Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) Reviews

Right now, we are doing all wireless through ISE. We have also started migrating to wired.

We have about 20 sites. By having enough node regionalization, we have been able to have all our sites utilizing it.

It is deployed to multiple locations. We have one in Mexico, one in Kelso, two in Asia, and then two in the US.

It improved our standardization with all its policy sets being the same. 

Since migrating towards doing wired ports over ISE with 802.1X and MAB authentication, our organization's security risk has been better. We have been able to establish better layouts, so devices can move and we don't have to worry about where they need to go.

The Guest Portal is a big feature for us. 

It does a good job of establishing trust for every access request. We have had a little bit of a challenge with profiling, but we are probably about 80% there.

I have been using it for five years.

The stability is fairly good. Since we went to the 2.6 version, it has been a lot better.

Scalability is good as far as adding another node. However, if you ever wanted to increase the node that you have, then you need to buy a bigger license. You also have to build a new VM for it because you can't just scale it.

I had one problem with the portal. I got support from TAC and it worked out really well. It was really good. I would rate the support as 10 out of 10.

We did not previously use another solution.

We were looking to solve the challenge where people were moving devices that they were not supposed to.

The initial deployment was straightforward and took a couple of months. It was actually a project for a customer, then the customer backed out. So, we spent a good year without using it for anything.

The initial deployment was for a customer in Asia, so we had to deploy it in our Asia data center. We then deployed it in our US data center to kind of match that configuration.

We did use a consultant from Presidio for our first deployment project. Since then, we have been doing deployments ourselves.

Two people were needed for the deployment: the consultant and myself.

There is probably a return on investment as far as increased time for people not having to worry about devices moving around nor having to be contacted about moving them to the appropriate spot.

Its licensing could be improved. It used to be perpetual, but now they are moving away from that.

Make sure you understand where you want to deploy nodes and how far away they are from other locations since there is some latency involved.

We don't do any sort of application-based stuff right now. It is just purely assigning devices to what VLAN they are supposed to go to.

We are looking to upgrade to a newer version. Hopefully, by seeing some of the stuff at Cisco's event, I can find some more features that we could use.

I would rate the solution as eight out of 10.

We use it mostly for identity, authentication, and authorizations for wireless and wired. The challenges we were looking to address were mostly around the authorization and authentication of the users. We wanted to use the Identity Services Engine to make sure that the users accessing our network were authorized users, with the authentication happening before.

The integration with Active Directory, and finding and authorizing users based on their Active Directory groups, rather than just their identities, was a big change for us.

The most valuable feature is 801.1x and another very good feature is the TACACS.

In addition, it establishes trust for every access request. That's very valuable. We can't authorize users without it. The fact that it considers all resources to be external is very important. Without Cisco ISE, we couldn't authorize our users, contractors, and everyone else. It's our one source of truth for authentication and authorization.

It's also very good when it comes to supporting an organization across a distributed network. We like that. 

I would like to see integration with other vendors, and the RADIUS integration needs to be improved a little bit.

Other than that, all the features that we're using look good.

I have been using Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine) for about six years.

It has been very stable. There's no problem with that, as we have redundancy in place.

It can be scaled very quickly by adding more nodes to the solution. The scalability is very good.

We have it deployed in three data centers in Austin, Texas, Lewisville, Texas, and one in Poland. It's a distributed deployment and we have around 8,000 endpoints on it so far.

Technical support has been okay, but I wouldn't describe it as "very good." We have had some problems with technical support. Sometimes it takes them too long to resolve a problem. 

Neutral

The pricing is good. The last time we purchased four new appliances the price was doable for any organization of our size.

In my previous job, I used Aruba ClearPass. It's similar to ISE. They're both good.

Design it well in the first place. If you design it well, you can scale it. Always read, line-by-line, the Cisco guide because that's where you'll find all the information about the design and the scalability. If you design it correctly in the first place, you will have a smooth ride.

We want to use it in a hybrid cloud deployment, but we currently use it 100 percent on-premises. As we move more into the cloud, we're trying to integrate that with Cisco ISE to make it our authentication and authorization source. We're not really into the cloud yet. We're just doing some dev. We're building a whole cloud strategy.

We use it for identity services, profiling, and locking down devices.

We're an airport, so when anybody plugs in a device, it's obviously a really big security point for us.

We have a lot of different devices that get plugged in and we really don't have the manpower to address each one individually, as far as our network goes. Cisco ISE has really cut down a lot on the size of our ticket queues and the manpower. My boss is extremely happy about that.

The solution has also eliminated trust from our organization's network architecture and that has actually been positive because we have to meet PCI compliance. It is very important for us to be able to take cards. It has also helped to improve our pen-testing scores at the end of the year.

Resilience, in cyber security, is at the top of the list. It's one of the most valuable aspects and has been extremely important for us. Before, we had mid-range scores, but over the last couple of years, between implementing ISE and a few other technologies and SIEMs, we've gotten into the 90th percentile with our pen-testing scores. We were sitting at about 75 to 80, so this is a pretty huge jump for us.

Profiling is one of the most valuable features. We have a lot of different devices between cameras, access points, and laptops that get plugged in.

Establishing trust for every access request, no matter where it comes from, is extremely important for us, especially because we are an airport entity. We do have port security implemented throughout our airport, but on the more sensitive side of things, it's a little bit more hardcore regarding what we need to allow, per security zone.

There are always some things that I would request.

I first started using Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine) in about 2015, but we recently just spun it up here at my current job.

The stability of the solution is a 10 out of 10.

The scalability is also a 10 out of 10.

For this particular solution, the technical support has been pretty good.

Positive

I've worked with ISE before, and it was actually my suggestion that we buy the license for it.

The initial deployment was pretty straightforward only because I had done it before. I worked on it with a colleague and taught him everything about it, just in case I was incapacitated.

From the start, including getting to an agreement, budgeting, and scheduling, the deployment took about three months.

In terms of an implementation strategy, once we got the licensing, we just stood the nodes up. Then we did the features one-by-one, with proper RFCs done, just to see, in a break-fix manner, if each thing we implemented would break something.

We used a consultant. The deployment required two people on our side. I was in charge of the initial rollout and implementation, and I'm in charge of managing it. However, if I'm not there, we have another network guy who does the day-to-day tasks and checks the logs to see if he needs to approve anything.

We have definitely seen return on investment. We have so many different security solutions in place, and ISE just works really seamlessly with them. I get to keep my job, so that's a pretty ROI from my point of view.

The pricing is fair for what it does. The only time I've really not been too crazy about the price is for Cisco Prime, which is a management solution for Cisco products.

We implemented a request for purchase and talked to a few different companies. One of the companies was Presidio. There was another company close by called Net Solutions. Three out of the five companies that we talked to were outsourcing the work to pretty much just bring in an ISE solution, so we just decided to do it in-house.

If you are on the fence about it, and you don't have someone on your team who has worked with the product before, definitely reach out to a company or a certified Cisco entity to help with the rollout. It's pretty painful if you don't know what you're doing.

Resilience is never a bad idea and it's never too late to start working towards it or to begin the journey to Zero Trust. It's very important in this day and age. 

I'm the only cyber security administrator that we have currently, so if we hadn't gotten this solution in place, I highly doubt that I would have been able to make it here to Cisco Live 2021, so it's excellent.

From 2015, when I first started using it, until now, there's not really a lot that I would ask be changed. They've been hard at it ever since I first started using it.

It's been incredible ever since we got it in place.

We are working with packets and A011X. In some cases, we also do profiling.

We are using this solution because we wanted to improve security and reduce security gaps. This is mainly for our customers.

This solution improves security. There is a new law in the Dominican Republic, where I am from. The central bank has ordered the banks to improve their security through a law. ISE is one of the start points for those organizations to start improving their security.

The solution gives us a way to provide a professional security solution to our customers.

They provide you multiple ways to achieve security, not only on-prem, but also when you have remote and guest workers. Especially post-pandemic, a lot of our customers have remote workers. So, it has been really helpful.

Its resilience gives you a better security posture. Cybersecurity resilience is very important. Security is one of the main things in my country enforced by law.

Profiling is a really good feature. However, it sometimes is a challenge for customers when there are issues with the remediation part. I would add a built-in remediation solution. That would be a very nice feature.

I have been using the solution for six to seven years.

It is very stable.

It is very scalable. You can install several nodes in order to scale the solution.

The technical support is really good. I would rate them as 10 out of 10. You need to know how to work with the tech support. If you don't know how to work with them, then it won't work.

Positive

We have been working for 15 years with Cisco as a Cisco partner. We like the Cisco solutions.

The deployment is complex. It takes four or five to deploy it.

Deployment takes a skilled technician. The customer's help is always needed since we need to integrate Active Directory. 

Our customers see ROI. They feel more confident about their operations. It gives them time to do other things in order to be more profitable.

It has a fair price. It is better than it was before.

We have seen Aruba ClearPass, but it is not that common in the Dominican Republic.

Organizational leaders should do constant analysis of their security posture, in order to be improving every day.

I would rate them as eight out of 10 because of the remediation feature.

We use the solution for network access control.

Cisco ISE is a comprehensive solution that allows you to control access to network resources granularly based on policies.

Cisco ISE is very complex and not very easy to deploy. There are a lot of prerequisites for the tool.

I have been using Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine) for three years.

We did not face any issues with the solution’s stability.

Cisco ISE is a very scalable solution.

We are working with a partner for support and are very happy with them.

On a scale from one to ten, where one is bad and ten is good, I rate their support a seven or eight out of ten.

Compared to Cisco ISE, Fortinet NAC is more consumer-friendly.

On a scale from one to ten, where one is difficult and ten is easy, I rate the solution's initial setup a four out of ten.

The project lasted a few months, but the planning took several months. Cisco ISE itself means nothing. It has to have the network set up to ensure the network penetration is in place, and we're still working on that.

Security is about risk control and exposure avoidance. You can only calculate its return on investment based on how you avoid penalty fees. Cisco ISE improves our security stats.

If you consider money only, Cisco ISE is not a cheap solution. Functionality-wise, however, it offers a very good price for the value you receive.

The solution's compliance and policy enforcement capability has benefited our organization by simplifying work.

The solution operates in the background, and users generally don't interact with it. Cisco ISE is the security framework layer between network resources and end users using them. Users do not go into Cisco ISE to do anything.

It's like Active Directory for Identity. If you're an end user, you don't work in Active Directory, but you authenticate Active Directory to use resources on the network. The same applies to Cisco ISE, and users don't interact with it directly. They are affected by it to the extent to which they are accessing network resources.

Cisco ISE has a very comprehensive integration suite and we did not face a lot of challenges in integrating this solution with other security tools. If they know how to use it, I would recommend the solution to other organizations with similar security needs.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

We use Cisco ISE to authenticate users or devices onto the network and then drop them into the appropriate VLANs to isolate them and maintain network segmentation.

Cisco ISE has been a great tool to segment our traffic and get the users into the right VLANs. It definitely does free up a lot of time from manual configurations.

It has definitely improved our security a lot. We used to be a single flat network, and now, we are a segmented network where we have all our different traffic isolated so that in case we do get a breach, not all the customers are affected.

Cisco ISE has been great for securing our infrastructure from end to end so that we can detect and remediate threats. We've already seen it detect some devices that we didn't know about, and they quarantine those devices, allowing us to take the appropriate security actions against them.

Our IT staff has been freed up for other projects with Cisco ISE because we're able to do a little bit more automated configuration. We just throw out a single configuration to the ports, and then the users get dropped into whatever VLAN they need to be in without us having to go to each site and configure these things manually. On a usual workday, it has freed up at least a couple of engineers for two to three hours.

Our cybersecurity resilience has improved with Cisco. Users are now segmented. We have firewalls in between, so we can take a look at all the traffic. We have quarantine enabled in there so that if we get a device on our network that we don't recognize, we can lock it down.

The feature that I found most valuable is profiling. We use that to profile certain types of devices, and then depending on the manufacturer, drop them into the appropriate VLAN without us having to go in and manually add the devices.

We would definitely like to see a little bit of an improvement in the web GUI navigation. Some of the things are a little bit hidden in the drop-down menu. If we could get a way to get to those quicker, it'd be much more useful.

We've been using Cisco ISE for about three years.

So far, from what we've been using, we haven't had any problems even with any of the additional patches that we've added. It has been great.

Scalability-wise, it's great. We have plenty of space to add additional nodes. Right now, the ones we do have are not being utilized to a hundred percent, so if we ever do need to add additional, it seems pretty straightforward.

Cisco support has been pretty good over the years, helping us get this stuff up and running. It has definitely taken us a while, and some of the cases have been pretty long, but Cisco support has been pretty good. I'd rate their support a nine out of ten.

Positive

We weren't using anything in place of Cisco ISE previously. We were pretty lacking in that department. When we got Cisco ISE, we improved our security significantly.

We went for Cisco ISE based on a suggestion from one of our vendor partners who helped us with our network refresh. They said that Cisco ISE was something that they had used previously in lots of larger deployments, and they had seen great success with it.

I was involved in its deployment. It was pretty straightforward. A lot of the issues that we ran into were related to coordination with the users just because it was a change for them, but the actual deployment and everything else were pretty straightforward.

We used MTT. They were great. They walked us through the whole process. They designed the network refresh for us as well as the Cisco ISE integration portion of it.

We've seen an ROI. We've freed up some hours, so those engineers who were previously doing more mundane tasks are now able to do something else.

I don't know too much about the actual pricing on it. The licensing part is pretty straightforward. It's a lot more simple than some of the other Cisco licensing models. In that aspect, it's great.

Overall, I'd rate Cisco ISE a nine out of ten.

We use Cisco ISE for the authentication of wireless clients.

Cisco ISE has saved me a couple of hours per month in terms of not having to manually onboard clients. However, there are still some manual tasks that need to be uploaded to Cisco ISE.

The most valuable feature of Cisco ISE is its seamless integration with the switches and the entire suite, enabling wireless access and smooth client information retrieval.

One of the problems we have had is that there are many features on Cisco ISE that we are not utilizing. In the real world, it requires multiple parties to come together, just like the AD or OU. Therefore, it won't be solely the responsibility of the network or security personnel to ensure that the solution works as intended and utilizes all the features. It necessitates collaboration among various stakeholders. If Cisco could grant more control, the features could be more focused on network and security administration, reducing the need for integration with other components. This would be beneficial for my organization.

I have been using Cisco ISE for one and a half years.

Cisco ISE is extremely stable.

As long as we have the funds to purchase the license, Cisco ISE is highly scalable.

We have a contact person in Singapore whom we can reach at any time for support.

Positive

The initial setup was straightforward because we used an integrator.

We used an integrator for the implementation.

The cost-benefit analysis primarily considers the time saved through manual labor.

The recent changes in the licensing model have caused some issues with the team. 

We have a rigorous procurement process and carefully evaluated other options before selecting Cisco ISE.

One of the other solutions we evaluated was the Aruba Wireless feed and its accompanying authentication, but we determined that Cisco ISE was superior and more beneficial.

I would rate Cisco ISE with a nine out of ten based on its overall benefits. However, since I am unable to utilize all the features due to the need for coordination from numerous other teams, I would personally assign it a benefit score of only five out of ten.

We attempted role-based access with the Cisco ISE integration, but it didn't work out effectively because it is more of an upper-level issue regarding organization and role level. Multiple teams had to collaborate, and there was a need to configure the Active Directory and Organizational Unit groups. This also involved restructuring and similar tasks. As individuals moved between OU groups, someone had to consistently update the OU groups to ensure the success of the process.

We have made a significant investment in Cisco infrastructure; therefore, we have chosen Cisco ISE as a logical option for our authentication mechanism.

Cisco ISE has not directly assisted our organization in enhancing its cybersecurity resilience.

There's a variety of customer uses for Cisco ISE, which includes securing the edge of the network.

Cisco ISE allows our customers to concentrate on other aspects of the business, knowing that much of their security is now in place.

Cisco ISE's profiling and posturing features ensure that all devices are compliant with regulatory authorities.

Sometimes some of Cisco ISE's graphical interfaces could be a little bit smoother. However, with the different versions, the product is getting better and better.

We've been using Cisco ISE for approximately seven years.

Like most products, as Cisco ISE evolves with different software versions over time, it becomes more stable and feature-rich. Initially, when it first came out, it was playing catch up with other vendors and solutions. However, now Cisco ISE is probably at the forefront of Open NAC solutions.

You can build a distributed model or architecture, and you can scale out with a number of PSN nodes. So Cisco ISE can grow as you grow.

Cisco ISE's technical support is generally very good. They have different levels of tech engineers, but their tech support is very good.

Positive

Some of our customers have considered using Juniper NAC, ClearPass, etc. They switched to Cisco ISE because they had a lot of network infrastructure in place and wanted a single vendor they could use end to end. Everybody has a good relationship with Cisco because they know that if there is a problem, their technical support team will resolve things in a quick and timely manner.

Cisco ISE is very scalable. We can do a small proof of concept and very quickly demonstrate that to customers.

Our customers have seen a return on investment with Cisco ISE. The solution has helped our customers consolidate several products into one and free up their IT staff. Also, the reporting from Cisco ISE enables them to show senior management their network's health.

The licensing could be better across all of the Cisco products. Cisco's licensing models seem to keep changing with different software versions. Cisco is moving towards a subscription service, which would mean additional costs.

Our customers are using Cisco ISE, but we're helping to integrate it into their solutions.

The end-to-end infrastructure security from Cisco AnyConnect host points is very good.

Cisco ISE has helped free up our customer's IT staff to concentrate on other projects. In the UK, where I predominantly work, a lot of the NHS staff have a lot of access switches located throughout multiple buildings. Cisco ISE probably frees up at least twenty percent of their time.

Our customers can use Cisco ISE for device administration for TACACS, RADIUS devices, and individual host appliances.

The migration from ACS to Cisco ISE has helped. Some of our customers were looking at various MAP implementations using different vendors, but we've now got I 2.1 X and MAM all built-in together.

Cisco ISE's ability to consolidate tools or applications has centralized everything and made things a lot easier and smoother for our customers to carry out their day-to-day tasks.

Cisco ISE has helped improve the cybersecurity resilience of our customers' organizations. We've always been able to integrate Cisco ISE into other products. So they're getting more security alerts, making them a lot more secure and happy with their environment.

Overall, I rate Cisco ISE an eight out of ten.

I use Cisco ISE for VPN and authentication.

Cisco ISE is a good and easy-to-use solution. We had a smooth experience with it, and we didn't face any issues. We upgraded the solution two years ago, and that version also worked fine. 

Cisco ISE's integration with other external identity servers like Duende is very simple and easy.

Cisco ISE's performance could be better, faster, and more robust. Sometimes it takes some time to move through the tabs and configure something.

I have been using Cisco ISE for three and a half years.

Cisco ISE is a stable solution. We haven't faced any major issues with the product.

Cisco ISE is a scalable solution. Our environment has a cluster distributed across three countries and seven nodes. It would be very easy to add another node or remote site.

In some areas, Cisco ISE's technical support is good. However, we had an issue with integrating Cisco ISE with DNS. So we opened a case, which escalated, and we had it for almost two years. Cisco escalated our case after hearing about our integration problem, and the issue was solved eventually.

In normal support cases, like if you are facing a bug, you will have very quick input from Cisco ISE's technical support. It is easy to find the issues in some areas, but in some cases, you might have to go along a troubleshooting path to find the issue. I used to work for Cisco tech wireless team. In some deployments, you have a complicated environment and must understand and solve the issue. Sometimes, it might take a long time to solve or find an issue, while it would be easy in other cases. It depends on the complexity of the environment.

Positive

Cisco ISE was already deployed when I joined my company, but I was present when it was upgraded. The upgrading process wasn't very easy, but we didn't face many issues. When we upgraded our Cisco ISE, it was running on the 2.3 version. We upgraded it to 2.7, and we had some issues at that time. We upgraded directly to 2.7 patch 2, and most problems were solved.

My main focus is on the .1X access. We have another security team whose focus is on VPN access. I use Cisco ISE for TechX authentication and .1X authentication.

Cisco ISE saves us time. If you deploy any security features using Cisco ISE, you don't have other options not to automate it. Part of our Cisco ISE is integrated with the Cisco DNS center. The Cisco DNS center saves time in terms of configuration, integration, upgrading, and adding other switches to the fabric. You can deploy the features in Cisco ISE using manual techniques.

Cisco ISE was already deployed in my organization when I joined. However, I know that Cisco ISE replaced ACS.

I work in the banking industry. Our main concern is securing our network from either remote or on-site access. When you get physical access to the site and connect your device, you might risk the security of the network on purpose or unknowingly. Deploying Cisco ISE has helped improve the security of our organization.

Overall, I rate Cisco ISE a nine out of ten because I have a very good experience with the solution and hear the same from other vendors.

Right now we use Wireless.1X and TACACS for device management. It's in our wired network too, but only use it for MAC address bypass.

It has helped to consolidate tools and applications. Previously, we had Windows NPS in some places and then Cisco ACS in other places. Now, Cisco ISE is all I use. This consolidation hasn't had a whole lot of impact on our organization. It wasn't that big of a deal to begin with.

It works as a good RADIUS server. It has lots of features. It works with all the proprietary Cisco AB pairs and features.

It could be less monolithic. It's one huge application, and it does everything under the sun, so it's hard to deal with and upgrade and manage.

I've been using Cisco ISE for three or four years.

Overall, it's pretty stable.

It seems to be pretty good for what we're doing with it.

Cisco TAC support is hit or miss. It depends on who you got. I'd rate them a six out of ten.

Neutral

We didn't have any network access control. For the wireless, we had ACS, and some places used NPS from Windows.

We chose Cisco ISE because we have a Cisco network. It seemed like the obvious choice.

The initial setup was pretty easy, but trying to get all the switches to talk to ISE was pretty complex. It required a lot of configuration and learning, and we found a lot of bugs and issues along the way.

Initially, we took the help of Presidio. They were good. They knew a lot about it and helped us a lot. 

In terms of detection and remediation of threats, it wouldn't detect anything. If we integrated it with other products, it could cut certain clients off from the network, but we haven't gotten that far yet.

It hasn't helped to free up our IT staff. It has probably consumed more time.

I don't have a lot of familiarity with other products, so I'd rate it a six out of ten.