Share your experience using Ivanti Neurons for ZTA

Our company's use case is exclusively for VPN, specifically for remote users at this time. We are exploring what other possibilities or functions are available, such as ZTNA and other features, but we have not reached that point yet. The only business case that stacks up currently is the replacement of a legacy VPN with Cisco Secure Access. We are looking to explore further functionalities that come with it.

Using Cisco Secure Access for VPN as a service is key, especially with hybrid working where many users are home-based or traveling around the world. It is crucial that we get the VPN up and running consistently, especially if people need access to secure resources. Based on our use case, I think it has been really good to see the statistics and the number of users connecting daily, and we receive great data from it. There are many more things we can do, such as integration with ThousandEyes and Cisco ISE, but we have not done that yet. For now, we only use the basic functionality, which is a VPN as a SaaS service, but we are looking to expand to zero trust network access and various other features available.

The most valuable feature of Cisco Secure Access is the VPN, which I find very easy to use. It has a great GUI, and it is easily explainable to people. When we have remote users, it is quite easy for them to understand how they can log on, and even setting up the solution, we probably accomplished it in a record 24 hours. We worked with your expert and the product was up and running in 24 hours. We had a few more things to sort out, but it was fully functional in 36 hours with users able to log on. It is a great product.

I do not think there is anything I would improve about the product other than the support issue. I know there are various integration things when it comes to SASE, and Cisco Secure Access is one of the products that will help us in that journey. We have many Cisco routers and there is more we can do with the product, but we have not been able to use it to its full capacity yet, which is one of the plans we are working towards for this year.

I have been using Cisco Secure Access for 14 months.

I find the solution stable. Other than when you do work in your data center, I think that is where we need to improve a bit. When you have planned works in your data center, I think you need to carry out some post-checks to ensure we are not affected as users.

I think it is scalable. You can run much more, and as I mentioned, there are so many things you can do with it. It is just that we need to find a proper business case and get everybody on board; it is going to be a journey.

My experience with Cisco support has been brilliant. We had a couple of issues recently, but I think the team has been very helpful. We had some planned upgrades in Cisco's data center, and after that, we had some posture issues. We escalated to Cisco, and once the issue was identified, we received really good support. I am pleased with the support we have from Cisco.

I would rate Cisco support an eight out of ten. I would have given them a ten if we did not have those issues last week. Based on that, I would probably say eight. The recovery was alright, but I think there is quite a bit of work to do around making us aware of the works taking place and what we need to be aware of. Other than that, I think it is brilliant support from Cisco. I quite appreciate your experts; specifically Luke Abditch has been a brilliant resource. He helped us set up the entire platform.

Positive

The issue from last week was that during planned maintenance, you specifically performed posture checks and updates that had compatibility issues with Cortex. We were not really notified about what it was going to affect. In the morning, when users tried to log on, nobody was able to log in, and we had to get the right people from Cisco on the call to diagnose the faults. I think that is probably an improvement area, so people know what sort of works took place and where we need to concentrate to investigate the issue. After it was identified, I think it was spot on, and we were back up and running.

To make it a ten, I think it is both ways. I have not explored the product to its full extent, so once we make use of it more, then maybe we will face a few more challenges with integration. Other than that, for now, it is an eight for us.

What would help me explore it more is really about getting everybody on board from our side; it is not to say it is a Cisco issue. It is more us trying to inform people about what else we can do with this product. We do not want to rock the boat, but we want to do it in a phased manner.

Cisco could help me with onboarding more users and features. My overall review rating for Cisco Secure Access is eight out of ten.

Our main use cases for Cisco Secure Access focus on information security direction in companies like banks, and we are implementing it in on-premise or cloud systems while integrating it into third-party vendors, particularly with information security teams.

I appreciate the posturing feature of Cisco Secure Access because it is very useful, especially when our company needs a hybrid system combining on-premise and cloud systems to work together with security; there are many features, and while I cannot tell you specific ones because it is part of the business, I basically value all of them.

I can provide that these features of Cisco Secure Access benefit not only our company but also the business that implements this approach, as our company is a professional team who knows how it works, and we are implementing what they need; our benefit is that we know it very well, and Cisco also supports us in this direction while we develop our IT and security knowledge.

When we started to use features such as AI assistance in Cisco Secure Access, it became very helpful for the IT and infosec staff because they have more visibility, and as an operational team, it saves them time.

I evaluate the AI Access feature of Cisco Secure Access as very new at this moment since we are just starting in a testing regime; we are now working on trusting everything about how it works, but I can say that deep dive visibility is more available now than it was before with these AI assistance features.

We are integrating Cisco Identity Intelligence with Cisco Secure Access, and it is the engine of everything.

This integration influences our identity management and security measures to be 100% better than they were before.

Cisco Secure Access could be improved with fewer bugs; we need to address less software bugs, as there are technical issues and errors in the software, which we are trying to resolve to achieve a more stable version that companies can use without issues, but it is a working process, and we understand this.

We started to use Cisco Secure Access about two years ago, especially in the government and financial sector, so we have two years of experience.

Technical support from Cisco is very helpful.

I would rate technical support a nine and customer service a 7.5.

The ratings reflect our region; it is not a global assessment, but in our region, it is this way.

Positive

Prior to adopting Cisco Secure Access, we were using another solution to address similar needs.

My experience deploying Cisco Secure Access is that it is very intuitive for a technical team, though the challenge lies in understanding the underlying processes; once that knowledge is acquired, deploying Cisco Secure Access becomes much easier, and if the team does not understand how the underlay routes work, that presents complexity.

I have not seen a return on investment with Cisco Secure Access.

Setup costs and pricing for Cisco Secure Access are not our case since we are doing it ourselves, and I think the pricing and licensing are acceptable and comparable to other solutions.

We are using Cloudflare, and I believe the factors that led us to consider a change involve the different approaches of Cloudflare compared to Cisco Secure Access, which depend on business requirements.

Before choosing Cisco Secure Access, we considered using Palo Alto Prisma, and compared to Cisco, Palo Alto is a more expensive option for business, which is one of the most differentiated reasons why we are using Cisco Secure Access at this moment.

The help desk ticket volume and end-user experience have been impacted by Cisco Secure Access deployment such that it may take two to three months, with a reduction of two times.

We are just starting to use the AI assistant feature in Cisco Secure Access.

At this moment, I cannot answer how effective AI supply chain risk management is specifically for the pre-enforcement controls for developers downloading AI models because I have no experience.

I use ZTNA in Cisco Secure Access every day.

Cisco Secure Access is client-based or clientless, depending on business requirements.

It is always difficult to transition the mindset of the company to Zero Trust and least privilege principles, but after deep dive work, it works.

After integrating identity management and ISE in the company, everybody starts to use all policies and begins understanding the security policies; it is a unified solution for all business segments, not just IT, which has greatly benefited the entire company and influenced its development.

We do not use the Experience Insights feature, Digital Experience Monitoring, or DEM powered by ThousandEyes of Cisco Secure Access at this moment in our company.

In comparison to past years, Cisco Secure Access has improved very well at this moment.

It is very flexible, a very competitive solution, very helpful, and very secure; it includes everything a business needs, and the pricing is also available.

I advise other companies considering Cisco Secure Access to first evaluate their business requirements, then make a demo to compare with other solutions, and subsequently try to step-by-step migrate all their services and policies, ensuring they achieve the best solution for their IT and security teams. I would rate this review a nine overall.