Starting with Palo Alto Networks - What I wish I had known...

[carnould]

Beginnings are not always perfect.  Whether you started your Palo Alto Networks journey years ago or just recently, tell us what you learned early on that you wish you had known before. 

If there was one thing, or maybe more, Live Community users would love to hear about it.  Share your stories, your tips to help other users along the way.

Read a tip you like, make sure to like it or let them know by commenting!  

The most popular and helpful stories will get you a cool new Live Community t-shirt!

Looking forward to reading all the great stories!

@carnould

[carnould]

Hi @DPoppleton, Could you check your inbox or spam folder? I sent you an email on 4/7.  If you can't find it, send me an email at carnould@paloaltonetworks.com.  Thanks! Christine

[Lora]

The difference between FUEL Palo Alto User Group, and LIVEcommunity?  

[BillyeMoore]

I wish I had time to utilize all the CBT training resources available and build a cheap lab.

cbt nuggets  - good source of basic training

Udemy has some great training as well and it is cheap and easy to follow. 

Access to a long term demo vmware version of PANOS for training would be helpful, I know we can get these through our sales channel but would love to get a good usable free VM to use with all options and limited connectivity. 

Also I came from a networking background but hear stories of information security folks who do not and they have problems learning the networking basics. The ACE is decent but needs more teeth and something like network + or CCNA type certs should be required.. 

[DarinSutton]

wow - many things...I  wish I knew then

1 - Sys logs (not packet cap nor widgets) for VPN troubleshooting

2 - when reading Traffic logs - open detailed view then bottom has firewall policy - missed that first 2-3 months

3 - reports are useful - there are many canned reports that i could schedule...

---side note - cant always make the custom report look like the canned report

4 - add widgets for anything you want to have a quick peak

5 - ACC - build custom tabs to monitor tricky scenarios over many days/weeks

6 - VPN to Cisco not as easy as other vendors - fortunatley there is a document for that

7 - newapps - started when we had 1000 or so - they keep coming and if I'm not on top of them and reading the release notes I can easily/accidentally block something ( default action) that we needed

8 - and a biggie - read the notes when a commit fails/or succeeds and there is a bunch words after.... commit succeeded but.......

9 - one i miss - no POLICY hit count - had in other vendors

10 - not an easy way to see ip to user-ID in the GUI

just a few off the top of my head - still enjoy working with these boxes tho

of 2 more

test policyies and other items  from cli - nice

sign up for the security notices from PAn, Fuel, Unit42

[gefuchs]

Wish I had known you could open a medium priorty support case and not get a response for over a week.