisma Cloud is the single tool for protecting all of our resources saved us money. If we were to replace Prisma Cloud; we'd need two to three other solutions. We'd need to cover replacement and management costs. It would be 30% more expensive, at least.
Prisma Cloud hasn't reduced runtime alerts. However, it has helped us identify the true alerts. That helps save us time as we manage multiple clouds. Instead of chasing down each and every alert, we can see what matters and what doesn't. We can focus on the alerts that have the biggest impact on the most sensitive data.
We've been able to save a good amount of money using Prisma. When it comes to cloud security, it satisfies 90% to 95% of our needs and we don't need multiple solutions which would be more expensive.
What needs improvement?
We do have many feature requests and custom policies. I don't have any specific notes for improvement; however, if they could continue to focus more on giving users the ability to create custom policies and configurations, that would be ideal.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've used the solution for more than three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We have not had any issues with stability. We've only had one or two instances where there we outages, however, it's never been down for a long period of time.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability is good. I'd rate scalability eight out of ten.
How are customer service and support?
I've contacted technical support on a regular basis. In most cases, they are pretty quick. For some, depending on the issue, it may take time. However, for us, it's not an inconvenience as we understand the physicality of the issue.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We have tried a few solutions, however, we did not deploy them. This wasn't recently. This was a while ago. We weren't completely satisfied with the capabilities.
How was the initial setup?
The initial deployment was pretty easy. It wasn't too difficult. I found it fairly seamless. It was a hassle-free experience.
We tried it in a test environment (non development) for three months. They we deployed it over nine months to a year in the cloud and production environments. We had three to four people deploying the solution.
The solution does not require any maintenance after deployment.
What about the implementation team?
We did have help from the vendor.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The licensing model is based on assets. The pricing for what we are using is pretty good.
What other advice do I have?
We're a customer and end-user.
I'd rate Prisma Cloud nine out of ten.
From a customer point of view, even is a user has multiple products, they should test it out so that they are able to satisfy the requirements. Then, they can easily upgrade with additional add-ons and features. Instead of just creating the Prisma Cloud itself with too much complexity, start simple.
Helps to improve remediation time, visibility, and control
What is our primary use case?
We use Prisma Cloud for cloud security management. We use the CSPM and compute modules.
How has it helped my organization?
Prisma Cloud provides security spanning multi and hybrid cloud environments, which is moderately essential to our organization.
The security automation capabilities help remediate vulnerabilities, which correlate to cost savings.
After a few months, the benefits of Prisma Cloud became apparent. We have begun integrating the Prisma Cloud alert or inventory module into the computing environment. This is a positive development as it enhances tool interoperability and consolidates a significant amount of previously inaccessible data.
Prisma Cloud can secure 60 to 70 percent of the entire Cloud-native development life cycle.
Prisma Cloud provides the visibility and control we need regardless of how complex or distributed our cloud environment becomes. This improves our compliance posture.
Prisma Cloud provides 70 percent of coverage in a single tool to protect our cloud resources and applications.
It has helped save our organization around 20 percent, protecting our cloud resources and applications.
Prisma Cloud compliance monitoring helps us improve our overall compliance posture.
What is most valuable?
Prisma Cloud's most valuable features are its ability to detect vulnerabilities as they occur and its CSPM function, which provides a complete inventory of assets.
I like the scanning features provided by Prisma Cloud, including the image scan and source scan.
What needs improvement?
Prisma Cloud needs to improve its reporting. If they report a Go vulnerability and claim that Prisma Defender hasn't released a patch, it won't help us. However, if they report that Prisma Defender has released a patch, that is beneficial. Reporting the Go vulnerability within Defender is ineffective because I cannot directly fix a Go vulnerability.
The integration with other tools can be improved. It provides all the cloud details but is not entirely linked to the compute model.
There needs to be more transparent communication when they will have downtime.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Prisma Cloud for over two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I would rate the stability of Prisma Cloud nine out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I would rate the scalability of Prisma Cloud five out of ten because it is dependent on vendor resources rather than its own. For example, image scanning is entirely reliant on us.
How are customer service and support?
The technical team requires a lot of information for every ticket we submit, and if there is ever an out-of-the-box issue, they don't respond to us or take a long time to respond.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I previously used AWS tools and Tenable products, but we switched to Prisma Cloud because of its real-time vulnerability identification.
How was the initial setup?
Initial deployment is straightforward and takes one to two hours when all required information is available. However, if complete requirements are missing, manual deployment of all agents is necessary, which is a significantly time-consuming process.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Prisma Cloud is affordable.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Prisma Cloud eight out of ten.
We have over 100 users.
Our environment is complex. Prisma Cloud is deployed across multiple locations using many tools.
Prisma Cloud requires a lot of maintenance for upgrades and Defender.
I would recommend Prisma Cloud to others. The scanning and runtime are one step ahead of the competition.