Policy Analyzer and Optimizer

Security Cloud Control provides the Policy Analyzer and Optimizer, which is an intelligent cloud service that can analyze security policies, detect anomalies, and provide recommendations on remediations that can be performed to optimize the policies.

About Policy Analyzer and Optimizer

Policy Analyzer and Optimizer is an AgenticOps capability in Security Cloud Control Firewall Management. It evaluates firewall policy rules and identifies duplicate, shadowed, redundant, expired, mergeable, and overlapping conditions that can make a policy harder to maintain or slower to deploy.

For more information, refer to AgenticOpsInsights to know more about the various other functionalities that AgenticOps provides.

Policy Analyzer and Optimizer is an intelligent Security Cloud Control Firewall Management service that:

  • supports access control policies and Network Address Translation (NAT) policies for Cloud-Delivered Firewall Management Center and supported Security Cloud Control-managed On-Premises Firewall Management Center data sources.

  • analyzes firewall policies and detects rule anomalies

  • helps you understand where a policy can be optimized, and

Capabilities and benefits

Secure Firewall Threat Defense devices with extensive policies may have numerous duplicate or shadowed rules. Such large policies with unoptimized rulesets can lead to excessive consumption of device memory, delayed loading of rules, and long search duration, resulting in inefficient security policy enforcement, reduced network speeds, and extended deployment durations.

Policy Analyzer and Optimizer can perform these functions:

  • View policy health and optimization opportunities for the selected management center data source.

  • Analyze policies on demand or rely on scheduled analysis that runs every 24 hours.

  • Download analysis reports as PDFs after analysis completes.

  • Use Access Control Policy Analyzer and Optimizer remediation workflows where supported.

  • Use Network Address Translation Policy Analyzer and Optimizer findings and AgenticOps insights to investigate NAT policies that contain optimizable rules.

  • Stage and apply remediation for an entire anomaly category, selected observations, or individual rules within supported observations.

Table 1. Supported policy types for Policy Analyzer and Optimizer

Policy type

Use this section when

Current scope

Access control policy

You want to analyze access control policies, review access control findings, and apply supported remediations.

Analysis, remediation, reporting, remediation history, and policy insights.

Network address translation policy

You want to analyze NAT policies for shadowed and redundant NAT rules.

Analysis and reporting for fully shadowed and fully redundant NAT rules. NAT remediation is not available in this release.

Common Policy Analyzer and Optimizer concepts

Policy Analyzer and Optimizer uses these shared concepts across access control policy analysis and NAT policy analysis.

Table 2. Common Policy Analyzer and Optimizer concepts

Concept

Common behavior

Policy-type difference

Data source

A Cloud-Delivered Firewall Management Center or an On-Premises Firewall Management Center selected in Policy Analyzer and Optimizer.

The Access Control tab can be used for supported On-Premises Firewall Management Center data sources. The Network Address Translation tab is available only when Network Address Translation Policy Analyzer and Optimizer is enabled through AgenticOps for the selected data source.

Sync

Fetches current policy inventory and metadata, including newly created, deleted, or modified policies.

Sync does not, by itself, create a new analysis summary. If the policy changed after the last analysis, run analysis again or wait for scheduled analysis.

Analysis

Evaluates selected policies and produces policy health information, observations, and report data.

Access control Policy Analyzer and Optimizer evaluates access control rule and object findings. Network Address Translation Policy Analyzer and Optimizer evaluates NAT rule shadowing and redundancy.

Reporting

Provides a downloadable analysis report after analysis completes.

Access control Policy Analyzer and Optimizer also provides remediation reports after supported remediation is applied.

Remediation

A workflow that stages selected changes and applies them only when you select Apply Remediation.

Available for access control policies. Network Address Translation Policy Analyzer and Optimizer does not provide an Apply Remediation workflow.

You can stage remediation for an entire anomaly category, selected observations within a category, or individual rules within an expanded observation.

You can also select individual rules within an expanded observation. Using the suggested remediations, you can disable or delete selected Duplicate Rules and Expired Rules, remove selected fully overlapped objects from rules, and merge selected Mergeable Rules.

Requirements: Prerequisites to use Policy Analyzer and Optimizer

General prerequisites

Before you use Policy Analyzer and Optimizer, verify the prerequisites that apply to your policy type and data source.

  • Integrate each On-Premises Firewall Management Center with Security Cloud Control.


    Note


    In the On-Premises Firewall Management Center, navigate to Integration > Cisco Security Cloud and check the Enable Policy Analysis & Optimization checkbox after integrating with the Cisco Security Cloud.


  • The Cloud-Delivered Firewall Management Center must be provisioned in Security Cloud Control Firewall Management.

Access control policy prerequisites

Verify these access control policy requirements.

  • Access control policy analysis is supported on the On-Premises Firewall Management Center operating on Version 7.2 or later. The Cisco-recommended Version is 7.6 or later, because these versions support cross-launch to Policy Analyzer and Optimizer directly from On-Premises Firewall Management Center.

  • Access control policy to be analyzed must be associated with a Firewall Threat Defense device that is managed by an On-Premises Firewall Management Center integrated with Security Cloud Control.

  • The policy is synchronized to Security Cloud Control and appears on the Access Control page.

Network address translation prerequisites

Verify these NAT policy requirements: NAT policy analysis requires specific version requirements and AgenticOps enablement.

  • The On-Premises Firewall Management Center runs Version 7.6 or later.

  • NAT policy analysis is supported on the On-Premises Firewall Management Center operating on Version 7.6 or later. For more information, refer to Enable AgenticOps Insights.

  • AgenticOps is onboarded for the organization and the selected management center data source, or an existing-customer grace period is active.

  • Enable AgenticOps for the Cloud-Delivered Firewall Management Center or On-Premises Firewall Management Center data source that you want to analyze. Choose Insights & Reports > Settings > Policy Analyzer and Optimizer > Data Sources and enable AgenticOps for the management center you want.

  • The NAT rules to be analyzed are enabled. Policy Analyzer and Optimizer excludes disabled NAT rules.

If an On-Premises Firewall Management Center is running a version earlier than 7.6, access control Policy Analyzer and Optimizer may still be available for analyzing access control policy, but Network Address Translation Policy Analyzer and Optimizer is not available for that data source.

Enable Policy Analyzer and Optimizer for Security Cloud Control-managed On-Premises Firewall Management Center

This task enables Policy Analyzer and Optimizer functionality for your On-Premises Firewall Management Center to provide policy analysis and optimization capabilities through Security Cloud Control.

Onboard your On-Premises Firewall Management Center to Security Cloud Control, navigate to Administration > Integrations > Firewall Management Center, select the On-Premises Firewall Management Center, and choose Policy Analyzer and Optimizer under System in the right pane. See Onboard an On-Premises Firewall Management Center for more information.

If you have an On-Premises Firewall Management Center Version 7.6 and want to use Policy Analyzer and Optimizer, follow these steps:

Procedure


Step 1

In your On-Premises Firewall Management Center, navigate Integration > Security Cloud Control.

Step 2

If you have not integrated your On-Premises Firewall Management Center with Cisco Security Cloud, click Enable Security Cloud Control and follow the steps. To authorize the cloud integration, you must choose an existing Security Cloud Control tenant or provision a new one, to which your On-Premises Firewall Management Center will get onboarded, after the cloud integration is successful.

Step 3

After integrating your On-Premises Firewall Management Center with Security Cloud Control, check the Enable Policy Analyzer and Optimizer checkbox and click Save.


Policy Analyzer and Optimizer licensing requirements

Policy Analyzer and Optimizer requires no additional licensing. It comes as part of the Security Cloud Control Firewall Management base subscription.

An On-Premises Firewall Management Center customer can use Policy Analyzer and Optimizer through an existing Security Cloud Control organization or a tenant provisioned during Cisco Security Cloud integration without purchasing the Security Cloud Control Firewall Management base license. Other Security Cloud Control Firewall Management capabilities can require the base subscription and applicable device licenses.

Open Policy Analyzer and Optimizer and select a data source

Use this task to access policy analysis and optimization capabilities for your firewall management systems.

You can open Policy Analyzer and Optimizer from Security Cloud Control Firewall Management or cross-launch from supported On-Premises Firewall Management Center policy pages.

Follow these steps to open Policy Analyzer and Optimizer and select a data source:

Procedure


Step 1

In the Security Cloud Control Firewall Management left pane, choose Administration > Integrations > Firewall Management Center.

Step 2

Select Cloud-Delivered FMC or an On-Premises Firewall Management Center.

Step 3

Click Policy Analyzer and Optimizer under System.


Note


Alternatively, choose Insights & Reports > Policy Analyzer and Optimizer.


Step 4

Use the data source selector at the top of the Policy Analyzer and Optimizer page to choose the Cloud-Delivered Firewall Management Center or On-Premises Firewall Management Center whose policies you want to review.

Step 5

Choose the Access Control tab depending on the policy type that you want to analyze.


Note


If the selected data source is not enabled for AgenticOps, the Network address translation tab shows a message indicating that the NAT Policy Analyzer and Optimizer require AgenticOps for the selected data source. However, you can still utilize the access control Policy Analyzer and Optimizer if the access control prerequisites are met.



Sync and analysis behavior

Sync and analysis behavior is a Policy Analyzer and Optimizer functionality that

  • displays policy metadata, including analysis status, last modified time, and last analyzed time

  • tracks when policies were last modified in the management center and when analysis was last performed, and

  • provides synchronization capabilities to fetch the latest policy inventories from management centers.

Policy metadata and synchronization details

Policy Analyzer and Optimizer displays policy metadata, including analysis status, last modified time, and last analyzed time. Last modified reflects changes made to the policy in the management center that manages it. Last analyzed reflects the analysis run that produced the current Policy Analyzer and Optimizer summary.

Use Sync with FMC to fetch the latest access control and NAT policy inventories and modified timestamps from the management center. Each Policy Analyzer and Optimizer tab shows the sync success or failure status for the policy type on that tab. If a policy was modified after the last analysis, the displayed analysis can be out of date until you run analysis again or a scheduled analysis runs.

Search and filter policies in Policy Analyzer and Optimizer

Use the Search for access control policies field and the Status field to narrow the access control policy list.

Search helps you find a policy by name. Status filtering helps you find policies by analysis state, such a Healthy, Error, In progress, Analysis pending, Optimizable, or Analysis out of date.

The image illustrates the Search and Status fields used to filter access control policies, highlighting their functionality in narrowing down the policy list based on name and analysis state.
  • Search for access control policies: Finds access control policies that match the policy name you enter.

  • Status: Filters access control policies by their current analysis state.

Access control policy analysis and optimization

Access control policy analysis and optimization is a security management process that

  • analyzes access control policies using the Access Control tab

  • reviews access control policy findings, and

  • applies remediations that Policy Analyzer and Optimizer supports for access control rules and objects.

Prerequisites

After provisioning a Cloud-Delivered Firewall Management Center or onboarding an On-Premises Firewall Management Center to your Security Cloud Control Firewall Management organization and creating policies, you can start analyzing them using the Policy Analyzer and Optimizer.

For more information, refer to Onboard an On-Premises Firewall Management Center and Enable Cloud-Delivered Firewall Management Center on Your Security Cloud Control.

Analyze access control policies

This task allows you to assess an access control policy before making changes, review policy health, or re-run analysis after policy updates.

If a policy has not been analyzed, you can start a new analysis. If the analysis is out of date, you can re-analyze the policy to refresh the results.


Note


When you create a new policy, it might take a while for the Policy Analyzer and Optimizer to fetch the policy details and show up on the Policy Analyzer and Optimizer. Click the refresh (The Policy Analyzer interface displays options for assessing and analyzing access control policies, including buttons for starting a new analysis and refreshing the results.) button on the top-right corner to manually refresh the page to see new policies.


Procedure


Step 1

Choose Insights & Reports > Policy Analyzer and Optimizer.

The image illustrates a flowchart detailing the steps involved in analyzing access control policies, highlighting key decision points and actions required for effective policy evaluation.

Step 2

In the right pane, select Cloud-delivered FMC or an On-Premises Firewall Management Center from the drop-down list as the data source whose policies you wish to analyze.

Step 3

In the Access Control area, select the policy you want to analyze or review.


Note


  • For an unanalyzed policy, click on Analyze Policies.

  • If the policy status indicates Analysis out of date, click on Re-analyze Policy under Analysis Actions on the right.


The Overall summary section displays the total number of rules categorized by their health status: healthy, disabled, or unhealthy, for the selected management center (Cloud-Delivered Firewall Management Center or On-Premises Firewall Management Center).

The dashboard also highlights specific anomalies within your unhealthy rules. You can review the count and percentage for the categories: Shadowed rules, Expired rules, Mergeable rules, Redundant rules, Partially overlapping rules, Fully overlapping objects.


The Policy Analyzer and Optimizer displays the analysis results, showing rule health status and identifying any policy anomalies that require attention.

Access control policy analysis summaries

An access control policy analysis summary is a dashboard that

  • provides insights on rule health, usage, and anomalies through visual representations

  • displays right-pane summary information when you select a policy, and

  • enables access to detailed analysis and optimization options.

Policy analysis summary components

When analysis completes, select an access control policy to review the right-pane summary and click View analysis details and optimize.

Alternatively, you can click the ellipse button associated with a policy and select View details to see the right-pane summary.

The right-pane summary displays key insights about the selected access control policy, including the status of rules categorized as healthy, disabled, expired, and anomalous.

The analysis summary includes these components:

  • Overall summary: Provides insights on how many rules are healthy, disabled, expired, and contain anomalies, using a pie chart for the selected access control policy. You can also hover over the part of the pie to view the percentage of rules.

The analysis summary for the access control policy displays a pie chart illustrating the health status of rules, including counts of healthy, disabled, expired, and anomalous rules. Users can hover over the pie sections to view the percentage of each rule category.
  • Rule usage history: Shows how recently rules were used, with time periods.

The pie chart illustrates the distribution of healthy, disabled, expired, and anomalous rules within the selected access control policy, allowing users to hover over sections for percentage details.
  • Rules with Anomalies: Provides insights on how many rules have anomalies.

The image illustrates a summary of access control policy analysis, highlighting rule usage history, rules with anomalies, and insights on hit counts for various rule types, including allow, block, monitor, and trust.
  • Hits rules & dead rules: Provides insights on hitcount of expired rules, for rule types including allow, block, monitor, and trust.

The image illustrates a summary of access control policy analysis, highlighting rules with anomalies, hit counts for expired rules, and application insights regarding detected traffic without restrictions.

In remediation tabs such as Duplicate rules, Expired rules, Mergeable rules, Overlapping objects, and Policy insights you can select the check box next to a category to stage all observations in that category, or expand the category and select specific observations or rules. Available actions depend on the anomaly type.

Duplicate rules in access control policy

Duplicate rules are access control policy rules that

  • are shadowed or redundant rules with anomalies detected by analysis

  • include fully shadowed rules that will never evaluate network traffic because another rule that precedes it overshadows this rule, and

  • include fully redundant rules that are part of another larger rule, such that removing this redundant rule does not impact network traffic.

Duplicate rule analysis

The Duplicate Rules tab lists shadowed and redundant rules with anomalies:

  • A Fully Shadowed rules is one that will never evaluate network traffic because another rule that precedes it over shadows this rule.

    The image illustrates the Duplicate Rules tab in an access control policy, highlighting fully shadowed and redundant rules that may affect network traffic evaluation.
  • A Fully Redundant rules is one that is just a part of another larger rule, such that removing this redundant rule does not have an impact on the network traffic, because the traffic evaluation that this rule must perform is already performed by another rule.

    The Duplicate Rules tab displays a visual representation of shadowed and redundant rules in an access control policy, highlighting anomalies and their relationships to network traffic evaluation.

You can remediate all duplicate-rule observations in a category, selected fully shadowed or fully redundant observations, or individual rules within an expanded observation. For selected duplicate rules, choose Move to disabled state or Move to delete state. Disable rules first when you want to measure the impact before deleting them.


Note


Expand each observation to review the affected rules before you stage a remediation. Each rule in the list is displayed with a set of attributes; click the settings button on the top right to select which rule attributes you want to display along with the rule.


When duplicate-rule remediation removes shadowed or redundant rules and retains a base rule, Policy Analyzer and Optimizer adds a standardized comment to the retained rule. The comment identifies the retained rule and the removed rules, which helps you audit the cleanup.

After you stage the selected duplicate-rule remediations, you can still Undo them before clicking Apply Remediation. It is recommended that you disable rules first to measure the impact and delete them later, because deleting them permanently removes them.

You can enable the disabled rules any time by navigating to the Cloud-Delivered Firewall Management Center or the On-Premises Firewall Management Center on which the rules are present.

Analyze expired rules in access control policy

Analyzing expired rules in access control policy is a policy management feature that

  • lists rules that were configured with a time range and the time range has expired

  • provides rule information such as the date on which the rule expired, hit count, last hit time, and the time range, and

  • enables remediation of expired rule observations through selective actions.

Expired rules remediation options

You can remediate expired rules using these methods:

  • All expired-rule observations in the category

  • Selected expired-rule observations

  • Selected expired rules

For selected expired rules, you can choose these actions:

  • Move to disabled state

  • Move to delete state


Note


Only selected rules are changed when you apply remediation.


The Expired Rules tab displays this information in the interface.

The Expired Rules tab shows selected expired-rule observations and available actions, including moving rules to a disabled or delete state.

Mergeable rules in access control policy

Mergeable rules are access control policy rules that

  • have similar allow and block settings

  • can be consolidated into a single rule to optimize policy management, and

  • are identified and listed in the Mergeable Rules tab for review and remediation.

Mergeable rules management process

You can review the mergeable-rule observations and stage remediation for the entire category, selected observations, or individual rules within an expanded observation. Click Merge Selected to merge only the staged items. Unselected mergeable-rule observations remain unchanged until you stage and apply remediation for them.

The Mergeable Rules tab displays a list of mergeable rules for review and remediation in the access control policy management process. Users can select and merge consecutive rules, with the first selected rule being updated with the merged criteria.

Note


When you select individual rules to merge, select only consecutive rules. The first selected rule in the sequence is updated with the merged rule criteria, and the remaining selected rules are removed. You can start the merge from any rule in a consecutive set. The first rule in the observation does not need to be selected.


Overlapping objects in access control policy

Overlapping objects in access control policy are network objects that

  • contain IP addresses or port numbers that are either the same or a complete subset (fully overlapping)

  • contain some subset of repeated IP addresses but not all (partially overlapping), and

  • are listed in the Overlapping Objects tab for analysis and remediation.

Overlapping object types and remediation

The system identifies two types of overlapping objects:

  • Fully overlapping objects: Objects where the IP addresses or port numbers are either the same or a complete subset. For example, if a rule contains an object for 192.168.1.1 and another for 192.168.1.0/24, the 192.168.1.1 object is fully overlapped by the other object and is not needed in the rule.

  • Partially overlapping objects: Objects where some subset of IP addresses are repeated, but not all addresses overlap.

For fully overlapped objects, you can remediate all fully overlapped observations in the category, selected observations, or selected rules. Click Remove All Fully Overlapped Objects from Rules to remove fully overlapped objects only from the staged items.

For partial overlaps, you need to evaluate each occurrence, determine if any changes can be made, and implement those changes directly by editing the objects.

Fully overlapping objects analysis

This example shows the analysis interface for fully overlapping objects:

Figure 1. Fully overlapping objects interface
The analysis interface for managing fully overlapping objects in access control policy, illustrating options for remediation and removal of observations.

Partially overlapping objects analysis

This example shows the analysis interface for partially overlapping objects:

Figure 2. Partially overlapping objects interface
The analysis interface for partially overlapping objects in an access control policy, illustrating how different objects interact within the policy framework.

Policy insights in access control policy

Policy insights in access control policy is a monitoring feature that

  • tracks rule usage through hit count information from all devices assigned to the policy

  • provides filtering capabilities based on actions, hit information, and time periods, and

  • enables rule management through disable or delete operations for unused or underutilized rules.

Policy insights filtering options

The Policy Insights tab has a Hit Count section that initially lists any rules that have never been triggered (Never Hit Rules). The hit count information is from all devices that are assigned to the policy. You can change criteria and see other hit count information, for example, Not Hit Rules for the past six months, or Hit Rules over a selected time period. You can filter the rules using the actions set in the rules, hit information, and time period:

  • Never Hit Rules—Rules that have never been hit from the time they were created.

  • Hit Rules—Rules that have been hit in the selected time period.

  • Not Hit Rules—Rules that have not been hit in the selected time period.

Select the rules that you want to disable or delete, and select Disable Rules or Delete Rules. These changes are staged until you select Apply Remediation. First, disable the rules when you want to measure their impact before deleting them.

Figure 3. Policy insights interface
The policy insights interface displays hit and not hit rules within a selected time period, allowing users to manage rule statuses by disabling or deleting them before applying changes.

Access control policy remediation

Apply remediation to fix access control policy anomalies that were identified during policy analysis. This process helps optimize policy performance by addressing issues such as unused rules, shadowed rules, and overlapping objects.

Policy Analyzer and Optimizer stages remediation changes before it updates the policy. You can stage remediation for an entire anomaly category, selected observations, or individual rules within an expanded observation. Before you apply remediation, unselected observations and rules remain unchanged and available for later selection in the same analysis report.

Review staged changes before you select Apply Remediation. After you apply remediation, you cannot apply more changes from the same analysis report. To remediate remaining anomalies, run policy analysis again on the updated policy and use the new report.

Before you begin

  • Back up all policies before you apply remediation.

  • Ensure that at least one remediation is staged. If no remediation is staged, Apply Remediation is disabled.

  • Verify the Policy Last Modified and Policy Last Analyzed timestamps, and review the number of rules that are staged for remediation.

Procedure


Step 1

In the Policy Analyzer and Optimizer page, select the policy to see details about the analysis on the right pane and click View analysis details & optimize.

Step 2

Click the remediation tab that contains the anomalies that you want to fix.

Step 3

Expand a remediation category. Select the check box for the category to stage all observations, or select the check boxes for specific observations or rules to stage only those items. Repeat this step in other remediation tabs, as needed.

The access control policy remediation process is illustrated, showing the steps involved in identifying and addressing policy violations to enhance security compliance.

Step 4

Select the remediation action that applies to the staged items, such as Move to disabled state, Move to delete state, Merge Selected, Remove All Fully Overlapped Objects from Rules, Disable Rules, or Delete Rules.

The access control policy remediation process is illustrated, showing the steps involved in identifying and addressing policy violations to enhance security compliance.

Step 5

Review the staged remediation. If you need to change the staged remediation before applying it, use the available undo or discard action.

Step 6

Click Apply Remediation.

Step 7

Read the confirmation message, which summarizes the remediations that will be applied. Confirm that the selected policy and staged remediation are correct.

Step 8

Click Apply.


Note


For an On-Premises Firewall Management Center in which the Change Management Workflow is enabled, when policy remediations are applied, an internal workflow ticket is created and the changes are staged. The changes take effect only when the ticket is submitted or approved. See Change Management in Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center Administration Guide for more information.



After remediation is complete, the selected rules are updated. Policy Analyzer and Optimizer automatically analyzes the updated policy and generates a refreshed summary that shows any remaining issues. Verify the intended changes in the corresponding access control policy.

Download access control analysis report

The access control analysis report provides a PDF summary of completed remediations for a selected policy. It includes only the remediation categories that apply to the changes you selected and applied.

Each section lists the rule name, remediation action, and related comments. For example, if no duplicate rules were remediated, the report excludes the duplicate-rule remediation section.

The report includes only the remediation sections and rule details for remediations that you selected and applied. Unselected anomalies are not included in the report.

Procedure


Step 1

In the Policy Analyzer and Optimizer page, click Access control.

Step 2

Select an access control policy, and in the right pane, click Download analysis report.


The report can include these sections:

  • Remediation Summary

  • Hit Count Remediation

  • Expired Rules Remediation

  • Duplicate Rules Remediation

  • Mergeable Rules Remediation


Note


To determine whether a policy is remediated by the Policy Analyzer and Optimizer, navigate to Policies > Access Policies and edit a policy to view the rules in the Policy Editor. When a policy is remediated, a comment is added to the rules that are optimized.

You can also filter all the optimized rules using "updated by Policy Analyzer and Optimizer" to view all the remediated rules.

During duplicate rule remediation, the retained rule is updated with a comment specifying which rule was preserved and which were removed.


Network address translation policy analysis

Network Address Translation policy analysis is a security management capability that

  • analyzes NAT policies to find rules that are shadowed or redundant

  • helps identify rules that are not contributing to effective NAT behavior

  • provides understanding of which rule owns the conflict, and

  • enables downloading of NAT analysis reports for review.

NAT Policy Analyzer and Optimizer requirements

NAT Policy Analyzer and Optimizer has these requirements:

  • NAT Policy Analyzer and Optimizer is available only when AIOps is enabled for the tenant and for the selected data source.

  • For On-Premises Firewall Management Center, NAT Policy Analyzer and Optimizer requires Version 7.6 or later.

  • If NAT Policy Analyzer and Optimizer is disabled in AIOps settings, NAT Policy Analyzer and Optimizer operations are blocked for all data sources.

  • When AIOps is enabled for a data source, Policy Analyzer and Optimizer initiates the initial NAT synchronization and analysis for onboarded data sources.

  • NAT Policy Analyzer and Optimizer performs analysis at the management center level, not on a per-device basis.


Note


Disabled NAT rules are excluded from being analyzed by the Policy Analyzer and Optimizer.


NAT policy analysis

NAT policy analysis is a security optimization feature that

  • analyzes Cloud-Delivered Firewall Management Center and On-Premises Firewall Management Center NAT policies

  • categorizes NAT findings into shadowed rules and redundant rules, and

  • uses Policy Analyzer and Optimizer to optimize network address translation configurations.

NAT finding types

NAT Policy Analyzer and Optimizer reports these NAT finding types.

Table 3. NAT finding types and meanings

NAT finding

Meaning

How to interpret it

Shadowed NAT rule

A rule that will never evaluate network traffic because another rule that precedes it over shadows this rule.

Review the shadowing rule and the shadowed rules together. A rule is marked shadowed only when the overlap is complete for the compared dimensions.

Redundant NAT rule

A rule can be removed without changing the final NAT behavior because another rule can handle the traffic with the same effective NAT action.

Policy Analyzer and Optimizer checks the translated action for redundancy. Matching traffic criteria alone is not enough when translated source, destination, service, or PAT behavior differs.

NAT rule sections and comparison behavior

NAT Policy Analyzer and Optimizer follows the high-level NAT evaluation model used by Cisco Secure Firewall NAT policies. NAT rules are evaluated in section order: Manual NAT before Auto NAT, Auto NAT, and Manual NAT after Auto NAT.

The NAT section determines the rule comparisons that can be reported by NAT Policy Analyzer and Optimizer.

NAT section

What it contains

NAT Policy Analyzer and Optimizer comparison behavior

Manual NAT before Auto NAT

Manual or twice NAT rules evaluated before Auto NAT.

Rules in this section can be compared with rules in the same section, Auto NAT, and Manual NAT after Auto NAT.

Auto NAT

Object NAT rules whose device order is determined internally.

Auto NAT rules can participate in comparisons with Manual NAT before or after sections. NAT Policy Analyzer and Optimizer does not report shadowed or redundant rules within the same Auto NAT section.

Manual NAT after Auto NAT

Manual or twice NAT rules evaluated after Auto NAT.

Rules in this section can be compared with rules in the same section and with rules from earlier comparable sections.

Supported NAT address families for Policy Analyzer and Optimizer

NAT Policy Analyzer and Optimizer supports these address-family flows.

Flow

Traffic family

Notes

NAT44

IPv4 to IPv4

Supported for standard IPv4 NAT and PAT behavior.

NAT66

IPv6 to IPv6

Supported for IPv6 NAT behavior.

NAT64

IPv6 to IPv4

Supported when cross-family behavior is explicitly configured.

NAT46

IPv4 to IPv6

Supported when cross-family behavior is explicitly configured.

NAT policy analysis summary

When analysis completes, select a NAT policy to review the right-pane summary and click View analysis details.

The policy-specific page displaying the anomaly details is shown.

The NAT policy analysis summary displays a pie chart illustrating the health status of rules, indicating the number of unhealthy, disabled, and healthy rules for the selected NAT policy. Hovering over the pie segments reveals the percentage of each rule category.
The NAT policy analysis summary displays a pie chart illustrating the health status of rules, indicating the number of unhealthy, disabled, and healthy rules for the selected NAT policy. Hovering over the chart segments reveals the percentage of each rule category.
  • Overall summary—provides insights on how many rules are unhealthy, disabled, healthy, using a pie chart for the selected NAT policy. You can also hover over the part of the pie to view the percentage of rules.

  • Total anomalies—shows the number of rule anomalies detected in the selected NAT policy. Also indicates how many unhealthy rules contain those anomalies.

Download NAT analysis report

Download a comprehensive NAT analysis report that contains policy metadata, analysis timestamps, summary charts, counts for healthy, disabled, shadowed, and redundant rules, and tabular observation details to evaluate your NAT policy configuration.

The NAT analysis report becomes available after NAT policy analysis is complete and provides detailed information about rule configurations including NAT section, rule type, direction, interface objects, and service details. Use this report to evaluate whether changes are needed in the management center.

Follow these steps to download the NAT analysis report:

Procedure


Step 1

In the Policy Analyzer and Optimizer page, click Network address translation.

Step 2

Select a NAT policy, and in the right pane, click Download analysis report.


The NAT analysis report downloads as a PDF. The detailed rule information includes NAT section, rule type, direction, source and destination interface objects, original source, original destination, original service, translated source, translated destination, and translated service. NAT Policy Analyzer and Optimizer does not apply NAT remediations in this release.

NAT policy remediation

This task helps you resolve duplicate-rule anomalies in NAT policies by applying targeted remediation actions to affected rules.

Policy Analyzer and Optimizer stages NAT remediation changes before it updates the policy. You can stage remediation for individual rules or for all rules in a duplicate-rule observation.

The available actions depend on the NAT rule type:

  • Manual NAT rules: You can delete or disable selected manual rules

  • Auto NAT rules: You can only delete Auto NAT rules, but you cannot disable them.


Note


Back up your policy before applying any remediation. The changes made modify the NAT policy and cannot be automatically reverted.


Before you begin

  • Ensure that NAT policy analysis is complete and that duplicate-rule observations are available.

  • Verify the Policy last analyzed and Policy last modified values for the policy that you want to remediate.

Procedure


Step 1

In Policy Analyzer and Optimizer, select the NAT policy and under Analysis Actions, click View analysis details to open its analysis details.

Step 2

Click Duplicate rules and expand fully shadowed or redundant rules section that contains anomalies.

Step 3

Expand the observation that contains the rules that you want to remediate.

You can select the rules or select the observation to stage all rules in that observation.

Figure 4. NAT rule remediation
The NAT rule remediation process allows users to select specific rules or observations to stage all associated rules for manual actions, such as deleting or disabling selected rules.

Step 4

Click Stage changes.

Step 5

In Select rules to remediate, select the action for each rule type:

  • Manual rules: Delete all selected or Disable all selected

  • Auto NAT Rules: Delete all selected. You cannot disable Auto NAT rules.

Step 6

Select Confirm staging.


Note


Staged changes are visible to any user who opens the policy in Policy Analyzer and Optimizer. They remain until a user selects Discard or Apply Remediation, or until a new analysis runs after the policy is edited.


Click View details to inspect and review the staged changes. You can click Undo or Discard to revise the staged remediation.

Step 7

Select Apply Remediation.

Step 8

On the Apply NAT duplicate-rule remediation page, verify the policy and the number of rules to modify, and then select Apply remediation.


After you apply the remediation, Policy Analyzer and Optimizer updates the selected NAT rules and automatically starts a new analysis because the previous analysis is stale. While the new analysis runs, the Observations column for the NAT policy shows In progress. After analysis completes, review the refreshed duplicate-rule observations and policy status. If no analyzed anomalies remain, the policy can show a healthy status.

View NAT remediation history

Use remediation history to review when the remediation ran, the job that ran it, the user who started it, the remediation status, and the report for that version.

After you apply remediation to a NAT policy, Policy Analyzer and Optimizer records the remediation as a version in remediation history. The history lists the latest version first.


Note


Remediation history records changes applied to the NAT policy. It does not indicate whether the updated policy has been deployed to managed devices. Deploy the policy separately as required.


Before you begin

Apply remediation to the NAT policy. Remediation history is available after the policy has at least one remediation version.

Procedure


Step 1

Open Policy Analyzer and Optimizer and click the Network address translation tab.

Step 2

Select the NAT policy that you want to review. The policy analysis details open.

Step 3

Under Remediation Actions, select View remediation history. The link shows the number of remediation versions that are available.

Step 4

Review the remediation history. The list displays the latest remediation version first and then the older versions.

Step 5

Review the date and time, Job ID, user, download option, and Remediation Status for each version.

For a completed remediation, select Download to download the remediation report.

The remediation report is a PDF that summarizes the selected NAT remediation, its status, and the resulting changes to the policy.


Note


Policy Analyzer and Optimizer displays up to 10 remediation versions, from the latest version to the oldest available version.



You can view the remediation history for the NAT policy, including version details, status information, and download remediation reports for completed versions.

NAT Policy Analyzer and Optimizer and AgenticOps insights

NAT Policy Analyzer and Optimizer and AgenticOps insights are an integrated monitoring system that

  • detects NAT policy anomalies through automated analysis

  • raises NAT policy anomaly insights when issues are detected, and

  • provides navigation capabilities to review anomaly counts and access affected data sources or policies.

NAT anomaly insight management

When NAT Policy Analyzer and Optimizer analysis detects NAT policy anomalies, AgenticOpscan raise a NAT policy anomaly insight. From AIOps Insights, you can review NAT anomaly counts by data source, open the affected data source or policy, and navigate back to the NAT Policy Analyzer and Optimizer analysis details.

Navigation: Insights & Reports > Summary.

The image illustrates the process of dismissing a NAT anomaly insight, highlighting the implications for future analysis and detection of NAT anomalies.

If you dismiss a NAT anomaly insight, it is dismissed for the current insight occurrence. A later scheduled analysis can raise the insight again if NAT anomalies are detected again.

Troubleshooting Policy Analyzer and Optimizer

Read the following sections to troubleshoot any issues with the Policy Analyzer and Optimizer:

Troubleshoot policy analyzer and optimizer analysis issues

This task helps you identify and resolve workflow errors that prevent Policy Analyzer and Optimizer from analyzing policies.

If you notice that Policy Analyzer and Optimizer is not analyzing policies despite clicking Analyze Policy, you can check for workflow errors and resolve them.

Procedure


Step 1

Navigate Administration > Integrations > Firewall Management Center.

Step 2

Select the On-Premises Firewall Management Center or Cloud-Delivered FMC for which the policy analysis is not happening and choose Workflows under Actions on the right pane.

Step 3

If you see that the latest workflow's Current STATE shows up as ERROR, expand the workflow and scroll to the last action whose END STATE is ERROR.

Step 4

Click ERROR Message under the RESULT column to see a detailed ERROR message or click Stack Trace to see the series of exceptions that occurred, which caused the ERROR.

Step 5

Resolve the ERROR or contact Cisco TAC for assistance.


You have identified the workflow ERROR preventing policy analysis and can now resolve the issue or escalate to Cisco TAC for further assistance.

Policy analyzer and optimizer does not fetch policies

This task resolves issues when policies are not displayed on the Policy Analyzer and Optimizer page in CDO, ensuring proper integration between your FMC and CDO services.

If policies on your On-Premises Firewall Management Center are not displayed on the Policy Analyzer and Optimizer page on Security Cloud Control, perform these steps to restore policy visibility.

Procedure


Step 1

On the On-Premises Firewall Management Center, navigate Integration > Cisco Security Cloud.

Step 2

Ensure that the Enable Policy Analyzer and Optimizer checkbox is checked.

Step 3

(Optional) In the left navigation pane of your Security Cloud Control tenant, navigate Administration > Integrations > Firewall Management Center, and ensure that the On-Premises Firewall Management Center is active and reachable.


The Policy Analyzer and Optimizer service is now properly configured and should display policies from your FMC on the CDO page.

Frequently asked questions about Policy Analyzer and Optimizer

This reference provides answers to frequently asked questions about Policy Analyzer and Optimizer functionality, capabilities, and limitations.

Can Cisco AI Assistant analyze and remediate policies instead of manually doing it using Policy Analyzer and Optimizer?

The Cisco AI Assistant collaborates with Policy Analyzer and Optimizer to scrutinize policies with anomalies and notify users. However, the AI Assistant cannot automatically analyze and remediate policies.

Can Policy Analyzer and Optimizer detect new changes to an already-analyzed policy and run analysis again on the same policy?

No, the Policy Analyzer and Optimizer can analyze policies only when manually triggered or at a 24-hour scheduled policy analysis run.

For a shared policy, does the Policy Analyzer and Optimizer provide individual device-based reports?

No. The Policy Analyzer and Optimizer provides reports only based on the access policy analysis data.

I am an On-Premises Firewall Management Center user. Should I purchase the Security Cloud Control base license to use the Policy Analyzer and Optimizer?

No. The Policy Analyzer and Optimizer comes as part of an existing or a newly created Security Cloud Control tenant during the Cisco Security Cloud integration.

I provisioned a Security Cloud Control tenant when I integrated my On-Premises Firewall Management Center with the Cisco Security Cloud. What other features, except Policy Analyzer and Optimizer, can I leverage in Security Cloud Control?

You can only leverage Policy Analyzer and Optimizer capabilities of this Security Cloud Control tenant. To use other features of Security Cloud Control, you need to purchase the Security Cloud Control base license and other device-specific licenses.

For an On-Premises Firewall Management Center on which the change management workflow is enabled and there are policies with pending changes to be approved, can the Policy Analyzer and Optimizer still apply remediations those policies?

No. The remediation will be hindered with an error saying the policies are locked for use.

Is there a maximum number of rules that Policy Analyzer and Optimizer can analyze in a policy?

There are no such limits. The Policy Analyzer and Optimizer can analyze any number of policies and rules. However, when the policies have more number of rules, the analysis takes a long time too.

What is the difference between disable rules and delete rules? which is the better option?

Deleting a rule removes the rule completely from the device memory. However, disabling a rule keeps it in the device memory as a backup and does not get deployed to the device.

If a policy remediation fails when it is partially done, are the changes automatically revoked by Policy Analyzer and Optimizer?

No. In such a case, you get a failure notification and a remediation report. You can read the report to know which rules were impacted by the half-done remediation, manually revoke the changes, and start the remediation all over again.