PA 500 home use

[tmolleck]

My employer is starting to use PAs, and as a networking person I want to get much more comfortable with them, I wanted to buy an small one off ebay to use as my home router. I won't need global protect, OR wildfire as I just want to run the PA as a router in a "less critical" environment. If I do get one off ebay are there license fees that I'm going to be surprised by or those all additionals rather than required?

[SteveCantwell]

Maybe a different recommendation is to download a VM version of a PANW FW, and use it like a "lab in a box", with VMWare Player.

Gets you used to the gui, basic policies, etc.  BUT... still unlicensed, you will not get many sessions (like only 10 or so), but the point to become familar with the FW GUI.   Again, just a 2cent idea.  😛

[RobinClayton]

$500 seems a bit overkill for home use to me.

We do have a VM Lab unit in the office that we can play with, but once you have spent a couple of hours with a PA your more or less done with learning the basics. 

Rob