How to select firewall model

[d.spider]

We are planning to have new firewall pair at one of our branch offices. Now we need to decide which model we should buy? Could you please help to know on which parameters we should decide our approach? We also need to consider future requirements and increase in the user head counts while deciding it.

[SutareMayur · Accepted solution]

Hi @d.spider 

There are various points which needs to be consider while selecting the appropriate firewall model like various features and levels of security required. Additionally, choosing a firewall is mostly dependent on the size, scope, different features set requirement and scale of your company. You can refer below article to get specifications of different firewall models along with its throughput and capacity. You can also need to consider the feature set requirements like threat protection, URL filtering, Advanced requirement for Global Protect, DNS security etc as it needs to have separate license for such features.

https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/products/product-selection#

Hope it helps!

[d.spider]

The provided link gives much of the details about the models. Thanks for your response and sharing details. This is helpful 

[TomYoung · Accepted solution]

Hi @d.spider ,

The Product Summary Specsheet, https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/resources/datasheets/product-summary-specsheet, is a great tool for firewall selection.  Throughput will be the most important factor, and you will want to take into consideration decryption and growth.  Your Palo Alto Networks SE can give you specific throughput numbers for decryption.  A good rule of thumb is to size your model without decryption, and then pick the next model up.  Decryption is critical because the subscriptions are almost useless without it.  Ninety % of web traffic today is encrypted.

Thanks,

Tom

[d.spider]

Thanks Tom.. this is also helpful. Both the posts gives me lot of clarity on the points that I should consider. Thanks again to Sutare as well.

I am glad that I came to the community. I am learning various this through each of answer on my questions. 😊

[d.spider]

After lot of internal discussions and brainstorming, we have now finalized our target firewall model. Both posts really helped us while making our decision. Thanks to the Live community members. Happy to be part of it.

[SutareMayur]

Hey @d.spider ,

Glad to know that above replies helped you! And yes, we all members are happy to be part of such an awesome community. 😉