Share your experience using Symantec VIP Access Manager

I am an IT system support person, and my use cases with Cisco Duo started out with helping clients at my firm and the firms my contracting agencies had by teaching them how to set up Cisco Duo and understand how to use it. Eventually, some of the systems I have access to on my own, usually the corporate systems and employee portals, were Cisco Duo-protected. It has been a split between using Cisco Duo and Microsoft Authenticator, depending on how the MFA has been set up. I started out as IT support, helping people install Cisco Duo on their Android and Apple devices, and I believe they actually had a computer client. Eventually, I had to use it in my own work to authenticate and gain access to the systems I support. Moreover, I have seen a lot of it used to access employee portals, either by end-user employees or my own employee portals.

My last access to Cisco Duo involved helping people either activate their Cisco Duo accounts on their individual Apple or Android devices, or if they were locked out, unlock their accounts or move them over to a new device.

The features I use in Cisco Duo include Duo Pushes to confirm my identity to the device, and eventually as MFA security was increased, I actually had to use exchange passcodes. Sometimes, I have to go into the site and get into Cisco Duo to retrieve the passcode, and many of them have been two-factor, where the sites send a passcode that I have to enter into Cisco Duo. It has been more of the latter.

I have not seen issues with lagging or crashing on Cisco Duo's end; it was usually on the client end, often because someone set up a bad upgrade or there were connection issues with the Cisco Duo cloud through the administrative site.

As support, I do not find it an issue with Cisco Duo product itself; it is more an issue of organization administration. Often, people do not receive expiration messages, and sometimes, for security reasons, accounts get disabled without notifying the end user, so they mistakenly think something has gone wrong when it really just needs to be re-enabled on the external system. It is primarily an issue on the administrative side of the firm I am working for.

I am familiar with Cisco Duo and have probably been using it since around 2020.

Cisco Duo seems very scalable. In my experience, I started with a small-medium business, and in my last contracting position, it was a large one for a major worldwide airline that had hundreds of thousands of devices that could use Cisco Duo, and it scaled very well. The administrative site was also very easy to navigate for locating people and devices. I also have a background in computer asset management, so I have the skill set to locate device records easily.

In terms of quality and speed of support for Cisco Duo, I find it just as fine as any other Cisco product. It is simpler at the endpoint; there is much less involved in calling technical support to resolve issues compared to other Cisco products. I have also dealt with firewalls and VPNs, and I can say that Cisco Duo administration is much less involved than other Cisco areas. I would rate support for Cisco Duo a 10, as I have never had a negative experience.

Positive

My experience with MFA is primarily Cisco Duo and Microsoft Authenticator, and I have used them both similarly, either as pushes for allow or deny or as stronger MFA requirements such as exchanging passcodes. From my experience, Cisco Duo seems a lot easier to install and operate. In helping add accounts to either my devices or to the devices of the people I am supporting, both systems work well. I can get passcodes or utilize QR codes. One thing I noticed about my current firm is their initial hesitation to consider QR code exchange secure, but eventually, it was re-enabled to reduce support times. As an administrator, I have done both, pushing activation to pre-installed devices already registered to a system or actually sending people a QR code to their email, and both methods worked fine with personal and corporate email.

The setup of Cisco Duo is easy. Most of the time, the setup took me walking the end user through the installation over the phone, but if they understood how to get to their App Store or Play Store, it takes probably under two minutes. Most of it depends on wide area network or internet speed; activating directly on a client device versus sending an activation email makes a difference. If it is all set up and requires only sending an activation code message, it is about a minute. Cisco Duo installs very quickly on Android and Apple devices, provided the Wi-Fi connection is good.

From what I was involved in with Cisco Duo, we actually conducted Cisco Duo pushes through the management systems, enabling that through MDMs, the Bomgar. I found it pretty easy to grab the latest version of the Cisco Duo installer to update the packages on our management systems. I do not remember having any problems; it is one of the easier applets to package or to already find packaged.

I am currently between jobs or contracts, but I believe for the MFA administrator, it would help if they set up the filters for gathering the data. Cisco Duo seems very scalable. In my experience, I started with a small-medium business, and in my last contracting position, it was a large one for a major worldwide airline that had hundreds of thousands of devices that could use Cisco Duo, and it scaled very well. The administrative site was also very easy to navigate for locating people and devices. I also have a background in computer asset management, so I have the skill set to locate device records easily. I have given this review an overall rating of 10.

Fortinet FortiAuthenticator was implemented as a multi-factor authentication solution to serve as a second barrier for accessing and unlocking devices. However, Fortinet FortiAuthenticator was limited to endpoint devices only and could not scale towards web applications.

The main purpose for integrating Fortinet FortiAuthenticator into my workflow was security, serving as a second barrier of protection on our endpoint devices. It was quite effective and worked well for its intended use, but its limitation in functionality prompted us to transition to a Cisco solution.

Fortinet FortiAuthenticator stood out for its robustness and reliability. It never failed us in the purpose it was designed for and worked quite effectively across our team.

Fortinet FortiAuthenticator was fast, easy to use, and integrated well with all endpoints regardless of brands or peripherals. It performed well on endpoints from both sides without any issues.

Fortinet FortiAuthenticator impacted my organization positively by improving our security posture. It added another barrier to accessing our devices, which was its intended purpose. Although some users complained about the extra step, that complaint reflected the solution's core function rather than a flaw.

I tracked the improved security with Fortinet FortiAuthenticator as a general feeling of improved safety. It provided more than a single point of entry through just a password. Having the authenticator and an additional form of entry made it effective and more secure.

Fortinet FortiAuthenticator could be improved in its cost structure. Although it is not expensive, other solutions offer more value for less money. Cisco Duo provides better value in this regard and connects to web applications much more easily, scaling effectively in that sense. While I have never used Cisco Duo to secure other devices in IoT environments, I know Cisco Duo is capable of doing so, whereas Fortinet FortiAuthenticator cannot. Additionally, Cisco Duo is also cheaper. These are the main reasons why we switched away from Fortinet FortiAuthenticator, as it was very limited compared to other solutions available.

Fortinet FortiAuthenticator was primarily missing the ability to scale to web applications.

I used Fortinet FortiAuthenticator for one year before switching to Cisco Duo.

Fortinet FortiAuthenticator is very stable. I experienced no reliability or downtime issues.

Fortinet FortiAuthenticator was easy to scale. When new employees joined, we had sufficient licenses and simply installed the application for them.

I never reached out to Fortinet FortiAuthenticator directly for customer support. Our IT team handled support matters, and we never experienced major issues that required direct customer support involvement.

Fortinet FortiAuthenticator was the first solution we used, so I did not have prior experience with a different solution.

I have not seen hard metrics on return on investment from using Fortinet FortiAuthenticator specifically. However, there was a general impression of improved safety and the importance our organization placed on security by implementing and enforcing this type of solution. I am certain that even without metrics, it made our organization safer.

My experience with Fortinet FortiAuthenticator's pricing found the pricing to be good. There are better solutions available in the market. Overall, Fortinet FortiAuthenticator is an inexpensive solution compared to some other security solutions, providing a simple but effective fix.

Before choosing Fortinet FortiAuthenticator, we evaluated Cisco Duo, Fortinet, and Microsoft. We selected Fortinet FortiAuthenticator because we already had a Fortinet deployment in our organization, so we chose to use the same solution we already had.

My first advice for others looking into using Fortinet FortiAuthenticator is to ensure it is the best fit for your environment, meets your cost budget, and aligns with your scalability needs. I gave this review a rating of six out of ten. I have no additional comments about Fortinet FortiAuthenticator.