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Systems Support Specialist at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Real User
Nov 18, 2020
Flexible, fast, and effective cloud-delivered security
Pros and Cons
  • "Stability-wise, it's good. I have never encountered any bugs."
  • "Actually, we recently switched over to Zscaler because it has more features and it's more scalable than Cisco Umbrella."

What is our primary use case?

Generally, we use Cisco Umbrella to prevent DNS attacks within the LAN. As we are a data center, that is our main use case.

Within our organization, there are roughly 500 people using this solution.

What is most valuable?

It's good for local communication with the data center and LAN.

For how long have I used the solution?

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

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Stability-wise, it's good. I have never encountered any bugs. 

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How are customer service and support?

The technical support is very good.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Actually, we recently switched over to Zscaler because it has more features and it's more scalable than Cisco Umbrella.

How was the initial setup?

I wasn't involved in the initial setup, so I can't comment on that.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend Cisco Umbrella to other interested companies. It's a very flexible and secure application — it's very good.

Overall, I would give Cisco Umbrella a rating of 10 out of 10.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
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SOC & SECURITY SERVICES DIRECTOR at a comms service provider with 501-1,000 employees
Reseller
Nov 10, 2020
Great security with an easy implementation and good stability
Pros and Cons
  • "The implementation is pretty easy."
  • "The pricing is a bit high. Being outside of the USA, we have issues with the exchange rate."

What is our primary use case?

The solution is mainly used for remote workers, for people that are outside the enterprise premises, in order to have security while they work on the road.

How has it helped my organization?

With many of our customer's end-users on the road, it was easy for their machines to get infected or to lose information. After we installed this product, these issues were drastically reduced and the number of infections dropped month over month.

What is most valuable?

It provides security for the remote workers and it helps to improve enterprise security in a very easy way.

We mainly enjoy web software protection capabilities. It prevents the end-users from getting into bad sites or sites that potentially could have malware or could be phishing. It helps end-users avoid the wrong sites.

The solution works very smoothly.

The user interface is good.

The implementation is pretty easy.

What needs improvement?

I can't think of a place where there is a gap in features. It seems to cover everything.

The pricing is a bit high. Being outside of the USA, we have issues with the exchange rate.

The solution could use more intelligence.

They likely could combine some of the AMP features that they already have in other AEM's for anti-malware purposes.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for two years at this point.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability of the solution is excellent. It's very reliable.

How are customer service and technical support?

Cisco technical support is one of the best on the market. We're quite satisfied with their level of support.

That said, as the solution is pretty easy to use and very stable, we haven't really used too much technical support.

How was the initial setup?

The setup is not too complex. It's pretty straightforward. They make configuration and onboarding relatively easy.

Deployment only takes a matter of days. You simply deploy the agent to the active directory, to all the installations and you're done.

What about the implementation team?

I sell it as a managed service provider. Therefore, the solution is installed for our clients. They don't have to worry about that aspect.

What other advice do I have?

I don't know exactly which version of the solution we are using, however, we do use the most advanced license that's available currently.

As a managed service provider, we deal with organizations of all sizes, from small companies to large enterprises. 

Overall, I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. It works well, has an easy installation, and offers good protection.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Reseller
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SOC & SECURITY SERVICES DIRECTOR at a comms service provider with 501-1,000 employees
Reseller
Nov 10, 2020
Easy user interface, offers good protection against malicious websites, and good support
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature is the website protection capabilities because it prevents end-users from entering bad sites that potentially have malware or could be used for phishing."
  • "In the future, they should combine some of the Cisco AMP features that they already have, for anti-malware purposes."

What is our primary use case?

We are a reseller and Cisco Umbrella is one of the products that we sell to our customers. We offer it as a managed service provider. This product provides security for remote workers and it helps to improve enterprise security in a very easy way.

It is mainly used for remote workers and for people that live outside the enterprise premises. It gives them security while they are on the road.

How has it helped my organization?

Because our clients' end-users are mainly on the road, it is very easy for them to get infected and lose information. After we installed the Cisco Umbrella solution, importantly, they have reduced the number of infected cases per month.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature is the website protection capabilities because it prevents end-users from entering bad sites that potentially have malware or could be used for phishing. Ultimately, it helps users avoid the wrong sites.

It is very easy to integrate.

What needs improvement?

I would like to see more intelligence built into Umbrella.

In the future, they should combine some of the Cisco AMP features that they already have, for anti-malware purposes.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been working with Cisco Umbrella for more than two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

This is a very stable product and helps to improve the security posture of the enterprise.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have clients that range in size from small to large-sized organizations.

How are customer service and technical support?

Cisco's support is very good and, in fact, one of the best.

Because the product is very easy to use and very stable, we have not had to rely on support from the documentation or the community.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is quite straightforward and easy, and the deployment can be completed in a matter of days. You deploy the agent to Active Directory, for all of the installations, and you're done.

What about the implementation team?

We deploy this solution for our clients because we sell it as a managed service.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Outside of the United States, we have issues with the exchange rate that increases the cost.

What other advice do I have?

Overall, this product works smoothly and perfectly.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Reseller
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reviewer1037232 - PeerSpot reviewer
CTO at a tech vendor with 11-50 employees
Real User
Oct 26, 2020
Cloud-delivered security combined with endpoint versatility
Pros and Cons
  • "Cisco Umbrella is absolutely stable."
  • "Looking at the full umbrella suite in the light of SASE, Secure Access Service Edge, they are clearly lacking in the inline CASB."

What is most valuable?

DNS security used to be the main value for us. Looking forward, SASE-style use cases (the ability to connect to any endpoint, be it a corporate-managed device, or a privately managed device, to any SaaS service) seems to be the most important feature for the future, on top of DNS security.

What needs improvement?

Looking at the full umbrella suite in the light of SASE, Secure Access Service Edge, they are clearly lacking in the inline CASB. Any line cloud access security broker has an API-based cloud access security broker, which is called CloudLock, but they're lacking the inline components, which are able to intercept traffic.

An on-premise DLP solution or integration with an on-premise DLP solution would be a nice addition. Also, more broad operating system support for endpoints would be an advantage.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Cisco Umbrella for the last three years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Cisco Umbrella is absolutely stable. They put a lot of weight on the availability and reliability of the global footprint. So yes, they kind of set the standards for availability. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Cisco Umbrella Is very easy to scale. 

How are customer service and technical support?

I haven't been involved in providing support for it; however, I am not aware of any significant issues.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was quite straightforward. 

Deployment depends on the number of features and the degree of integration you're looking for. Deployment can take anywhere from 30 seconds, simply to redirect your recursive DNS service, up to several days for a full-blown enterprise setup. So it depends on the use case.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The pricing varies. If you're just after DNS security, it's rather expensive. If you are, however, after replacing parts of your enterprise security infrastructure (by moving from a legacy on-premise, security-based approach, to a more cloud-based approach), then you can replace a whole bunch of classic security devices and solutions. In short, you can basically consolidate your security functions. I think it's worth the money.

What other advice do I have?

I would definitely recommend Cisco Umbrella. Proof of concept is always the second step. The first step is coming up with your use cases. If Umbrella is the answer, what's the question? You should roadmap your immediate and long-term goals in terms of IT security, or information security. You should take into account your operational fitness for tackling the cloud as well, then pick the right features to suit your needs. This is all basically applicable to similar solutions. If you run into this with no plan, you're just shifting your existing problems.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give Cisco Umbrella a rating of eight.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
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Manager and Senior Consultant at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Oct 26, 2020
Easy to tailor to our client's environment and needs
Pros and Cons
  • "The user interface is great. It's very easy to tailor to our client's environment and needs."
  • "I would like to see more integration between Cisco Umbrella and Cisco DNA Center."

What is our primary use case?

Our customers used an older version of Cisco, but we proposed Cisco Umbrella for their POC phase.

What is most valuable?

The user interface is great. It's very easy to tailor to our client's environment and needs.

What needs improvement?

There should be some programs for the POC phase.

I would like to see more integration between Cisco Umbrella and Cisco DNA center

For how long have I used the solution?

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

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Cisco Umbrella is very stable.

How are customer service and support?

The support is very good.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The price of Cisco Umbrella is a little higher than similar solutions; however, I am not exactly sure what the price difference is.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We compared Cisco Umbrella to other solutions including Zscaler and Palo Alto.

Integration is better with Cisco. Cisco Umbrella performed very well compared to Zscaler and other solutions.

What other advice do I have?

On a scale from one to ten, I would give this solution a rating of nine.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. partner
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Network Specialist at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
Real User
Oct 16, 2020
Easy to deploy, simple to manage, and extremely scalable
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution is very easy to manage. We found the initial setup, for example, to be quite simple."
  • "The product can be pretty expensive."

What is our primary use case?

We primarily use the solution as cloud security for our branches. It protects us from direct internet outbreaks.

What is most valuable?

It makes for good flexibility. The solution is very easy to manage. We found the initial setup, for example, to be quite simple.

Easy to deploy.

Efficient protection on the DNS level and even higher. The sandboxing feature analyse and handle the complicated security risks.

What needs improvement?

The product can be pretty expensive.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for two to three years at this point.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We haven't faced any issues. There aren't bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. We find Cisco to be reliable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have a variety of customers. The number of users on each umbrella varies from one to a few thousand. Most companies may just have a few hundred users. It's basically suitable for companies of all sizes. It scales well, in that sense. 

The Cisco Umbrella IT operation resource needs are equal for a large and small company. (no need to hire more engineers or operators)

Overall, the scalability is excellent. It's quite flexible.

How are customer service and technical support?

While I have been in touch with Cisco technical support in the past (and they've been quite good), for Umbrella, I find I don't need any support.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I've dealt with other products on a different scale. I'd say that Cisco Umbrella is far and away much better than the other cloud security products on the market.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was not complex. It was pretty straightforward. We found it to be rather easy, from beginning to end.

The deployment times vary and depend on which Umbrella you use. However, we've found it should only take about a day to get up and running. An IT team can manage it. They don't necessarily need an integrator.

The solution doesn't really require too much maintenance. You probably wouldn't need a dedicated person to maintain it.

What about the implementation team?

We are integrators ourselves, however, the initial setup is so straightforward, typically an in-house IT team can manage a setup.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The solution is costly. It doesn't come cheap. The licensing also comes with additional costs for extra services (such as sandboxing feature, L3/L4 firewall, etc...).

What other advice do I have?

We are Cisco partners. We have a business relationship with them.

We use various types of Umbrella. 

I'd recommend the solution. It's one of the best on the market and it works well in different environments. It's also extremely easy to deploy.

Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I'd rate it at a nine.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Other
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Cisco Partner
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Chief Enterprise Architect at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
Real User
Oct 14, 2020
Great security and access control features
Pros and Cons
  • "The security and access control features."
  • "User interface could be a little smoother and more intuitive."

What is our primary use case?

We use this solution to provide Dorel filtering and security for our WiFi environment. I'm the chief enterprise architect and we are customers of Cisco Umbrella. 

What is most valuable?

The security and access control features are the most valuable for us.

What needs improvement?

Improvements could be made with the user interface, it could be a little smoother and more intuitive.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using this solution for two years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is very stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I have scaled it in other companies and it scales very well. It's got a UV, it's got a decent user interface so once you go to Cisco training, they offer it when you buy the product so that if you are a small business looking for something like Umbrella, you can set it and forget it and it works. You can also tie it into your WiFi solution.

How are customer service and technical support?

Tech support at Cisco is great. Not just for this project. I've been working with Cisco equipment and Cisco tech for 25 years now and I've never had a problem with them.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was relatively straightforward. We had an implementation strategy and it wasn't particularly difficult.

What other advice do I have?

In general, Umbrella is a competitive solution for small or large enterprise. It's never the cheapest, but it's always in the competition, at least in my experience. I would recommend the solution, there's no reason not to go there, depending on your specific situation, of course. 

I would rate this solution an eight out of 10. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
it_user1302957 - PeerSpot reviewer
NOC Lead at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Real User
Sep 11, 2020
Protection from malware for roaming employees that comes recommended
Pros and Cons
  • "Provides dependable DNS monitoring of external devices."
  • "The initial setup is very easy and takes only a few minutes."
  • "They need to improve analytics so they report on more of the specifics of user activity."

What is our primary use case?

I do not know what the latest version is that is currently installed, but it is cloud-based monitoring so it is one of the most recent versions.  

The primary use case is for endpoint users who are not working on our office premises. They are remote employees who are roaming so they are not within our protected zone. They can be vulnerabilities if they are browsing content and there is malware included on those web sites. Umbrella allows this kind of monitoring on remote devices and we can block those sites. We can also block applications which we would like not to allow to be running in the organization.  

With Umbrella our primary use is that we can monitor the endpoints for external devices. We will protect the users from malware phishing through email and the websites they are browsing. Umbrella is a solution for things like DNS (Domain Name System) protection, filtering, and security.  

What is most valuable?

I think the one feature we are using that Umbrella provides that is the most valuable feature is the DNS security. It is used to watch all the traffic which we are routing through the endpoint and organization firewalls. The users and devices are diverted by our secure gateway which scans each and every DNS request. It notifies us if it is not safe and allows those that are. It is like an alarm center application near our firewall.  

What needs improvement?

In the way we are using the solution it would be good for us if they would do some simplification of the analytics. They need to improve this feature so they have analytics to show the content of the user activity. I would like there to be some more analytics provided so that we can see the application routing and additional specific information. Those kinds of analytics can prove to be helpful in our security efforts. For me, this is the only thing that could be improved in Cisco Umbrella. They already have so many features that it is hard to imagine what else they can add.  

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Cisco Umbrella for two years.  

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Ever since we started using this product last year, it has been stable. If any service is down, we can see on the dashboard whether all of the resources are online or not. If something is down because we are working on it for some reason, something could happen then. But in two years, I did not find any issues due to the product becoming unstable on its own.  

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Right now, we are working as a startup and we have 13 members of the team who are using the Cisco Umbrella. They are using it directly during business hours with configurations and analysis and other maintenance and access. It is the product's job to watch all the traffic routing to data points throughout the nine hours as it is routed to pass through the Cisco Umbrella.  

But whenever other users are trying to access the network — even in the non-business hours — if they are using their office laptop, all the traffic will be routed through DNS security. Umbrella is protection for the company devices from websites that may do something like data attacks on remote laptops. It handles all of these requests no matter how many concurrent users we have.  

We will be adding DNS to all the endpoints. For this, we will update the Cisco Umbrella DNS software for all our data points to watch all the traffic that is going through the EndPoints. It seems it will be very scalable.  

How are customer service and technical support?

I have not contacted the technical support, but I had a discussion with the sales and diagnostic people. The technical issues are mostly something I resolve on my own by looking at the documentation. But once, when I wanted to implement some tool for a new solution, I contacted the sales team and they asked me some questions about what exactly it was that I wanted to accomplish. After I answered the questions in the meeting with them, we came up with the solution and the process and put it to work. So the sales team knows the product well.  

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Previously, in another organization, we used OpenDNS. That product was purchased by Cisco to be used as their product under the name of Umbrella. So I did not switch the product really, but the name and my company have changed.   

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is a simple process. If you build on-premises, the deployment will take half-an-hour. If you build on the cloud it is like 10 minutes. it could be even less than 10 minutes. It is really fast. It will take five minutes to sync to the endpoint, to the cloud, and to collect the data. The syncing is what takes the time.  

I have gone through the documents for Cisco Umbrella. So I have been deploying the product myself without the help of a technician and we are doing the implementation on our own.  

What about the implementation team?

The only maintenance we do is we need to update the latest version through our version management software. We just update the agents on the endpoints.  

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Because it is a cloud product, Cisco uses subscription models for the pricing. There are three subscription plans for Umbrella. They have a standard plan and also an enterprise plan and another one. The different plans cover different features and options for different sized organizations. It gives you the option to compare the subscription plans and get the coverage that you need.  

What other advice do I have?

My only real advice to people considering Umbrella is that I can recommend this solution. On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best, I can rate Cisco Umbrella as a nine-out-of-ten.  

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Other
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Cisco Umbrella Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: January 2026
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Cisco Umbrella Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.