Cisco Secure Workload Reviews

Name: Cisco Secure Workload
Brand: Cisco
Rating: 4.3 (15 reviews)

Vendor: Cisco

4.3 out of 5

15 reviews
100% willing to recommend

807 followers

What is Cisco Secure Workload?

Cisco Secure Workload is a cloud and data security solution that offers a zero-trust policy of keeping an organization’s application workloads safe and secure throughout the entire on-premise and cloud data center ecosystems.

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Cisco Secure Workload is the #4 ranked solution in top Microsegmentation Software solutions, #7 ranked solution in best Cloud Security companies, #9 ranked solution in top Cisco Security Portfolio solutions, and #14 ranked solution in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms. PeerSpot users give Cisco Secure Workload an average rating of 8.6 out of 10. Cisco Secure Workload is most commonly compared to Trend Micro Deep Security: Cisco Secure Workload vs Trend Micro Deep Security. Cisco Secure Workload is popular among the large enterprise segment, accounting for 69% of users researching this solution on PeerSpot. The top industry researching this solution are professionals from a computer software company, accounting for 26% of all views.

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Secure Workload

April 2025

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Featured Cisco Secure Workload reviews

Raj Metkar

Director, Head of Networks at MUFG, EMEA

The most valuable feature of Cisco Secure Workload is its ability to streamline policy discovery. Once you create the workspace, it automatically identifies policies at various levels, whether you need finely-tuned micro-level or broader group policies. As data is gathered from all the agents, the system presents these policies, significantly reducing the need for multiple engineers who typically take much longer to create them. My IT risk colleagues utilize a process we call ADM, where they discover policies over a three to six-month period and present them to application owners. Once the application owners approve the policies, they can switch to enforcement mode in Cisco Tetration. This automation in policy presentation and access is incredibly valuable, as it minimizes manual intervention and the time required for policy discovery. Micro-segmentation allows for precise enforcement of policies based on specific needs. You can implement tight risk postures, defining policies per IP, server, or port. This enables granular control or broader policies at the group level, grouping similar types of servers. The system automates this process; you specify your risk appetite and how detailed or general you want the policies to be. This approach protects servers that sit next to each other on the same VLAN without requiring large network firewalls to create multiple dependencies or DMZs. Instead, it leverages the existing firewalls on each server, allowing you to control policies centrally.

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Torben Nissen Ernst

Technical Solutions Architect - Cyber & Cloud Security Expert at Secure Cloud

The only use case I can see that makes sense is micro-segmentation. I think there are other use cases for it. The main purpose of the product is to do micro-segmentation by collecting IP. That could be done by installing an agent, and then you have all the communication coming in and out. You could also use some flow sensors installed in the network that receive a copy of the traffic and then report that back to the system. No matter where you're getting the flow from, the system calculates all those flows. You know what the front end, the middleware, the back end, the database, and so on are so that you can group them. The system's strength is actually in proposing the policy. So, all web servers need to have HTTPS access to it. Then, you can start building the policy for your application. When you have a policy, you can push that situation for self-service, which means you're trying out the policies you created in a real environment. Then, you can spend time trying to see if you have any escaped traffic, which means you have traffic that does not match the policy. If you were in enforcement mode, that traffic would be dropped. So you have a period where you can monitor if you have done the correct mode, seen all the traffic, and so on. That could be for a couple of weeks, that could be a month, or it could be half a year, depending on the criticality and how important your system actually is. From my point of view, the strength is the policy proposal you're receiving. It's really good. That's the biggest challenge for everybody - creating a policy you could use in Cisco Secure Workload itself. You could also export it and use it in your firewall if you want to do that if you have a Cisco firewall setup. But you could also use it in every other enforcement part. I'm seeing what people are struggling with in companies - to actually restructure your CMDB data correctly, then get a policy that you can use in your network. I think that the tool is good at that.

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Kunal Puri

Solutions Architect at Liberty Global

We have evaluated in my last organisations as part of POV with about 1,000 endpoints and we have incorporated Kubernetes as well. Scalability depends upon what hardware you're using or what model of Tetration you're using. If you're using it on-premises then the scalability numbers are different than a cloud-based deployment. So far, we have not had any trouble with scalability. However, we have just completed our proof of concept, so we do not have many actual users yet.

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Cisco Secure Workload mindshare

Product category:

As of April 2025, the mindshare of Cisco Secure Workload in the Cloud and Data Center Security category stands at 14.0%, up from 12.4% compared to the previous year, according to calculations based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud and Data Center Security

PeerResearch reports based on Cisco Secure Workload reviews

Type	Title	Date
Category	Cloud and Data Center Security	Apr 30, 2025	Download
Product	Reviews, tips, and advice from real users	Apr 30, 2025	Download
Comparison	Cisco Secure Workload vs Akamai Guardicore Segmentation	Apr 30, 2025	Download
Comparison	Cisco Secure Workload vs Illumio	Apr 30, 2025	Download
Comparison	Cisco Secure Workload vs VMware NSX	Apr 30, 2025	Download

Title	Rating	Mindshare	Recommending
Trend Micro Deep Security	4.3	2.8%	94%	90 interviews Add to research
Illumio	4.0	25.2%	88%	11 interviews Add to research

Valuable Features

Cisco Secure Workload has undergone significant modifications, with certain functionalities being moved into Cisco SD-Access. Despite these changes, it still offers valuable features like vulnerability scanning and cataloging. It operates on an agent-based system and utilizes a catalog and scoring function to locate known vulnerabilities. Another valuable feature is that it provides end-to-end protection for Cisco products. Users appreciate its user-friendly interface and stability, and scalability.

"The only use case I can see that makes sense is micro-segmentation. I think there are other use cases for it. The main purpose of the product is to do micro-segmentation by collecting IP. That could be done by installing an agent, and then you have all the communication coming in and out. You could also use some flow sensors installed in the network that receive a copy of the traffic and then report that back to the system."
"The product provides multiple-device integration."
"Generally speaking, Cisco support is considered one of the best in the networking products and stack."

Room for Improvement

A few users complained that Cisco Secure Workload is complex to use. They said the dashboard is not intuitive and that there is a significant learning curve. Some said the integration with products from different vendors could be better. Some users said they preferred the previous version of the product and wished all the functionality would be consolidated into a single product.

"There's room for improvement when it comes to Cisco Secure Workload. A couple of internal areas could be refined a little bit. They are trying to solve it, depending on where you suppose the agent is. Suppose you have the agent on both the server and the client, which could be the front-end server or web server connecting to the. In that case, if those two are communicating on RPC, the server can look into its configuration. It could go down and find the configuration file on the FTP server and then set the policies to it. But there are a lot of different FTP servers out there. It's also a complex case for the tool to support all FTP servers."
"The product must be integrated with the cloud."
"There was a controversy when Cisco reduced the amount of data they kept, and the solution became quite cost-intensive, which made its adoption challenging….Although they have modified it now, I preferred the previous version, and I wish all the functionality were back under the same product."

ROI

Users indicated they did not evaluate the return on investment (ROI) for Cisco Secure Workload.

Pricing

Cisco Secure Workload is considered expensive, involving hardware and software costs.

"Regarding price, Cisco Secure Workload can be expensive if you don't have a budget. If you're not doing micro-segmentation, every extra security measure or enforcement you're putting on top of your existing environment will be an extra cost. It's not a cheap solution at all. But from my point of view, if you need to do micro-segmentation, this is one of the best tools I've seen for it. I can't compare that to Microsoft's solution because I haven't looked into it. I've looked into VMware and Cisco. Those are the only two that I know of. I didn't know that Microsoft could do micro-segmentation at all. Maybe they can, but I haven't heard anything about it."
"The cost for the hardware is around 300k."
"The price is based on how many computers you're going to install it on."

Popular Use Cases

The primary use case of Cisco Secure Workload is to support micro-segmentation within a Cisco shop, particularly in financial institutions. It complements the existing Cisco infrastructure, including routers, switches, and endpoints, as part of a suite of solutions.

Service and Support

Customers had good things to say about Cisco's customer service, finding the technical support to be satisfactory in terms of responsiveness. Cisco support is highly regarded in the field of networking products. However, some customers mentioned that the support may not be as strong for higher-layer products like software and application layer products.

Deployment

The setup for Cisco Secure Workload involves deploying an agent, which is similar to other solutions. The initial setup process for Cisco Secure Workload was straightforward and could be completed within one to two days. It is recommended to have one to two people available for deployment and maintenance, although one person can handle the process with backup support.

Scalability

The solution of Cisco Secure Workload is highly flexible and can easily accommodate growth.

Stability

The solution of Cisco Secure Workload is highly reliable and dependable, with no reported issues or interruptions.

These insights are based on the in-depth reviews provided by peers to help you make a better buying decision.

Download our Cisco Secure Workload Buyer's Guide for additional reliable information.

Review data by company size

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Top industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

26%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Insurance Company

Energy/Utilities Company

Healthcare Company

University

Educational Organization

Non Profit

Hospitality Company

Real Estate/Law Firm

Retailer

Comms Service Provider

Construction Company

Legal Firm

Logistics Company

Wholesaler/Distributor

Media Company

Transportation Company

Performing Arts

Outsourcing Company

Pharma/Biotech Company

Consumer Goods Company

Recreational Facilities/Services Company

Aerospace/Defense Firm

Compare Cisco Secure Workload with alternative products

Learn more about Cisco Secure Workload

Cisco Secure Workload will consistently provide protection by discovering workload process anomalies, stopping threats immediately, minimizing the risk threat surface, and aborting any lateral movement.

Today’s ecosystems are very elastic, and in the application-focused dynamic of today’s aggressive marketplace, Cisco Secure Workload delivers a robust security solution that works effectively with today’s most popular applications. The solution uniquely surrounds each and every workload to ensure organizations are able to keep their data, network, and applications safe and secure at all times. Cisco Secure Workload ensures that enterprise organizations can maintain secure applications by consistently building firewalls around every workload level throughout the entire ecosystem. The solution can manage applications that are deployed on containers, virtual machines, or bare-metal servers.

Cisco Secure workload is able to meet an organization's busy needs and offers flexible options such as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and on-premises options. Using the Secure Workload SaaS options, users receive all the benefits of Cisco Secure Workload protection without the hassle of having to deploy and maintain the platform on premises. Users are responsible for acquiring the necessary software licensing and deploying software agents. Using SaaS, Secure Workload runs in the cloud and is operated and maintained by Cisco. This option offers the ability to scale easily and is a popular choice for SaaS-first and SaaS-only clients. Many organizations find they get the best TCO and achieve the best productivity and profitability using the SaaS options.

When choosing on-premises options, organizations choose between hardware-based appliance models (large or small form factors). Platform selection is dependent on scalability goals, the desired fidelity level of flow telemetry, and the actual number of workloads. When a user chooses to configure Cisco Secure Workload for a conversation-only flow telemetry for all workloads, each platform has the capability to scale up vertically twice the default platform scale. Additionally, with Secure Workload, it is possible for the platform to be scaled horizontally in order to satisfy the demands of extra large widely distributed enterprise environments using federation capabilities.

Cisco Secure Workload also provides a robust disaster recovery (DR) tool, which helps to make it a complete, comprehensive solution. The DR allows for continuous restore and backup capabilities that enable users to quickly remediate operations and data to a standby cluster in the event of a drastic failure or disaster.

Reviews from Real Users

“The solution offers 100% telemetry coverage. The telemetry you collect is not sampled, it's not intermittent. It's complete. You see everything in it, including full visibility of all activities on your endpoints and in your network. Other valuable features include vast support for annotations, flexible user applications, machine learning, automatic classification, and hierarchical policies.” - CTO at a tech vendor

Cisco Secure Workload was previously known as Cisco Tetration.