Palo Alto: Panorama Models Comparison

Centralized management of firewalls is a common requirement for all IT network administrators. The centralized management enables management of firewalls having diverse hardware, scaling capabilities, performance parameters such as log throughput, concurrent sessions, interfaces and capability management.

Palo Alto Panorama virtual appliances offer flexibility and scalability. The M-series hardware is ideal for small deployments scaling requirements. While higher series in this range (M-500/600/700) support larger enterprises with supporting management of large number of devices, having higher throughput, and advanced features such as distributed log management in large and complex environments. Higher versions support more core count, higher interface speeds (1G/10/40/100), capacity of logs and overall firewall number count.

In today’s article we will understand the difference between Palo Alto – Panorama models, their key differences, how they are used and what is in store for the future.

What is Panorama

Panorama enables effective management of firewalls configuration and monitoring with centralized management. The Panorama major capabilities are:

Centralized deployment and configuration – simplified central management and rapid deployment of firewall devices and Wildfire appliances. Templates can be created to implement device configuration via groups that can be used to manage local and shared policy rules.
Central oversight with aggregated logs for analysis and reporting – all managed firewalls activities logs are recorded, aggregated and investigated to report issues. Network traffic, user activities comprehensive review enables better response for potential threats supported by robust security policies to enable applications securely on the network.
Administration is distributed – deletion and restricting access to firewall administration to specific groups using role based access control.

Palo Alto – Panorama Models Comparison

Panorama Models Comparison
Features	Panorama virtual appliance	M-600	M-500	M-200	M-300	M-700
Platforms supported	Installed on Alibaba cloud, AWS, AWS Govcloud, Microsoft Azure, Google GCP, KVM, Hyper-V, Oracle OCI, ESXi server, VMware vCloud Air.	Dedicated hardware appliance	Dedicated hardware appliance	Dedicated hardware appliance	Dedicated hardware appliance	Dedicated hardware appliance
Throughput	Depends of assigned virtual resources (RAM/CPU)	10 Gbps throughput supported	10 Gbps throughput supported	1 Gbps throughput supported	1 Gbps throughput supported	1 Gbps throughput supported
Log capacity	Collects firewall logs locally – 20,000 logs per second	Collects firewall logs over 10,000 logs per second	Collects firewall logs over 10,000 logs per second	Collects firewall logs over 10,000 logs per second	Collects firewall logs over 10,000 logs per second	Collects firewall logs over 10,000 logs per second
Firewall management	Can manage up to 2500 firewalls	Can managed up to 5000 firewalls	Can managed up to 5000 firewalls
Interfaces	Any interface supported	MGT, Eth1, Eth2, Eth3	MGT, Eth1, Eth2, Eth3	MGT, Eth1, Eth2, Eth3	MGT, Eth1, Eth2, Eth3	MGT, Eth1, Eth2, Eth3
Features	Dedicated log collectors supported for higher logging rate	RAID driver for firewall logs storage and RAID 1 mirroring	RAID driver for firewall logs storage and RAID 1 mirroring	RAID driver for firewall logs storage and RAID 1 mirroring	RAID driver for firewall logs storage and RAID 1 mirroring	RAID driver for firewall logs storage and RAID 1 mirroring
		Log storage SSD based	Log storage SSD based	Log storage SSD based	Log storage SSD based	Log storage SSD based
		Hot swappable power supplies	Hot swappable power supplies	Hot swappable power supplies	Hot swappable power supplies	Hot swappable power supplies
		Template based reusable configurations	Template based reusable configurations	Template based reusable configurations	Template based reusable configurations	Template based reusable configurations
		Zero touch provisioning	Zero touch provisioning	Zero touch provisioning	Zero touch provisioning	Zero touch provisioning
Use cases	Ideal for cloud or mixed deployed	Large setups, data centers, service providers, complex multi-region deployments	Large setups, data centers, service providers, complex multi-region deployments	Ideal for branch offices, mid-size	Ideal for branch offices, mid-size	Large setups, data centers, service providers, complex multi-region deployments