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IT engineer at eSec Forte
Real User
Jan 18, 2024
Provides insight into our entire inventory of assets and everything happening in our multi-cloud or hybrid environments
Pros and Cons
  • "My favorite feature is the CWPP module. We can define various kinds of rules for vulnerabilities, incidents, or suspicious activities."
  • "I have some challenges customizing and personalizing some of the capabilities in the CSPM in terms of new policies and services. We have to reconfigure and rebuild the CSPM."

What is our primary use case?

My company provides solutions for Cisco customers and helps them secure their cloud environments. Most of our clients are adapting to the cloud, and we're trying to resolve vulnerabilities in their configurations. I use all of the Prisma Cloud modules but have expertise in the CSPM and CWP modules. We work with SMEs but also have some enterprise clients. 

How has it helped my organization?

Using Prisma Cloud has improved customer satisfaction. Our customers are happy with the solution and the level of security we can provide with this. Prisma can secure a cloud-native development cycle. We can configure Prisma to run a scan before we build the images. 

Prisma is known for its visibility and comprehensiveness. It provides insight into our entire inventory of assets and everything happening in our multi-cloud or hybrid environments. We want to know all the services working in our environment and who is accessing them. 

It provides a single tool for protecting all cloud resources without the need to reconcile compliance reports. All of our reports come into Prisma's CSPM module via the APIs. It's easy to get the reports coming into CSPM. We can get the inventory, asset, and alert reports containing all of the alert notifications coming into the CWPP and the reliability and compliance. It has enhanced our overall reporting experience. We can do a deep dive into alerts from various integrated third-party applications and get alerts sent via email or SMS text to keep track of any incidents in our environment.

What is most valuable?

My favorite feature is the CWPP module. We can define various kinds of rules for vulnerabilities, incidents, or suspicious activities. Prisma Cloud covers various cloud providers, including AWS and GCP. It covers every cloud on the market. 

Many customers in finance, healthcare, and other industries are adopting cloud or hybrid environments. Some of them are using GCP, AWS, and Azure services together, and Prisma is compatible with all of them.

Prisma's ability to protect a fully cloud-native stack is comprehensive. We benefit from Palo Alto's technical knowledge, training sessions, and learning programs to develop robust solutions for our customers. Prisma's automation features are helpful. We can set up automated remediation, messaging, and alerts. The CSPM module can be automated directly, and we can automate runtime rules in the CWP module. We can also automate some code scanning. 

Prisma is integrated into our CI/CD pipeline through the CWP module. We can load the images into Azure DevOps and scan them for vulnerabilities or compliance issues. We can block the vulnerabilities or disable the application so it cannot run with the vulnerabilities in place. 

Runtime alerts are among the best capabilities. In CWP, we have to block malicious or suspicious activities to stop the incoming attacks against our workloads. Using various templates, we can reduce our runtime alerts by 60 to 70 percent. 

What needs improvement?

I have some challenges customizing and personalizing some of the capabilities in the CSPM in terms of new policies and services. We have to reconfigure and rebuild the CSPM.

Buyer's Guide
Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks
October 2026
Learn what your peers think about Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: October 2026.
917,433 professionals have used our research since 2012.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have used Prisma Cloud for around three years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I rate Prisma Cloud nine 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 10 out of 10. They come and help us a lot. 

How was the initial setup?

Deploying Prisma Cloud is straightforward. We received some training from Palo Alto's technical team. The deployment time varies depending on the client and the modules you deploy. It may take a few weeks or a couple of months. After deployment, Palo Alto handles the maintenance. They notify us by text or email when there will be a scheduled maintenance window. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I'm not involved on the financial side, but I know that Prisma Cloud isn't cheap. 

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I've seen some other solutions with CSPM and CWP capabilities, but they do not have the same coverage of multi-cloud or hybrid environments. That's an area where Prisma stands out from its competitors. 

What other advice do I have?

I rate Prisma Cloud 10 out of 10. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor. The reviewer's company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
Vijay Shankar Maurya - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Security Engineer at eSec Forte® Technologies
Real User
Nov 14, 2023
Great visibility, helpful UI, and excellent support staff
Pros and Cons
  • "We are provided with a single tool to protect all of our cloud resources and applications without having to manage and reconcile compliance reports."
  • "When there are updates, whether daily, weekly, or monthly, it needs configuration or permission adjustments. There is no automation for that, which is too bad."

What is our primary use case?

The solution is integrated with cloud environments such as Azure, Alibaba, and Oracle. After integrating, we do check the network logs, including what are the config logs or configuration issues clients are facing. We see what their cloud requirements are. There are email use cases specific to the modules, and we do have visibility over the entire cloud environment. We handle vulnerability management and can block according to the rules and policies. 

We can manage identities as well, right down to a particular machine. 

How has it helped my organization?

We've been able to solve various problems. It's helped with cloud security. It problem solves for threat detection and compliance. 

It's helped clients with cloud security. When it comes to the financial aspect, we have clear visibility into what is going on, and we have a clear idea of how we can inspect and prevent issues. 

What is most valuable?

It offers full visibility.

There is auto-remediation capability with this solution. 

It offers threat detection across multi-cloud environments. Many clients are using hybrid setups and different clouds in India. When it integrates, it's helpful in gaining visibility across the entire environment.

It is comprehensive. It's very easy to define rules and auto-remediation. It's basically one click. It's great for protecting the full cloud-native stack. 

The security automation capabilities are very good. It's played an important role with auto-remediation, which is important to the automation process. We can decide how we want to respond as well. We can arrange logs and alerts. All of this can be automated. 

It allows us to take a preventative approach to security. When I started with Prisma, we had sessions about how we could work with the capabilities. We have a lot of features in Prisma Cloud. The UI has improved and helped us gather information about vulnerabilities and compliance issues.

The build, deploy, and run lifecycle is good. We have particular pipelines, and we have out-of-the-box policies defined. We can see what is going on. We can move faster within the environment with it. 

It provides complete microservices that we can check on a micro level. The solution provides visibility and control regardless of how complex or distributed our cloud environments become.

The solution enabled us to enter our CI/CD pipeline and touchpoints into existing processes. It provides us with a good backbone. 

We are provided with a single tool to protect all of our cloud resources and applications without having to manage and reconcile compliance reports. It can fetch the reports for us. We have APIs and pretty refined plugins to get the reports. We can get it all from the console. We can also schedule reporting. The third-party integrations are very helpful.

The runtime policy is very helpful. We can define runtime rules and go through alerts or blockages. It's one of the best parts of the solution. It's reduced the number of alerts, sometimes by 80% to 90%, depending on the situation.

With the amount of visibility we get, we've been able to reduce alert investigation times. We can investigate if we need to, or we can make custom answers to specific alerts. Depending on your level of expertise in the tool, it barely takes any time at all. If you understand the case, if you already know the type of answer, you can put it in. With Prisma, we've been able to reduce investigation times by 80%.

While, as a cloud security engineer, I can't say how much money it saves, I can see the credit, and it looks like less money is spent.

What needs improvement?

When there are updates, whether daily, weekly, or monthly, it needs configuration or permission adjustments. There is no automation for that, which is too bad. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for two years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

This is a very stable product. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Prisma users are increasing day by day. We have a team of around 12 people using the solution. We have a variety of clients coming onto Prisma, and we work to help them become more compliant using the solution. 

It's very scalable and very easy to use. 

How are customer service and support?

We used technical support during deployment, and they were very good. Technical support is awesome. 

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I haven't really worked with other tools. I started with Prisma Cloud.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is pretty straightforward. We had good support to help with learning and the capabilities of the solution. 

The training took two to three weeks. The deployment would take around two to three days. 

There isn't too much maintenance. There are updates. There's nothing other than that. 

What about the implementation team?

Prisma's support helped with the deployment. 

What other advice do I have?

We are a Palo Alto partner.

After using the solution for about two years, I would rate it nine out of ten so far. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor. The reviewer's company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks
October 2026
Learn what your peers think about Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: October 2026.
917,433 professionals have used our research since 2012.
reviewer1702776 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Security Engineer at a manufacturing company with 501-1,000 employees
Real User
Apr 21, 2023
Provides excellent configuration monitoring and alerting, allowing us to respond to mistakes in real-time
Pros and Cons
  • "Configuration monitoring and alerting is the most valuable feature; it happens at the cloud's speed, allowing our development team to respond quickly. If a configuration goes against our security best practices, we're alerted promptly and can act to resolve the issue. As cloud security staff, we're not staring at the cloud all the time, and we want to let the developers do their jobs so that our company is protected and work is proceeding within our security controls."
  • "The UI could use some improvement; we usually find the information we're looking for, but what fields can be clicked on and what workflow to follow to get the required information is not always evident. Sometimes we're all over the place, clicking around to drill in and uncover the alert and investigation details we're looking for."

What is our primary use case?

We use the solution to monitor and manage our various cloud environments, providing complete visibility in a single platform. We also use it for configuration, network, and anomaly monitoring. On the compute side, that's for containers and Kubernetes, so we know when changes are made and whether those changes are approved or within our required security controls. 

The platform has yet to become part of our CICD pipeline; we mostly use it as a security tool for monitoring and remediation. 

Regarding modules, we use the CSP and the compute module. 

How has it helped my organization?

Prisma Cloud helps us take a preventative approach to cloud security. It raises awareness of particular threats. Although it's a reactive type platform in that alerts happen on events that have already occurred, it allows us to take a step back and consider our cloud infrastructure more thoroughly. In this sense, the solution enables us to maintain our posture and current programs. 

The product reduced our runtime alerts by approximately 25%.  

What is most valuable?

Configuration monitoring and alerting is the most valuable feature; it happens at the cloud's speed, allowing our development team to respond quickly. If a configuration goes against our security best practices, we're alerted promptly and can act to resolve the issue. As cloud security staff, we're not staring at the cloud all the time, and we want to let the developers do their jobs so that our company is protected and work is proceeding within our security controls.

The product provides efficient and comprehensive protection for the full cloud-native stack. It presents its findings in layman's terms; alerts are pretty straightforward as to what's going on and why, whether a configuration needs to be changed, and recommendations on how to remediate.  

We used the solution's security automation capabilities, so in the event of an alert, it can be resolved with the click of a button; we click remediate, and the configuration is changed to the recommended status, which is very helpful. However, we use automation sparingly, as we usually have to coordinate changes in the cloud with development teams or through change control. Our typical usage is for completely forbidden scenarios, such as publicly accessible storage containers. We fix that by clicking remediate, then follow up with the team to determine if that was intentional. Sometimes, although accurate, the recommendation may break something else if there is a compensating control in place. So, automation is helpful but not overly used. 

For the most part, the tool provides the visibility and control we need, regardless of how complex and distributed our cloud environments become. Sometimes the platform can be a little kludgy, but we can usually click around and figure it out. Regarding confidence in our security and compliance postures, I don't know how anyone could have a cloud presence without some form of CSP, and I'm delighted with Prisma.   

The solution provides risk clarity at runtime and across the entire pipeline, showing issues as they are discovered during the build phases. However, we still need to utilize this feature to 100%.  

What needs improvement?

The UI could use some improvement; we usually find the information we're looking for, but what fields can be clicked on and what workflow to follow to get the required information is not always evident. Sometimes we're all over the place, clicking around to drill in and uncover the alert and investigation details we're looking for.

For how long have I used the solution?

We've been using the solution almost continuously for around five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Prisma Cloud is pretty stable; it's a great product, and I'm happy with it.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The platform constantly evolves regarding new features and functions, which can sometimes be a little overwhelming, but it's very scalable. It's just a matter of familiarizing myself with those functions and features. It's the type of tool that is constantly improving, and its scalability suits our environment well.

How are customer service and support?

The customer support is excellent and helped a lot during the deployment process. I rate them nine out of ten. 

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I demoed other solutions but never actually used or implemented one before Prisma.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is pretty straightforward, though some of the documentation is convoluted. The support is good, though, so getting someone on the phone or an engineer to respond via email or meeting is easy. The setup was straightforward, and the support was excellent. If I had the permissions to set up the cloud-side integrations, it would have taken a day, but I had to rely on the availability of other staff members, so it took about a week.

What was our ROI?

The platform is relatively new and expensive, so it's hard to put a number on it. However, the amount of man-hours saved by it easily uncovering some of the flaws in our security posture means it definitely saved us money. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The product is very expensive, but the cost is a necessary evil; I don't know how we could have any kind of cloud presence without this type of monitoring. The pricing is calculated by module and resource usage. Ultimately, it saves us money in the amount of time we would spend uncovering what it uncovers, and we might not make the required discoveries without it anyway. Prisma offers incredible value, though I wish it were cheaper.

People argue that there are native tools within the various cloud environments, but nothing that streamlines from a timing and comprehension perspective for small security teams. If you don't have a dedicated team of 20 staff, Prisma is the tool you need. I don't know any company that does what they do or how they do it.

Native tools may uncover a misconfiguration, but for a multi-cloud environment, you have to be proficient with multiple different tools, none of which tells the whole story. Prisma pulls in all the data and gives you everything you need to know in one platform. It also pulls in extra data, including network traffic, anomaly traffic, configuration data, and vulnerability data, so you can correlate that information and make an educated decision as to what's going on in the environment, and what needs to be changed or addressed.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I evaluated Lacework, Sysdig Secure, and Illumio Zero Trust Segmentation, though I see them more as Veracode than CSP competitors. I didn't find any products that compare to what Prisma Cloud does.

What other advice do I have?

I rate the product nine out of ten. 

My advice to those before implementing the platform is to do the integration yourself if you have the time, are IT savvy, and have the necessary permissions. It only requires a little time, a few days to a week at most, and there is great value in doing the integration yourself rather than paying for their support to do it. Onboarding the solution will provide an understanding of how it communicates with the cloud environment, how roles are associated and created, and how the remediate feature functions. It's important to go through those steps rather than paying someone else to do it; you'll save money and understand how the tool does what it does, which is essential in utilizing it.

Regarding the solution securing the entire cloud-native development lifecycle across build, deploy, and run, we have yet to use it that way, not to say that we won't. This feature is a relatively new part of Palo Alto's CICD deployment, so we haven't used it yet.

Prisma Cloud provides a single tool to protect all our cloud resources and applications, without managing and reconciling disparate security and compliance reports to about 70%. However, we have yet to utilize the tool to its full capacity.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
reviewer2068830 - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Security Consultant at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Jan 18, 2023
Centralizes security control of all your cloud providers, but not all providers are covered equally
Pros and Cons
  • "The first aspect that is important is the fact that Prisma Cloud is cloud-agnostic. It's actually available for the five top cloud providers: AWS, GCP, Azure, Oracle, and Alibaba Cloud. The second aspect is the fact that we can write our own rules to try to detect misconfigurations in those environments."
  • "There are hundreds of built-in policies for AWS and Azure, but GCP and Oracle are not covered as much as AWS. There is a lot of work to do on that part. There is, obviously, a tiny bit of favoritism towards AWS because it has the most market share."

What is our primary use case?

I'm using the main module of Prisma Cloud, which manages security at scale in cloud environments.

How has it helped my organization?

Prisma Cloud offers a very interactive UI that lets you work more effectively, faster, and more efficiently. It can also be used as a dashboard for querying the cloud provider since it integrates with most of the APIs of the cloud service providers. It's a very unique tool in the sense that it lets you centralize the security control of all your cloud providers.

What is most valuable?

The first aspect that is important is the fact that Prisma Cloud is cloud-agnostic. It's actually available for the five top cloud providers: AWS, GCP, Azure, Oracle, and Alibaba Cloud. 

The second aspect is the fact that we can write our own rules to try to detect misconfigurations in those environments.

And Prisma Cloud is a single tool that protects cloud resources and applications without having to manage and reconcile disparate security and compliance reports. That's the main purpose of the CSPM module of Prisma Cloud: You can manage every cloud platform, every cloud account, from a single place, which is the Prisma Cloud dashboard. It gives you a very high overview of every asset, a full site inventory. And you can see the context as well as the severity of the errors that have been raised on each service and asset that has been deployed in the cloud.

In my experience, Prisma Cloud is a valuable asset for enterprises that tend to have a lot of cloud-native applications and that wish to secure, and take control of the security posture of these applications. One of the most important considerations is that Prisma Cloud is a product from Palo Alto Networks, a company that invests heavily in cyber security. There are a lot of features that have come out over time. In the beginning, Prisma Cloud was known for its CSPM capabilities, but today, Prisma Cloud is doing a lot of things that are very beneficial for cloud-native applications.

What needs improvement?

There are a couple of things that can be enhanced. The first is the coverage that Prisma offers. Today, there are hundreds of built-in policies for AWS and Azure, but GCP and Oracle are not covered as much as AWS. There is a lot of work to do on that part. There is, obviously, a tiny bit of favoritism towards AWS because it has the most market share. It's logical, but the other cloud providers are not as well covered as AWS.

The second issue is the alerting process. Today, it does monitor the resources—and I'm only speaking on the CSPM side of things. Prisma Cloud scans the environment and checks if there are misconfigurations, but it lacks context. There is a real lack when it comes to taking into consideration how the application was designed. For example, you can have an application that is deployed with an open S3 bucket, which is one of the most basic services in AWS. Prisma will tell you that there is a high-severity alert because, with that bucket, there is a possibility of having your data extracted. But sometimes, the data inside those buckets is actually public. So, the process lacks some intelligence.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks for 10 months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I'm using the SaaS version which is running on Palo Alto's infrastructure, so I've never encountered instability. 

There is some patching behind Prisma Cloud when Palo Alto delivers new features so there are some "patch intervals," but most of the time, Palo Alto does notify you when something like that is coming up. It will say, "Hi. This Friday, the application will be unavailable from 6:00 PM to 7:00 PM." But it is not very disturbing at all.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Because I'm using the SaaS version, there is no issue with scalability. It all depends on the credits and the amount of money that you have put into the tool. Aside from that, you can use it to onboard any cloud account no matter how many resources are in it.

How are customer service and support?

I have contacted their tech support many times, and they are pretty quick. They are very invested and proficient. I get answers within a day or two, at most.

Sometimes, when an issue becomes pretty complicated, it can span a week because it is transferred to different people.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I did not use another solution before Palo Alto.

What was our ROI?

We have definitely seen ROI in that using Prisma Cloud is an eye-opener regarding cloud security. In general, Prisma Cloud helped us see a lot of blind spots that we left when designing applications. There were a lot of security misconfigurations that we wouldn't have been able to spot without Prisma. The return on value is in the securing of the applications that we are deploying, as well as through a better understanding of the types of issues in the type of environment.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The cost is run by credits. You can allocate them as you wish, so there are no issues there. I believe the credits, licensing, et cetera, are based on the size of the enterprise that is buying the product.

There are no additional costs beyond the standard fees.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Wiz was one of the tools we looked at. I was not the only one who made the choice, but we went with Prisma because of its capabilities as well as the support. We are investing a lot in Palo Alto Networks, meaning we use a lot of their products, so we know the enterprise itself. We know the quality of their catalog of services.

What other advice do I have?

My advice is to take your time before going the CSPM route. Look at your environments and inventory everything in it. There is, obviously, no shadow IT in the cloud. It's very easy to get an inventory of the resources you are running on. Get an overview and see if having a powerful CSPM at your side is really a need. There are a lot of open-source solutions that can do the job for smaller environments.

From what I understand, Palo Alto is trying to push Prisma Cloud to become more than a simple CSP tool, since it offers the ability to cover the global environment of cloud applications, such as doing scanning and infrastructure-as-code, and managing IAM, rather than doing it directly in the cloud provider. They are trying to centralize things.

It can also be used to manage containerized applications. It can do runtime security in container-based managed services of cloud providers, such as EKS (Elastic Kubernetes Service) which is a service managed by AWS. You can rely on Prisma to put an agent in such environments to monitor and supervise the security. You can also use it to scan the container images that are stored in repositories, whether they are on-premises or in the cloud. I've heard that Palo Alto is doing a lot of things like this, but as of today, I'm only using the CSPM part.

And in terms of security automation capabilities, I've used Checkov, which is the tool they are using for scanning specialized code like Terraform. In its origins, Checkov is an open-source tool and I've been using it with my clients by deploying it in CI/CD chains to scan, automatically, the code that is pushed inside repos and deployed in the cloud. But I have never used the Chekhov that is built into Prisma Cloud.

Similarly, I know Prisma offers the possibility of auto-remediation, but I have not enabled this option. It could be a bit dangerous because there is the context and a lot of things to take into consideration before blocking something, before deployment or after deployment. So, I have not used its preventive actions.

The solution provides visibility into complex or distributed cloud environments, but I can think of a couple of scenarios where clients might not think the same. It supports the top five clouds, but if you are using another cloud provider, you won't be able to use Prisma Cloud for that instance. You would be able to use the Compute module, but it would be very hard to use the CSPM capabilities on such a cloud provider since their APIs are not working with Prisma. But if you are using the most commonly used clouds, Prisma Cloud is a very valuable asset.

Prisma Cloud is a very powerful tool and it can be used in various scenarios, but it doesn't cover everything. You might choose a cloud provider that is not supported or prioritized by Prisma. If you are using Oracle Cloud or Alibaba, you might want to get another solution, maybe one that comes with better policies and a better investment in those technologies.

Aside from that, Prisma Cloud is a good solution if you are using a mainstream cloud provider. Prisma Cloud can help enhance your security posture. Because it's a Palo Alto product, you can be sure that there is a lot of maintenance behind it. The product will be able to keep up with the market. They will keep the features coming and it will continue to be a better product over time.

Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
Krishnakumar M - PeerSpot reviewer
enterprise architect at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
Real User
Top 5
Jun 26, 2024
Drastically reduces vulnerabilities and provides a single pane of glass
Pros and Cons
  • "It is user-friendly. It has a good look and feel and reporting structure. It provides a single pane of glass. These are the things that I like."
  • "There should be some kind of automation, AI incorporation, and bot system. All these would add value."

What is our primary use case?

I am in a services company. My company is also a partner of Palo Alto, so all the Palo Alto products have been tested, researched, and deployed at least three to four times by every engineer in my team.

It is being used for posture management. We have many users coming from many locations. All of them are having the same experience and all are secured. We used to use CASB which is a solution for authentication. This solution is in line with CASB. It helps to ensure that data protection is fine and all the data is coming properly. We can see whether there are any leakages or vulnerabilities. We can check all these aspects of security with this solution. All this is configurable. It is a web-based solution.

Our company is a vendor. If customers want, they can purchase solutions via us. We then take care of the physical box as well as the configuration. We manage the physical as well as the logical. In the case of Palo Alto, it is all logical. We can even code for a customer if the customer wants to upgrade their existing cloud setup, migrate to a cloud setup, or bring in a new setup. It is our bread and butter. We are one of the leading sellers of Palo Alto solutions.

How has it helped my organization?

Prisma Cloud helps reduce vulnerabilities. The number of vulnerabilities is less. If you have 1,200 vulnerabilities, after implementing Prisma Cloud, the number is drastically reduced to 500. That is one of the key advantages of using Prisma Cloud. You can see its benefits within a month.

Prisma Cloud helps to identify all the vulnerabilities in modern scenarios. For traditional scenarios, we have enough products, but a solution like Prisma Cloud helps to identify vulnerabilities in containerized environments and modern traffic scenarios. It helps with run-time security and east-west traffic.

Prisma Cloud helps secure the entire cloud-native development lifecycle, across build, deploy, and run. I would rate it an eight out of ten for this.

As an enterprise architect, I seek three capabilities from a solution. It should be preventative. It should be corrective, and it should be detective. Prisma Cloud is good in these aspects. I would rate it an eight out of ten for these capabilities.

Palo Alto DSPM's discovery and data classification processes are comprehensive. I would rate it an eight out of ten for comprehensiveness. For data security, we have a DLP solution. We have a separate solution. We never use Palo Alto for that.

Palo Alto DSPM provides us with insights into the content it has discovered. It also provides automated discovery of new data assets as they onboard and a prioritized list of all the data security posture issues in our environment.

The security provided by Prisma Cloud is important for our customers, especially for our banking and finance customers. We are a service company. We never use any of these products. I am a security architect. I am the one responsible for assessing and finding the right product and then deploying the product with the help of my engineering team.

Prisma Cloud definitely reduces complexity. We can see the issues or vulnerabilities that have been there for a while. We get good clarity on why they have been there and how to resolve them. Palo Alto is very good at this, and they make complex work quick and easy.

Prisma Cloud drastically reduces the number of vulnerabilities in the organization. There can be 60% to 70% reduction. It also depends on the industry again. For the web-based industry, where the company is providing solutions through the internet, such as share market or banking companies, it is very helpful. Production companies rarely use online solutions. 

With the reduction in vulnerabilities, the security cost automatically reduces. There is an indirect impact on an organization's cost.

What is most valuable?

It is user-friendly. It has a good look and feel and reporting structure. It provides a single pane of glass. These are the things that I like.

What needs improvement?

There should be some kind of automation, AI incorporation, and bot system. All these would add value. For example, AI should be able to detect all related viruses based on one virus. That will be a great invention. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for about five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is stable. I would rate it an eight out of ten for stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is scalable. I would rate it an eight out of ten for scalability.

How are customer service and support?

Their support is very good. I would rate them a nine out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I have worked with Trend Micro Deep Security, Singularity, and Lacework. There is a new vendor called Orca Security. They are phenomenal. They can even beat Palo Alto.

Prisma Cloud is better in terms of cost, GUI, and look and feel. There is a single pane of glass and very good reporting.

How was the initial setup?

Its deployment is straightforward for me. It is deployed across multiple geographies and departments. We mainly work with enterprises.

We have some stringent processes for getting the system to a perfect stage and ensuring that it is running properly. It takes at least a month. We do all sorts of testing, and then based on our test outcome, we configure everything in the right way. After that, we consider the data shown in the report as official.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Prisma Cloud is one of the top solutions in the market. When customers ask for alternatives, I recommend Trend Micro Deep Security, Singularity, Lacework, and Orca to them. I provide them with a detailed comparison, and then customers make the decision. I help customers with architecture design, decision-making, vulnerability assessment, and penetration testing. I also help them compare vulnerabilities before and after implementing a solution.

What other advice do I have?

There were some cases where we struggled with some customer requests such as related to zero trust. We were struggling to configure that. They thought that this product also supported zero trust. We then had to tell them to buy the Prisma Cloud CNAAP solution. In many cases, we also moved them from DSPM to CNAAP.

As a security professional, I would not suggest automated remediation. That is because we need to see that automatic remediation does not impact anything else. We have a team. We register all the vulnerabilities and threats, and then at the backend, we do the testing to ensure that remediation or automated remediation will not create any other problems. As soon as we get that assurance, only then we do the fix. This is a requirement from the customer side, especially from the banking and finance organizations. Because everything is crucial, we do not configure automatic resolution for any of the issues.

Overall, I would rate Prisma Cloud an eight out of ten.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
PeerSpot user
Senior System Engineer Network Manager at Veneto Banca
Real User
Jul 26, 2023
Provides the visibility and control we need, regardless of how complex or distributed our cloud environments become
Pros and Cons
  • "We found it to be easy and flexible. We could easily configure it for our needs, and we could spread the Prisma Cloud platform to 16 countries without encountering any kind of problem."
  • "It can be too expensive for small companies."

What is our primary use case?

We use it for mobile access, and we probably will also adopt a direct connection to our small branch offices across Europe.

How has it helped my organization?

Prisma Cloud has improved the response time and the availability of our applications on-premises and on the cloud for our users in many different countries in Western Europe, Eastern Europe, and the United States.

We use it for our mobile users. Prisma Cloud is a very strong and robust platform that improves endpoint security. The COVID-19 pandemic made us realize that we should be able to permit more or less 50% of our employees to work confidently and securely from home.

Prisma Cloud provides security across multi-cloud and hybrid-cloud environments. We already have developed a direct connection between the Prisma Cloud platform and the Azure Cloud solution. We also have integration with the AWS cloud where most of our servers are now located. It was absolutely a strategic choice for us.

We have decided to adopt almost all the security features that Prisma Cloud offers, such as DNS security, threat prevention, vulnerability analysis, anti-phishing, email, and so on. We did not use Prisma Cloud for security automation capabilities. We have a very specific application for the OTC environment, and we prefer to maintain this environment completely separate from the other world of traditional information technology applications.

Prisma Cloud helps with cloud security, but we are also managing security at many different levels. We have endpoint protection, firewalls, SIEM, and log collectors. We also have dedicated probes that work silently to discover any anomalies, such as zero-day threats, that could be there. We have a Palo Alto firewall, and this cloud solution also has some predefined level of security managed by the cloud provider.

Prisma Cloud provides the visibility and control we need, regardless of how complex or distributed our cloud environments become. We can very quickly and easily analyze the clusters, the connections, and so on. We have very good control over the data flow and any possible security problems. It increases our confidence in our security and compliance postures.

About 50% of our people work from a private network, not inside the company. The protection of the endpoints is more difficult than the protection inside the office. Prisma Cloud can elevate the level of security for people who are working from home or are traveling to another country and so on.

Prisma Cloud provides us with 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 is used by remote users that are working from home, and that is it. It makes our operations easier.

I have daily evidence of any possible new threats that could appear. I get to know how often a threat was blocked and from which client these threats were blocked. We can then very quickly contact the user if there is a compromised endpoint.

Prisma Cloud sends the email and data to the administrative IT staff in case a very severe threat appears. So far, we have not received any alerts related to severe threats.

Prisma Cloud has reduced a lot of our alert investigation time. We have perfect visibility of every single connection from our colleagues who are working from home, a hotel, or any other place. We have activated a mechanism by which the VPN connection is mandatory as soon as the end users switch their computers on. If I have a severe alert, I could investigate the related bad behavior and node in 10 to 15 minutes.

What is most valuable?

We found it to be easy and flexible. We could easily configure it for our needs, and we could spread the Prisma Cloud platform to 16 countries without encountering any kind of problem.

What needs improvement?

It can be too expensive for small companies.

In terms of features, I wouldn't add anything specific. They did a major improvement in the field of reporting. It can automatically produce statistics on usage and so on. This aspect was not very well developed at the beginning of the project, but now, there is a very big improvement in this specific field. Reporting is better than the previous versions, so at the moment, for our needs, the solution is good enough. We might need something in the future, but at the moment, we are not asking Palo Alto for any new developments.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using this solution for half a year. We started the project at the beginning of this year, and at the moment, we have about 2,100 people who use this solution.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is very stable. The platform is quite robust and available. From the time the project was released to other countries, we received one or two tickets for a sporadic problem for some users.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have 4,000 licenses. We have Prisma Cloud in 16 different countries with a total of about 2,100 people. We do not have a large presence in the Extreme East or Middle East, but we have people connecting from Europe and also from Russia. It works perfectly.

Its usage will increase when there is a new acquisition or there is a new office somewhere in the world. 

How are customer service and support?

The customer support is good and professional. I would rate them a ten out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We did not use any similar solution before. We adopted the same VPN technology based on the on-premise firewall that we already had, but there was a very big consumption of bandwidth. It was sometimes a little bit difficult to manage a high number of remote users, and this problem was completely solved by Prisma Cloud.

How was the initial setup?

I was involved in its deployment. It took us about nine months to implement it.

In terms of the implementation strategy, we started with deciding about the site of our company that should be directly connected to Prisma Cloud. We produced an inventory of the applications and identified whether they are located on-premise, on Azure cloud, or on AWS cloud. We then started to configure the server and endpoints inside Prisma Cloud. We established the service connection between the site and Prisma Cloud, and we started to develop the solution for the end users. We selected a subset of users. We selected about 100 people from different departments in different countries to be sure that the solution was working properly in every country and every application environment.

What about the implementation team?

We received very professional and qualified support from both Palo Alto technicians and a platinum partner that normally assists us in developing Palo Alto technologies.

We had two people from Palo Alto for implementation. We had one senior engineer and one junior engineer from Palo Alto. We had two engineers from our partner. We did not have a lot of staff.

In terms of maintenance, Prisma Cloud is subject to periodic updates, and we follow what is required by Palo Alto. For maintenance, we have a colleague of mine and one person from our partner.

What was our ROI?

It was a good investment because now we can manage so many remote users without any problems.

The platform is not famous for being cheap. It is quite expensive, but we know that we have the protection, so there is enough value for what we pay for. It is worth the money.

It takes more or less nine months to realize its benefits.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

This solution is good for a company with at least 400 people that must be connected remotely. For smaller companies, it can be too expensive.

There are no costs in addition to standard licensing. We pay based on the number of users. We have 4,000 user licenses, and we use more or less 60% of our licenses.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We evaluated solutions from Cato Networks and Palo Alto. Because we have quite a large installation of Palo Alto's firewall and in-depth knowledge of this technology, we decided to adopt Prisma Cloud.

What other advice do I have?

I am very satisfied with Prisma Cloud, and we do not have any plans to change to anything else. I am confident that we will retain this solution for a long time.

Overall, I would rate Prisma Cloud a ten out of ten. We have received very positive feedback regarding this solution. I would recommend it to others.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1639854 - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Security Consultant at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 20
May 16, 2023
Provides security across multi and hybrid-cloud environments and covers the full cloud-native stack with a single pane of glass
Pros and Cons
  • "I find the CSPM area to be a more valuable and flexible feature."
  • "The security automation capabilities are average."

What is our primary use case?

We use the solution for three areas, CSPM, CWPP, and Cloud Security.

We use Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks mostly for CSPM. CSPM helps us identify and fix misconfigurations in our cloud environment. This can help us prevent security breaches and improve our overall cloud security posture.

Prisma Cloud also provides CWPP. CWPP helps us protect our cloud workloads from malware, ransomware, and other threats. This can help us keep our data safe and secure.

Prisma's Cloud security is something we are still working on.

The solution is deployed as SaaS.

How has it helped my organization?

The solution provides security across multi and hybrid-cloud environments. However, we are currently only using it for the public cloud. We do not use it for any hybrid solutions, and we are not running any on-premises solutions on it.

The solution covers the full cloud-native stack with a single pane of glass. If we need a holistic view of our security posture, Prisma Cloud is a good option. It provides a single pane of glass for managing our security across all of our CNCF workloads.

Overall, Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks is a very good product. I have been using it for the past four years, and I found it to be very effective in helping me to understand my cloud security posture. 

I will use the CNCF as an example. I really like the complete tool. When we first started to use the cloud, we didn't know what we were doing. Only the admins knew what they were doing wrong and what the threats were in the cloud. Cloud is a shared responsibility between us and the cloud provider. This is true for any cloud provider, such as GCP, Azure, or AWS. We don't have visibility into what admins are doing wrong or right, or how many admins keep our configuration secure. On-premises has parameters, but the cloud does not. The solution provides visibility into what is wrong in our environment, what has been done wrong, and what we can do to correct it. This is because of the configuration and the misconfiguration. From an architectural perspective, if we are doing the first step wrong, there is no point in going to the second step and making it correct. We should make our first step correct. Prisma Cloud provides visibility for us to do this.

Prisma Cloud's comprehensiveness for securing the entire cloud-native development lifecycle across build, deploy, and run is good. The solution provides a single pane of glass for everything, including core security, data security, CSP, CWPP, and EIM security. Other good options are available, but they do not offer a single pane of glass. Instead, they are individual products or modules that must be used separately. Prisma Cloud can improve IM and data security, but if we do not want to use multiple tools, Prisma Cloud is a good option because it offers a single pane of glass for all our security needs.       

Prisma Cloud provides the visibility and control we need, regardless of how complex or distributed our cloud environment becomes. We can see how many complaints and alerts we have, which gives us a sense of security. 

Prisma Cloud enabled us to integrate security into our CI/CD pipeline and add touchpoints into existing dev ops processes.

Prisma Cloud provides us with a single tool to protect all of our cloud resources and applications without having to manage and reconcile discrete security and compliance reports. For operations, the capability of CSPM works well.

Prisma Cloud provides risk clarity at runtime and across the entire pipeline, showing issues as they are discovered during the build phases. Our developers are able to correct issues using the tools they used to code. Some of the results are false positives but the majority are not.

Prisma Cloud helps reduce some of our runtime alerts by 40 percent.

Prisma Cloud helped reduce our investigation time by up to 60 percent. 

What is most valuable?

I find the CSPM area to be a more valuable and flexible feature. We have control in our hands, and we can do anything we want with our cloud security posture management.

What needs improvement?

Prisma covers all the CNCF areas. However, they are not the best in all of them. For example, their identity controls are not the best. They have modules for identity controls, but they are not the best in the market. The same is valid for data security. AWS and Azure have better native data security than Prisma. Individual modules, other than CSPM and CWPP, could be improved.

The security automation capabilities are average. They have a semi-automated remediation policy, but many tools on the market can automatically remediate based on the resource and desired outcome we need. Therefore, I think the automation of alerts could be improved.

The visibility of the reporting data for CI/CD can be improved in our console to make the output visible to management and developers.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks for four years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Prisma Cloud is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Prisma Cloud is a scalable platform that releases new modules every six months.

How are customer service and support?

The technical support is good.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is straightforward for an experienced person who follows the instructions. If we have all the necessary resources, the deployment can be completed in one day.

I first started with the CSPM, then the CSP medium, about a year before moving to computing. I then tried data security for native security and more outside and code security.

What about the implementation team?

We used Palo Alto Networks' Professional Service, which was included in our credit and license. They provided us with assistance with the initial implementation, and we were satisfied with their services.

What was our ROI?

We have seen a return on investment from using Prisma Cloud because it has improved our compliance and security posture.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The pricing is reasonable. However, I think some modules need to be restructured, particularly those related to data security. The licensing model for data security should be compared to the native security offered by AWS and Azure.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We evaluated Wiz and CrowdStrike. We initially started with CSPM, so Prisma Cloud was more flexible. The representative of the Prisma Cloud CSPM was better and more user-friendly. It gave us more permissions, more controls, and it wasn't complex. We could still do whatever we wanted if it was not given by Prisma out of the box. Therefore, we chose Prisma Cloud.

What other advice do I have?

I give Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks an eight out of ten.

If you are new to the cloud and you are not sure where to start, I would recommend using Prisma Cloud. It will give you a comprehensive view of your cloud security posture and help you to identify any areas where you may be vulnerable. You can also use Prisma Cloud to test and evaluate different security controls before you deploy them in your production environment.

Our entire company uses Prisma Cloud. Anything we deploy in the cloud is protected by the solution.

Prisma Cloud does not require maintenance from our end.

If someone is new to the cloud and looking for cloud security, I think the best place to start is Prisma Cloud. Prisma Cloud offers a comprehensive set of security capabilities, including CSPM, workload security, and cloud security. We can start by using the CSPM module to assess our cloud security posture and identify any potential vulnerabilities. Once we have addressed any critical vulnerabilities, we can then move on to the other modules.

Everything is a lesson because we started with no knowledge. We did not know that there would be many risks and offenses involved in our cloud security environment. We need to know all of the risks, and we can overcome them with Prisma Cloud.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
it_user1108272 - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Consultant
Feb 21, 2023
Provides the visibility and control we need, regardless of how complex or distributed our cloud environment becomes
Pros and Cons
  • "The initial setup is seamless."
  • "There needs to be a mechanism that allows me to manually configure compliance more easily."

What is our primary use case?

We use Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks for our cloud security posture management.

How has it helped my organization?

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks has multiple aspects that help protect the full cloud-native stack. We are not concerned with just one cloud at the enterprise level; we are focused on the multiple cloud environments we have. The solution provides us with a comprehensive dashboard and a comprehensive view of our cloud security posture. Furthermore, the solution not only covers the security posture but also informs us of our compliance with leading industry standards.

The solution does have security automation capabilities, but we do not use much of it in this case. We use automation for the alerts; if there are any misconfigurations, the alerts are automated. However, we do not mitigate any specific items using automation, as that is something we have not configured. We prefer to first look at the problem manually, and then take action against it.

There is no single comprehensive cloud security solution. We will need to use multiple tools, such as those offered by Palo Alto Networks and Check Point. Every security firm has a range of products, so if we consider all of them, we can have anti-virus, anti-malware, vulnerability assessment solutions, EDP software, and cloud security posture management. We need to evaluate each tool, and Prisma and Check Point both offer good solutions, including next-generation firewalls.

The solution provides the visibility and control we need, regardless of how complex or distributed our cloud environment becomes.

The solution can enable us to incorporate security into our CI/CD pipeline and add checkpoints to existing DevOps processes. From an automation standpoint, we enabled certain monitoring features. However, the remediation steps are still manual. This can be integrated into our DevOps pipeline, though some of the features are not being used as we prefer to keep it manual.

The solution provides us with a single tool to protect all of our cloud resources and applications, without having to manage and reconcile disparate security and compliance reports.

The solution reduced runtime alerts. We don't need to receive all the runtime alerts every time, as they will overwhelm us with messages. People often neglect this. Depending on the situation, generally, only very important alerts should be sent. I prefer that the solution be configured for when there is a major business impact. For minor alerts and notifications, we can still check the dashboard. Generally, we monitor the dashboards at certain times. We don't need to be alerted for everything, as this will defeat the purpose of this mechanism.

The solution significantly improved the time taken to investigate alerts by 40 percent with the alert monitoring and all its mechanisms, we receive our critical alerts quickly via email. We can even configure the remediation, although we have not done so yet. 

What is most valuable?

I appreciate the multi-cloud support that this solution provides; I can use it with AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud. I find the ability to configure alerts and monitor misconfigurations in the cloud to be particularly useful, and we take advantage of this feature as well.

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks is an impressive solution. The solution continuously assesses our security posture, making it the ideal preventive measure. If any misconfigurations occur, I am immediately notified of any unnecessary ports that are open in my cloud. This alerting system allows me to take the necessary steps to secure it before any attack can occur, making it the best preventive measure for our cloud.

What needs improvement?

I now extensively use cloud security posture management. There needs to be a mechanism that allows me to manually configure compliance more easily. Currently, it requires programming knowledge, so if someone without hardware programming knowledge could customize certain features to their requirements, it would be very helpful.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the solution for five months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is stable because it is a SaaS offering.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Nowadays, all cloud solutions are scalable; scalability should be a given feature and does not need to be asked for.

A maximum of ten people have administrative-level access, which will be used by 50 to 60 Security Operations Center personnel. This personnel must log in with various role-based access rights. In total, we have around 70 people using the solution.

How are customer service and support?

In my previous project, we had a dedicated team associated with the account, so we did not have to pay for support. This was beneficial because, most of the time, we would go to our account team instead of the technical support, and our issues would be resolved quickly.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is seamless. We only need to integrate our API key and connect it.

The deployment took one hour.

What was our ROI?

I can see one return on investment due to continuous monitoring. Before, we had a few staff members who monitored our environment, but now the alerting and other processes happen automatically, so there is a good ROI in terms of resources. Additionally, the security posture of the environment is increased and fewer incidents occur, which improves our response time and resource efficiency. There are also indirect ROIs.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The pricing is competitive; for the most part, the security firms have similar prices. Therefore, I believe it is competitive and a good investment. The solution is good quality, so I would not hesitate to invest in Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks.

What other advice do I have?

I give the solution a nine out of ten.

I absolutely recommend Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks at an enterprise level because the solution is an enterprise-grade product.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Arun Balaji G - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Associate Consultant at Infosys
MSP
Nov 3, 2022
Enables us to automate and increase security without agents, but integrations with third-party vendors need work
Pros and Cons
  • "It also provides us with a single tool to manage our entire cloud architecture. In fact, we are using a multi-account strategy with our AWS organization. We use Prisma as a single source of truth to identify high- or medium-severity threats inside our organization."
  • "Prisma Cloud saves a lot of manual effort that we had to do within our cloud organization."
  • "One of the main backlogs in their development is in the area of integration. For example, we have ServiceNow in place for ticket management and Prisma Cloud is supposed to send closure emails for incidents. But from time to time, it fails to do so. We have several other mismatches between Prisma Cloud and ServiceNow."

What is our primary use case?

It is pretty easy to onboard accounts with Prisma Cloud. We use Prisma Cloud Compute and Prisma Cloud policy management. The latter is our primary solution and we use Compute to manage our container security, including threats and vulnerabilities. But we primarily focus on managing the policies for our entire cloud configs, internal threats, and network patterns.

How has it helped my organization?

For our market requirements, we do need several other services to be maintained for the perfect security posture. For example, one of the primary resources that we are using in our cloud is EC2 instances. That does need some primary security features, like security groups with proper closures, and proper networking with our firewalls. To make sure all of these premade configs are working, Prisma Cloud helps us to identify whenever any deployments meet up with our cloud. It is helpful with our singular architecture.

Prisma Cloud is very helpful with a full native stack. We don't want to leverage any of the resources directly. Instead, Prisma provides us with the services to automate and increase security posture without any internal agents to run it. Other products have internal agents to run with our cloud to help with the security posture of that cloud, but Prisma does not do that. It has a very simple mechanism to onboard the accounts with their console, where we can use the IAM to scan all of the accounts and identify threats and config mismatches.

The solution has also been helpful when it comes to our investigation times because we have fully automated it with our ticketing system. We use ServiceNow and whenever there are any alerts from Prisma Cloud, we have it configured so that they go directly to ServiceNow. That means the user can identify their incident and can resolve it based on the priority of service level agreements. When they do remediate an issue, Prisma Cloud will resolve the alert within Prisma Cloud and ServiceNow will close it on behalf of the user.

Prisma Cloud saves a lot of manual effort that we had to do within our cloud organization.

What is most valuable?

Prisma Cloud policy management is more valuable than Prisma Cloud Compute. While we use Compute often, we are not leveraging container security as much. We have limited resources for the containers in our cloud environment. Sooner or later, we will launch multiple container features in our cloud, but right now, we don't have much scope so we haven't had a chance to explore the Compute side much.

The solution supports multi- and hybrid-cloud environments. It has multiple cloud strategies like GCP and Azure. It has policy fixes for those cloud environments. We leverage it for AWS and it's important that we can use it for that singular platform.

Prisma Cloud also has log retention periods for the alerts and policies that are triggered, for each account. For example, my account has a specific policy that is high severity. If I need to further investigate, I can do that investigation in the upcoming 30 days. After 30 days, the logs of the triggered alert are not retained by Prisma Cloud on the Palo Alto network.

It also provides us with a single tool to manage our entire cloud architecture. In fact, we are using a multi-account strategy with our AWS organization. We use Prisma as a single source of truth to identify high- or medium-severity threats inside our organization.

Another feature is the automation. It has certain types of policies that can identify network-based threats, such as unusual port or protocol activities. It has tremendous machine-learning capabilities to identify patterns.

What needs improvement?

When it comes to automation and machine learning, it still needs some more work because sometimes they can give false positives.

In addition, since cloud services are coming up with new features and solutions, Prisma should also keep up with the same level of security. For example, at the previous AWS Summit, numerous services were introduced. Our businesses wanted to develop some of the services with the features in our cloud, but Prisma hasn't come up with any new APIs. Prisma needs to keep up with quick changes as soon as any cloud platform comes up with a new invention.

And one of the main backlogs in their development is in the area of integration. For example, we have ServiceNow in place for ticket management, and Prisma Cloud is supposed to send closure emails for incidents. But from time to time, it fails to do so. We have several other mismatches between Prisma Cloud and ServiceNow. So we have had to focus on incident management.

Integrations with third-party vendors, such as ServiceNow, Slack, and other ticketing tools that Prisma supports have full automation, but there are still some bugs to fix. We see failures from time to time. When our team fixes vulnerabilities or threats, they still see the incidents in place, which makes them liable to pay for SLA failures. Those kinds of things can be avoided if we have fully fledged event management integration with those tools.

They also need to increase their log retention periods to allow further investigation. Sometimes it takes time to check with asset owners and do deep investigations. Because we have numerous accounts, it can take time for asset owners to investigate each and every alert. The log retention period is one of the cons. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks for more than a year. I started in my role as a cloud security engineer about two and a half years ago, and Prisma Cloud is one of the CSPM solutions that we use.

I use Prisma Cloud every day. It is one of the primary tools I need to monitor and manage the security of our cloud environment. I use it very extensively and my team members use it for identifying threats and managing them with the asset owners.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

In terms of performance, they have cloud releases of security features during the first week of every month. Whenever they release new policies, all of a sudden it starts to throw multiple alerts within our console. It is a bit annoying for the DevOps team, but from a security perspective, it is a useful process. But a pre-announcement or pre-testing of the alerts would be a better way for them to do this, instead of creating 50 or 100-plus alerts for our DevOps. We are suggesting better pre-testing of new policies.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is pretty scalable. When we deploy new AWS accounts within our organization, it applies the same security posture policies to those accounts as well. We can see the security postures it recommends whenever we onboard any new accounts with our organization. The scalability is very good with the management it provides for any accounts we onboard.

Palo Alto Networks is one of the fastest-growing security products in our organization.

How are customer service and support?

From time to time we experience delays in support for critical scenarios. They do have engineering teams at the backend that work with the policies. I understand that. But I'm expecting a more responsive service on their side because sometimes it can even take a week to get a response back from the engineering team.

When we go through the toll-free number to submit a case, they suggest that they are working on it, but sometimes they don't give solutions for such cases for some time.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We used AWS native security, which is Security Hub. They have their own benchmarks which we leveraged. But we wanted to see more variables with the policies to have a stricter and more secure cloud environment so we moved to Prisma Cloud.

We have been customers of Palo Alto Networks for a very long time because they have several security products, including firewalls that we use in our organization.

How was the initial setup?

The deployment was very straightforward. We were able to onboard IAM policies from our AWS master account to our console with a few clicks. We were able to see that Prisma had started to onboard and ingest for alerts and asset variations within our inventory.

What about the implementation team?

We have a security architect and Palo Alto has a security architect. We deployed it together with the support of a Palo Alto engineer.

What other advice do I have?

When we started using Prima Cloud a year ago, we had 7,000-plus alerts. We went through many of the policies that resulted in numerous false positives and we went through the RQL (Resource Query Language) queries that were not applicable to our environment and that created false positives from their side. We reported them with the details via their case submission. They checked on them and they modified some of the alerts as a result of our request. They are progressing with their changes. We have reduced to 500-plus alerts in the past eight months and we are in good shape in terms of security posture.

Overall, I would rate Prisma Cloud at seven out of 10. It has the scalability and easy onboarding where we can onboard an organization with a few clicks and the integration part will take care of the rest. I appreciate that. But the log retention and integration with third-party solutions need improvement.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Gabriel Montiel - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Customer Technical Engineer at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
Vendor
Oct 11, 2022
The alerts and auto-remediation features allow us a lot of flexibility to customize
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable features are the alerts and auto-remediation because it allows us a lot of flexibility to customize and do things the Palo Alto team never intended. We faced some challenges with certificates because we also have next-gen firewalls. We would like to equip all the traffic because there have been many cases in which the developers have done things by mistake. Deploying certificates on virtual machines can be complex in a development environment, but we managed to do that with Prisma Cloud."
  • "Prisma has massively reduced our alert investigation times; it is 50 times quicker, turning an issue investigation from two hours into two minutes compared to a cloud-native solution."
  • "While Prisma provides a lot of visibility, it also creates a ton of work. Most customers that implement Prisma Cloud have thousands of alerts that are urgent."

What is our primary use case?

I work for a monetary provider and handle around five customers. We mostly use Prisma Cloud for CSPN, but we have a banking customer using CWPP. 

Apart from those two use cases, the other customers are not interested in Prisma Cloud's other functionalities because they're green and already have other solutions with partners that they say are more mature. We have not implemented them in the customers' production environment, but we have toyed around with proofs of concept.

How has it helped my organization?

My organization is not primarily a customer. We don't use it a lot because we're a security company that mainly provides customers with solutions using this. That said, visibility is the most significant benefit for our clients because some are so large that they're unaware of what they have. 

They don't have adequate governance over expenses, security, and the parts of the network that are communicating. Prisma Cloud gives them reports that will provide instant insight into what's there. A new feature creates a visual map of networks and communications in the discovery part. It's excellent because you can instantly visualize everything. That's one feature that all the customers appreciate.

It performs well in complicated cloud environments. You only need to add your cloud account credentials. Most of the time, Palo Alto recommends using a full admin account for a service account accessing the tool. The tool works just as well, regardless of the company size. That's one of Prisma's biggest strengths. No matter how big you are, the tool can see everything.

Prisma Cloud can scan any cloud provider. We currently use Prisma on GCP, Amazon, Azure, and Alibaba. We also have Oracle, but I haven't used it for Oracle yet. This is crucial because some customers aren't proficient in managing multiple cloud environments. They only need to go to Prisma Cloud and see what they have because the team managing security is not the same one developing the solutions. 

Prisma offers a single pane of glass that lets you do most of what you want in one place. It's not only configurations but also knowing what you have, and your assets are doing. That's the main selling point of Prisma Cloud. It provides you with visualized reports, whether it's in the cloud, live serverless, containers, etc. 

I haven't toyed with CAB personally, but I think you can do that because you can scan images and deployments. I wouldn't say it gives you a lot of value in that regard because most of the CI/CD issues are application-level problems that Prisma Cloud or any other tool wouldn't help you with. Regarding security, you can deploy agents during the integration deployment and gain complete visibility with total memorability that you might introduce in the pipeline. Still, I think it will be a tiny part of the pipeline.

You will not see the problem if you're running an OGs application. While the developers can pinpoint the issue with the information provided, it will never relate to a piece of code and solve it. No tool can tell you exactly which part of the application is the problem, but a tool can identify which process has a vulnerability. Apart from that, many developers have issues finding the root cause of the vulnerability. When it's a library-related vulnerability, the TVD tells you to use another library or play the library. When your own code has the vulnerability, it's hard to pinpoint that.

Prisma provides a lot of information. You can see real-time alerts and forward them to JIRA or whatever tool you use with API or TVD. It also offers anomaly detection. If an administrator is logging in at weird times and doing strange functions, this tool can notify you about them. The anomaly detection is a correlation engine. You seldom get false positives. When it is a false positive, it's something you would expect. The only times I got a false positive were when the administrator forgot the password and tried logging in 50 times. At that point, they just need to contact support and change the password. 

Prisma has massively reduced our alert investigation times. It's 50 times quicker. Without this tool, we must dig up AWS logs, and the format isn't too accessible. The difference between using this tool to investigate an issue compared to a cloud-native solution is two hours versus two minutes. Digging up two logs using Ctrl-left is not the best approach, and it's the only approach cloud providers give you. 

The solution saved us because it helps us turn off idle machines. Most are machines we have turned on, and we didn't know what they do, but we didn't want to turn them off. Prisma Cloud lets you see the communication flows and the asset's actions on the communication map. If you see a device not communicating, it's easier to investigate what it's doing. Sometimes, it's a device generating reports at a particular time. You can schedule it to turn off when it's not active to save money. You also save money by spending less time solving your issues.

Doing cloud compliance without this tool would be impossible because cloud solutions are huge and highly complex. SOS compliance requires that you provide reports in under 24 hours. That's not possible without an automated tool like Prisma Cloud and the CSPN module. You would need to purchase Prisma or a competitor. It helps a lot because some customers have weird compliance requirements, and you can do it all on Prisma Cloud.

You can create custom compliance configurations according to your customer's needs and set Prisma up to provide the reports every 24 hours. In fact, you can do reports in 10-minute intervals or in real time. The client can access the dashboard and see if they're compliant. C-level executives in any company love that. 

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features are the alerts and auto-remediation because it allows us a lot of flexibility to customize and do functions the Palo Alto team never intended. We faced some challenges with certificates because we also have next-gen firewalls. We would like to equip all the traffic because there have been many cases in which the developers have made mistakes. Deploying certificates on virtual machines can be complex in a development environment, but we managed to do that with Prisma Cloud.

Prisma performs well in a fully cloud-native stack if you run several layers and Kubernetes. It's not so smooth if you migrate VMs into the cloud. Some customers try to do that with Prisma Cloud, but it's not compatible with Windows Server. However, you can deploy serverless containers without issue. You must deploy personal cloud agents into the virtual machines. The agents are called defenders. That module is excellent because you can see communications and vulnerabilities across your environment. It can also scan for malware. It tries to do many tasks at once, say the value it provides is the ability to see communications between devices.

The agent can block the traffic trying to exploit the vulnerability, but it can't fix the problem. That's on the application level. Most of the time, you give the application development team the vulnerability report, and they fix the issue, but Prisma protects you in the meantime. You can sleep well knowing that the agent is blocking the malicious traffic.

They recently added a module called Code Security that enables you to scan repositories or infrastructure as code. You can see concept errors like CSPN problems before the deployment. In tab use cases, it's excellent because you can see if there are misconfigurations in Terraform without having to deploy the instance or whatever you are deploying. That can save you money because sometimes people are deploying machines with problems that are easily fixable. It also improves security because you can fix a vulnerability before you have it with Cloud Security, but that's a rather new solution.

What needs improvement?

The IMD feature could be improved, but Palo Alto is working on that. It's a relatively new module that attempts to identify unnecessary permissions. Prisma Cloud is a platform that adds new modules whenever Palo Alto acquires a company or develops a new solution. The development team is trying to add new features. It also has Click Code Security for infrastructure security, but it doesn't add much value unless your DevOps team is really junior.

While Prisma provides a lot of visibility, it also creates a ton of work. Most customers that implement Prisma Cloud have thousands of alerts that are urgent. It creates a high workload initially. Apart from that, it solves the problems you have. Palo Alto says that 99 percent of breaches come from misconfiguration. I have seen that first hand. I think the fewest alerts a customer had was around 100 still, but they used another tool for that, so that saves a lot.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been working with Prisma Cloud for about 15 months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Prisma's stability is close to 100 percent because it's just a dashboard that connects to your public cloud. It's essentially a website that never goes down, and you could also host it locally if your security requires it. Most of the customers use the Prisma Cloud platform. If it goes down for any reason, the security agents work independently of Prisma Cloud. You send logs to Prisma Cloud and update the configurations via the cloud. However, if the platform goes offline, you still have top-notch security.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

As long as you purchase credits, Prisma Cloud is easy to scale.

How are customer service and support?

I have never contacted Palo Alto support because our team is highly proficient in the solution and the platform is easy to use. You deploy the agents, and it just works. 

How was the initial setup?

It's straightforward to deploy the solution because it's cloud-based, so you just set up an account, username, and password. If you think about it, the Prisma Cloud tool does not do much, but what it does is valuable. It does something simple on a scale that human beings could not do. 

What other advice do I have?

Based on my own experience, I would I rate Prisma Cloud a ten out of ten. However, I haven't compared it with other solutions, so maybe other solutions have more features that Prisma is lacking. My advice is to implement Prisma if it has the features you want but also shop around because I'm sure other solutions are just as good as this one.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: October 2026
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.