09-24-2022 08:39 AM
Hi @Redman ,
According to Palo Alto End-of-Life policy - https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/services/support/end-of-life-announcements/end-of-life-policy a hardware end-of-life date is 5 years from the end-of-sale date. And end-of-sale will be annouced with 6 months advance.
As you can see here - https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/services/support/end-of-life-announcements/hardware-end-of-life-dat... PA-5200 series are not yet annouced to be end-of-sale, nor end-of-life. Even if they annouce it tomorrow you still will have 5,5 years before reaching end-of-life.
I am not sure how much you can count on this, but PA-5000 was annouced around 2011 and it was End-Of-Sale on 2019, which could means that PA-5200 series annouced around 2017, could be End-Of-Sale around 2024, giving it 2029 for end-of-life...But you never know how much power will be required for the next-next-gen firewall 🙂
You can use the compare tool to see how many resources you will need to reach similar performance as PA-5250
https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/products/product-comparison?chosen=pa-5250,vm-series%2520(22%2520vc...
As you can see PA-5250 is actually a beast and VM-series having hard time reaching the same performance.
I personally prefer hardware appliance for environmnet that will require performance that is suitable for PA-5200 series.
It would be better to gather some statistics and see at what level the current PA-5250 is utilized.
Here is relativley outdated video, but still giving some good basic guidance around the end - https://knowledgebase.paloaltonetworks.com/KCSArticleDetail?id=kA10g000000ClmvCAC
If you are using Panorama, it is the most easiest way to see performance trend Panorama >Managed Devices > Health > All Device
