Share your experience using Cisco ScanSafe Web Security SaaS

Our company used the solution as a cloud filtering service for customers where we filtered URLs based on groups or categories. 

It is valuable to be able to block whole categories or groups at one time such as messaging and email access. 

The solution is not supported because it is legacy and almost out of market. 

The solution was acquired by IronPort and the idea was to integrate it as part of their web security cloud that worked with their on-premises web security appliance. 

Soon after, IronPort was acquired by Cisco and the solution was integrated with several other products and routers because it could route all HTTPS and HTTP traffic to its cloud. 

Now, Cisco promotes use of Umbrella instead of the solution. 

I started using the solution thirteen years ago but have moved to next generation products. 

The solution is super stable because it is made up of a bunch of mega proxies. Its cloud architecture is very resilient and online 24/7. 

Any problems are local in nature and have to do with directing traffic. 

The solution is scalable and has a huge capacity. 

You may experience delays if you are sending requests outside of websites because the proxy has to download and provide content. Speed is dependent on many factors including the combination of networks, tasks, locations, and networking services. 

Things have become a bit more complicated than with classic website models where the server contained content so there was a straight connection. Now there are distribution networks and other services that are all configured to work differently in various directions. 

At the end of the day, URLs are still URLs so their categorization remains the same. 

Based on what I have read, there has not been support for the solution in the last two years. 

I worked at IronPort so was using the solution during the initial acquisition. 

The ease of setup depends on the users or the employer mileage and involves two steps. 

The first step is configuration and that is pretty straightforward. You go to a webpage where you are provided with a list of selections and conditions depending on your network or the traffic you are routing. From there, you also decide if you want to feature certain categories or groups for websites. 

The second step is redirecting traffic from browsers to the cloud. This can be tricky because there are many methods such as subscriptions with authentication, routers, or firewalls. For example, the biggest challenge with pack deployment is considering how people browse, how browsing occurs in secure environments, and what protection is in place for local clouds and networks. It is very important to know how traffic is going to be pulled from a website so that risks are managed. 

We implemented the solution for customers. 

The solution is a smart product but a bit out of its time because stronger integrations exist today. 

Umbrella is Cisco's more modern, feature-rich product that includes a free service for open DNS. You can redirect DNS requests or block them based on certain categories, groups, or types of sites such as banking. 

The solution was a revolutionary product in its time but is now legacy. I originally acquired the solution because it was a pioneer and great product. I do not know its current bandwidth but have heard it is retired with no support provided in the last two years. 

I think it is a good idea to explore Umbrella or other products that better fit today's needs. 

For example, ASAs used to go to proxy and HTTP traffic used to go to the solution. The solution's principles have been incorporated in next generation ASAs which can handle both jobs. 

I rate the solution a seven out of ten because it is a retired product. 

It works as a firewall for this packet filtering and stateful filtering firewalls

It is an easy solution to implement. 

The web security is great. The filtering of different URLs has been very helpful. 

It also acts as a firewall, which is quite helpful in terms of security. 

We've used it for content scanning and filtration in the data center.

Since this is on the cloud, the cost has gone down. It's got good features and is easily manageable.

Cisco is rather well-known and robust. 

If you know that the latest viruses are coming, that data vulnerabilities are there, you need to be ready. The customer is always  looking for speed and security to protect them from those new vulnerabilities, whatever there are. That is very, very important for customers. The solution needs to ensure they are constantly updated. They need to be improving in this regard constantly. They need to continue to increase security coverage. 

Other than that, we haven't faced many issues. 

The licensing could be better. They are an expensive product.

We've been dealing with the solution for three years now. Our customers use it.

The solution is stable. I'd rate it five out of five in terms of stability. There are no bugs or glitches. It's reliable. It doesn't crash or freeze. 

The software is scalable, no doubt about that. As such, the customers that we have given this software to had previously scaled up. Still, with a new version, we were able to satisfy them without any issue. Cisco is continuously working on making the software better, stronger, and compliant with the latest vulnerabilities. Their main aspect is to have software or hardware that is scalable. There is never an issue with the scalability.

I'd rate it five out of five in terms of the ability to scale. 

This is a data center, so there are a lot of services that are being accessed from different departments. As far as users are concerned, they don't have more users within the data center. However, when it comes to accessing various services from the data center, it is sizeable. There may be 4,000 service requests happening daily. There may not be more than 50 users in general. 

Cisco has a very good support when it comes to this solution. There may be certain areas where Cisco is not able to perform their next business day services. Since this is a cloud service, for cloud solutions, they have very good support. They have a ticket system, and then they prioritize these tickets. They make sure that if the ticket is serious or critical, the issue is dealt with quickly.

Positive

We did not have any issues with the initial setup. It was well-understood what we were supposed to do. The setup is easy.

We have two people that can deploy the solution. It might take three to four hours to implement. 

As integrators, we can handle the initial setup.

For some companies, there is a quick ROI if they're able to save their data. Some of our clients have seen a very good ROI overall. 

They should relax licensing in terms of budgeting. For certain licenses, to some extent, they could offer free licenses. Once the customer is happy, maybe the customer will automatically go for a premium license. They could come up with different license modes and have both premium and general licensing.

This is not a cheap product. I'd rate it three or four out of five in terms of affordability.

We are Cisco channel partners. We are system integrators, so we work with Cisco as well as with other vendors as well.

We're dealing with the latest version of the solution. 

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

Most Cisco products are excellent and they are experts in networking, so their product is dependable, scalable, and, so far as support is concerned, they take care of their customers. Users should, of course, go with Cisco ScanSafe Web Security software. There may be some other cheaper software also available.However, they should no worry about compromising their data and data is money.