Firewall Change and Compliance for 700+ Network Devices

The Challenge

A Fortune 50 U.S. home improvement retailer with a highly distributed network struggled to manage firewall policy changes and compliance at scale, relying on a legacy NSPM tool that increased complexity and forced manual, error-prone workflows. As firewall volumes and policy counts grew, the security team faced mounting challenges maintaining PCI and NIST compliance, supporting IPv4 and IPv6 in a single change process, and integrating with enterprise ITSM systems. With hundreds of firewall changes each month and increasing audit pressure, the organization needed a modern NSPM platform to safely accelerate change while restoring compliance confidence.The company sought to:

• Accelerate firewall change execution without increasing outage or security risk
• Establish continuous, audit-ready compliance across PCI and NIST frameworks
• Simplify and standardize change governance across hundreds of network devices
• Support IPv4 and IPv6 growth within a single, scalable change workflow
• Integrate firewall change management seamlessly with enterprise ITSM workflows

The Solution

The retailer selected FireMon to centralize firewall visibility, modernize change governance, and deliver continuous compliance across its hybrid environment. FireMon automated pre-change risk analysis, normalized policies across hundreds of network devices, and continuously validated PCI and NIST compliance while integrating seamlessly with enterprise ITSM workflows. The result was faster, safer firewall changes with reduced policy sprawl, without sacrificing control or audit readiness.

• Automated pre-change risk and impact analysis to identify potential outages and security violations before changes are applied
• Policy normalization and unified device support to manage consistent rules across hundreds of firewalls and routers
• Continuous compliance validation against PCI, NIST, and internal security policies with audit-ready reporting
• Native ITSM integrations to streamline change approvals, eliminate manual handoffs, and enforce governance
• Policy optimization and rule cleanup tools to reduce rule sprawl, remove unused entries, and improve performance over time

Results

• Accelerated firewall changes, reducing ticket turnaround from weeks to minutes
• Fewer outages and misconfigurations through automated pre-change risk analysis
• Continuous PCI and NIST compliance validation with audit-ready reporting
• Improved scalability and performance across 350+ firewalls
• Clear path to future expansion, including physical store firewall coverage