Systems and Network Architect at a recreational facilities/services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Prevented a countless number of attacks on our organization
Pros and Cons
  • "We immediately block impersonating users from accessing services over Cisco Umbrella-controlled devices."
  • "iOS devices and mobiles are huge in my environment right now, and I cannot run them on Cisco Umbrella 24/7."

What is our primary use case?

I use Cisco Umbrella mainly for content filtering. We use it to ensure that my users don't access something they shouldn't be accessing. It's just like pushing and scan prevention.

How has it helped my organization?

There are a countless number of attacks that Cisco Umbrella prevented from happening in our organization.

What is most valuable?

Suppose we see a very silly entry where a bad actor tries to impersonate a good website or service we continuously use. They buy the domain, misspell it somehow, and then inject that in a link. Suppose my email scanning tools did not detect or notice that for one reason or another, and we identified it later. We immediately block impersonating users from accessing services over Cisco Umbrella-controlled devices.

What needs improvement?

iOS devices and mobiles are huge in my environment right now, and I cannot run them on Cisco Umbrella 24/7. Each user has one desktop but three or four mobile devices on two iPads, and a phone or multiple phones and an iPad, or vice versa. I'd like to turn on my Cisco Umbrella on the network level, at least on my office premise. However, my security team would like to keep all devices on-network and off-network to be connected or managed by Cisco Umbrella all the time. So their use cases are higher and stronger than my mobile ones. Sometimes we try to work around my mobile ones with MDM, but sometimes it would be way more flexible to have both running side-by-side.

Also, in the Apple services or the Apple space, between my Cisco Umbrella and between my Apple updates, something breaks. I'm not sure if it's because of a policy that my company did before I joined them or if it's something that's happening due to a conflict in the configuration somewhere. So we always have to completely get the device or the endpoint out of any filtration to get the policies. We get everything pushed properly from Apple to the device and provision it afterward. Then we add the Cisco Umbrella roaming client to it.

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Cisco Umbrella
March 2024
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For how long have I used the solution?

Cisco Umbrella has been running in my environment for about five years, and it was there even a couple of years before I joined my company.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We've never really seen any service outages or downtime with Cisco Umbrella. It is amazing for a product to be running such a long marathon for the amount of time that I have witnessed it.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Cisco Umbrella is very flexible. Before, after, and during the years of the pandemic, my environment went up and down concerning headcount and use cases. Since Cisco Umbrella is pretty flexible, it was able to scale with us.

How are customer service and support?

On the technical side, we always get our questions answered in a reasonable turnover. There was an incident when I had two instances running, and I tried to research it first and run discovery with it. When I couldn't find the answer immediately, we called Cisco, and somebody over the phone was very helpful and told us within ten minutes that it wouldn't work for us.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was pretty straightforward. The solution's documentation is great. My environment needed a little bit of customization to match the deployment configuration or documentation, and it worked fine.

What about the implementation team?

We implemented Cisco Umbrella through an in-house team.

What was our ROI?

We have seen a return on investment with Cisco Umbrella regarding the working hours and the ticketing. The tickets do not have to get escalated to a network engineer or to a network person to look at. They could be worked on by someone on the app on tier one or tier two before needing an escalation if it even needs it.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I was onboarded to an environment where Cisco Umbrella was already running. I'm sure my predecessor evaluated other products during the same time, and then they decided to start and stick with Cisco Umbrella for the past six-plus years for its efficiency.

What other advice do I have?

The security team deployed Cisco Umbrella in our organization. I deployed the solution briefly on my network infrastructure, and then we decided to switch that off because we noticed a conflict when we had it running at two different places.

I cannot really speak so much on the infrastructure because until recently, whenever we installed Cisco clients on a machine that's running a server, the machine broke. The reason for that is something that happens in the trust relationship between the server and the domain controller. We opened a support case with Cisco Umbrella, and they told us the server was not supported. Servers are not meant for browsing, and the environment that they are in should not be open to the entire world.

My network team is not that large. For content filtering, when a request comes in to unblock a website saying that it is misclassified, it's super easy to give enough access or limited access to the support desk agent or analyst that's getting your clients' calls. The turnover time is much quicker and much shorter. We do not have to deal with maintenance windows or change management times because it's easy to go to a portal or website and change it versus changing a configuration on a firewall. It helps a lot with hybrid environments, especially during the unprecedented times we had a couple of years ago when we all decided to work from home. My environment was 90% ready to work from home, and one of the reasons for that was Cisco Umbrella.

In a 2000-user environment, Cisco Umbrella has helped save at least 14 hours weekly.

Cisco Umbrella has changed the way that we have access to a tool. It helps us do content filtering. I do not need DNS servers running anymore on my network because I identify it on the Cisco Umbrella portal, and everybody gets the configuration within 30 seconds to a minute. I do not have to deal with DNS changes, especially for internal tools and websites.

Cisco Umbrella has helped our organization improve its cybersecurity resilience for the end clients by having that on-off network flexibility. I do not necessarily have everybody run on a VPN all the time.

The nearest product to Cisco Umbrella is not even comparable. Cisco Umbrella's feature richness and compatibility are becoming an industry standard. We do not ask if an environment has a DNS server running in it or not. Instead, today we ask whether that is a Cisco Umbrella environment.

Overall, I rate Cisco Umbrella ten out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Christian Graber - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr Product Manager at Sunrise UPC
Video Review
Real User
Is easy to install, works seamlessly in the background, and is stable and easy to scale
Pros and Cons
  • "One of the great advantages of Umbrella DNS is that it's really simple to deploy. It's easy to install, the users do not notice that it's there, and it doesn't interfere with your work. The simplicity and transparency are great advantages of Cisco Umbrella."
  • "It would be good if the more complex versions of Umbrella are simplified so that we can offer them in a more standardized way. We, as a telco, do not operate the same as a traditional integration partner would, who can sell all its services. We try to have a standardized approach as much as we can so that we can sell the solution with as many services added to it as possible. If you look at the structure of businesses in Switzerland, 95% of them have 10 persons or less, and they do not have a security specialist. Therefore, the higher the automated and standardized features, the better it is for them."

What is our primary use case?

Cisco Umbrella is a first line of defense. It protects the users from going to sites that should be avoided. Cisco Umbrella also protects against malware and phishing. It's a simple and very effective product that works seamlessly in the background. It doesn't disturb you in any way unless you access a website you shouldn't. Then, it will interfere with it and stop you from going there.

What needs improvement?

It would be good if the more complex versions of Umbrella are simplified so that we can offer them in a more standardized way. We, as a telco, do not operate the same as a traditional integration partner would, who can sell all its services. We try to have a standardized approach as much as we can so that we can sell the solution with as many services added to it as possible. If you look at the structure of businesses in Switzerland, 95% of them have 10 persons or less, and they do not have a security specialist. Therefore, the higher the automated and standardized features, the better it is for them.

For how long have I used the solution?

We've been offering Umbrella for three to four years.

I've been working with Cisco's products for several years now. We in the B2B area of Sunrise work with Cisco kind of exclusively, it's really our main partner. I look after security products and Umbrella. The cloud-based security products around Umbrella have been the focus of my work.

As a reseller, the value we bring to our customers is the fact that instead of just selling them connectivity or access to the internet, we offer them a base level of security with it. I think that is highly valued by customers since security is typically a topic they struggle to deal with.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

When it comes to the stability or performance of Umbrella, we have been very pleased. When you add security on top of unsecured transport, you may have certain delays, but our technical colleagues consider them to be not too bad. Stability has never come up in a customer context as an issue.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

When we look at the scalability of Umbrella, we can see the great advantage of it being a cloud-based service. Therefore, scalability is not an issue on our side. We can assume that it will always be around and that the performance will always be good.

How are customer service and support?

I've had very few interactions with Cisco support, and the ones I've had have been good. I'd give Cisco's technical support a rating of nine out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

We sold a different solution previously, which provided a much simpler DNS protection. It did not have the power and is not really comparable to Umbrella. It was more of a consumer-level product that did not have much of an impact. I had it installed on my internet access at home, and it never intercepted anything I did. It's only once I installed Umbrella that I saw differences in the ways my DNS calls were intercepted. The main reason why we offer Umbrella is its business-grade security.

How was the initial setup?

One of the great advantages of Umbrella DNS is that it's really simple to deploy. It's easy to install, the users do not notice that it's there, and it doesn't interfere with your work. The simplicity and transparency are great advantages of Cisco Umbrella. Cisco could take Umbrella DNS as a good example and also improve on other products.

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

Cisco solutions are generally perceived to be rather expensive. We have constant internal discussions as to whether we should offer lower-priced security solutions from some of the competitors.

What other advice do I have?

If you are looking for the first time at Umbrella, you should really understand what is behind the solution. Behind Umbrella is Cisco Talos, a research team within Cisco, which is one of the largest private ones in the world. All the input out of the activities of Talos goes into Umbrella and makes it a really valuable product.

As a service provider, we know that other service providers are using Cisco Umbrella, and that was a big factor for us in choosing it as well. Also, we had seen large telcos like TIM in Italy using it for many years and being satisfied with it.

Customers are always worried that somebody in their organization will click on something he or she should not click on. Umbrella does a good job of protecting a business from ruin in worst-case scenarios. It works in the background and is like an airbag.

I would rate Umbrella Easy Protect, which is the simplest on the Umbrella DNS side, at nine out of ten. Because Umbrella SIG is still under development and is very promising, I'd give it an eight out of ten.

Our partnership with Cisco is overall good. It has its ups and downs. Cisco is not always an easy beast to work with. Sometimes you see that traditionally they have a very strong enterprise focus, but we as a service provider have a different need than enterprises, and that sometimes has its challenges.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Reseller
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Buyer's Guide
Cisco Umbrella
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about Cisco Umbrella. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
763,955 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Network Security Architect at Lake Trust Credit Union
Video Review
Real User
Top 10
Protects users whether in the office or out, and we get the same policy in both locations
Pros and Cons
  • "The single-pane-of-glass management is very important. We have a very small team. We can't spend a lot of time going from product to product to product to either investigate or set up policy. We need to have one place that we can go to and set everything up."
  • "The only thing I can think of is that I'd like to see a little more flexibility in policy creation. The way that policy is currently structured is like a "first hit succeeds" kind of policy. It would be nice if it were more hierarchical."

What is our primary use case?

We use Umbrella to front-end all of our DNS requests and that way they protect any of our end-users from going to any kind of malicious site. It doesn't matter if they're in-house in one of our locations, or if they're remote and working from home. That was the biggest part was the fact that we could protect our end-users, even when they're not in the office.

How has it helped my organization?

We were actually trying to solve other challenges, which included just to protect the onsite, but once COVID hit, it pretty much made it a very easy transition for us. At one point, when COVID was at its highest peak, we had everyone working remotely. We didn't have to worry about how we were going to restrict our access on the internet, because Umbrella was already handling that for us.

It made us more secure, which is a very important thing for a financial institution.

The support for hybrid work was the biggest thing. It protects our users, whether they're in the office or they're out of the office. We get the same policy in both locations. We can assign policies based on individual group memberships and it travels with them no matter where they go. It helps no matter where they are.

Since it's based on user DNS requests, it's right from the endpoint all the way through the network to be able to identify those locations and restrict access if necessary. It's not just the malware sites, which is very important, but it's also just content in general. There are business reasons for restricting access to certain content.

Since we implemented Umbrella, we are seeing a fairly significant amount of threats being blocked. A good 20 percent of all the activity, on average, that we see is actually being blocked by Umbrella, because it's either violating policy or it's some kind of malware.

What is most valuable?

Both monitoring the activity, so that we can investigate anything that may pop up, and the ability to restrict the access, or filter out what content end-users can view or go to [are valuable features of Umbrella]. Also, the fact that it blocks them from any known malicious locations.

It works really well and the best part about it is the fact that it's transparent to the users until they try to go somewhere that's either restricted because of content or restricted because of the fact that it's malicious. Then they simply get a popup and that's all there is to it. So from their perspective, it's very easy. They don't have to do anything in order for it to work.

There is a single portal that we go to that handles being able to set up policy, look at activity, or even manually add sites that we think that we want to restrict, even if it's not considered a particular category or a particular malware. The single-pane-of-glass management is very important. We have a very small team. We can't spend a lot of time going from product to product to product to either investigate or set up policy. We need to have one place that we can go to and set everything up.

It's really easy. It's an easy portal to go to, it's cloud-based, so we can get to it from anywhere. The ability to set up the policy is pretty straightforward. There are a lot of tie-ins with other products, like SecureX and other things, that make it just as easy.

It's cloud-based, so as long as you can get to the cloud, you're golden.

What needs improvement?

The only thing I can think of is that I'd like to see a little more flexibility in policy creation. The way that policy is currently structured is like a "first hit succeeds" kind of policy. It would be nice if it were more hierarchical.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Cisco Umbrella for about four years now.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's been extremely stable. In the last four years, I do not recall a single outage. There has been nothing that I can think of that actually affected the performance of the system at all in the last four years.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We've never had an issue with scale. We've scaled it up to every user that we have in-house. When we deployed the gateways, we deployed two for HA purposes, but from a scale perspective, it's DNS queries. It doesn't take much. Our whole organization is on it.

How are customer service and support?

Support for Umbrella is very good. There's a way to contact them directly from within the portal and we use that periodically.

I give them about a nine out of 10. There are issues with Cisco's tech support, like all the rest of them.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

Umbrella was actually the first [solution we used in this area]. Once we discovered that that was a big hole we had—we didn't have anything that was controlling content for our internal end-users—we could run into problems with regulation, problems with compliance. It could run into issues with HR, as well as security issues associated with malware. We knew it was a hole, that we were missing. Umbrella filled that hole for us.

How was the initial setup?

There were two pieces of the deployment. One was the cloud deployment, which got us set up in the cloud to begin with. We also had gateways that were installed on-prem, in-house.

We were able to get the gateways up and running in about an hour. The cloud deployment was all done by the Umbrella organization on the back-end side. To deploy to the end users, all we needed to do is set up a policy that said, "This is what you use for DNS." Once that was set up, we were done. Deploying that was done in a group policy and that group policy was pushed in a matter of minutes. The entire solution was probably deployed in just a few hours.

What about the implementation team?

We did it all ourselves. Cisco handled the back-end side with the portal itself, but the rest of it, we did ourselves.

What was our ROI?

I think we got our return on investment within the first month of its use, because of the increased security that we had in the organization; the ability to have a product that is protecting our end-users. We do educate our end users today, but Umbrella doesn't require us to go through as in-depth an education process to say, "Okay, you're going to have to do the research. You're going to have to figure out what sites are bad. You're going to have to figure out where not to go." We don't have to do any of that. That's all handled by Umbrella. We just need to let them know that we're protecting them on the back-end side.

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

Its value exceeds its pricing.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We looked around to see what was available. There were a lot of content filtering solutions available, but one of the things that Umbrella brings, in addition to content filtering, is that awareness of known threat sites. Their tie-in with Talos, Talos being that organization that does all that research and feeds that into Umbrella, means that we not only have known malware sites from six months ago, but we're getting feeds from Talos within hours.

What other advice do I have?

The impact on our employees' morale has been good. Anytime the employees understand that we're doing something from a technology standpoint to secure the organization more, that makes them happy. It's something that they don't have to concern themselves with as much and it improves morale quite a bit.

Resilience in cyber security is extremely important. We're a financial institution, so cyber security is very high on our organizational goals, all the time. Making sure that cyber security is resilient against any of the latest attacks that are coming out is extremely important. It's a constant thing. Cyber attacks are increasing every single year. The methods that are being used are increasing every single year. If something were to happen, not only would we have a financial impact, but we have a reputational impact. For a financial institution, a reputational impact could be just as devastating as a financial one.

Umbrella helps us with that overall security. It gives one less attack vector for the bad guys to get into. We're protecting those end-user devices and we're protecting those end-users from going to places that could be malicious. The fact that it's doing that for those end-users increases our overall security without us having to rely specifically on end-user education in that particular attack vector.

For leaders who are looking to increase resilience within their organizations, I would say that what is necessary is to do as much security, in-depth, as you can. That includes using Umbrella to protect your users and using lots of other security products and being able to secure every aspect of your organization.

I would rate Umbrella absolutely a 10 out of 10. It's literally a lifesaver when it comes to being able to protect our endpoints.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Marketing Operations Supervisor at Home Telecom
Real User
Top 20
Flexible and Reduces Trouble Tickets
Pros and Cons
  • "It blocks malicious DNS queries daily which is very beneficial."
  • "The pricing could be improved."

What is our primary use case?

We're using that solution to essentially sort DNS attacks. We also use it to add that increased layer of protection at the DNS level for our customers. That's what we're using it for right now. We're trying to cut back on cyberattacks, malware, phishing, man and control callbacks, et cetera.

How has it helped my organization?

We had a fairly large DNS attack and that made us realize we needed basic DNS protection in place, however, we wanted something that was a little more advanced. That really pushed us over the edge for that enhanced DNS protection. It's got that ease of installation and billing along with just being a great product that's been tried and tested. That made our decision.

When we had that DNS attack, we saw a huge spike in issues. It's definitely gone down by a fair amount since implementation. We're seeing 800 fewer trouble tickets compared to the previous year. We can see (via the dashboard now) that we have billions of threats coming in every day. We're adding that extra layer of security for our customers. We're breathing a little easier now as it's actively protecting against all these threats that are coming in every day.

What is most valuable?

It helps us lead processes and blocks malicious DNS queries daily, which is very beneficial. We've seen a reduction of about eight hundred trouble tickets compared to the previous year. The customers are having a better overall experience as less bandwidth is being taken up by DNS acres. We're not having to constantly police that part of our network. It's a little bit of a better process and a better experience for our customers. 

We use the Easy Connect product, which works well.

The solution enables you to extend data protection to devices and remote users or distribute the locations. However, most of our use for the product is at the DNS level for our entire network and not really at the device level. We do have another added layer from a different company for the device security component.

The solution is pretty flexible.  

With the reduction of trouble tickets, it would be reasonable to say the solution has saved us money on security operations. 

Umbrella discovers new vulnerabilities every year. That's absolutely important to us. As our technology changes, the way we're attacked changes and will continue to change. It's important for us to be made aware of new threats and protect against them. 

What needs improvement?

The pricing could be improved.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using it for almost a year, since February 2023.

How are customer service and support?


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

I did not previously use another solution to this extent. 

How was the initial setup?


What was our ROI?

We've seen an ROI with our trouble ticket call volumes going down. We've saved an estimated $30,000 so far this year.

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

Start working with your rep early and budget well in advance. Billing is fairly straightforward, but can be expensive.

What other advice do I have?

We're customers and end-users.

We do not plan to purchase any additional security solutions in our environment in the near future. We have other layers of products in place already. 

For someone who's researching threat detection and prevention solutions, I'd have them consider Cisco Umbrella. You can see the threats that are being blocked, and you can help customers understand that you're doing everything you can to make sure that their online experience is safe and protected. People are working from home. People are doing telemedicine. There's a lot of more sensitive information being shared online. That in and of itself is a good selling point. You want to make sure that your customers are as protected as possible.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
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Solutions Architect at a mining and metals company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Video Review
Real User
Top 10
Gives a single pane of glass, protects our users anywhere, and saves time
Pros and Cons
  • "The agent that gets installed on the endpoints or on people's laptops and devices is a Cisco AnyConnect Umbrella module. It's one of the most impressive things because you are able to protect your users anywhere they are."
  • "Its reliability and the response time of the support team can be better."

What is our primary use case?

I am a Solutions Architect in a mining company, and the size of the company is around five to 10,000 employees.

We wanted to replace an existing solution and give a better experience to our users, and we wanted to have a superior solution that could give us insights into how secure our users are and what their browsing behaviors are to track down and narrow down issues. Of course, the first and foremost use case is protecting our users. Cisco Umbrella gave us all those things in one and having it integrated into our environment was a very seamless process, and we're very happy using it right now.

How has it helped my organization?

It gives you a single pane of glass to see what's going on with your environment and your DNS queries. It has consolidated a lot of previous efforts into the visibility of what's going on.

It saves time. You're protecting your users in a manner that you don't need to do anything after. If, for example, somebody tries to open a malicious website or tries to download something, it just won't allow that. That's it. Previously, there were loopholes and ways for users to get around the proxy, which gives you more work. In that sense, we're saving the support team's time. When you're investigating a problem, it quickly gives you insights into what you're looking for as simple as possible. You can see when a user was accessing a website, was it blocked or was it allowed? Of course, you could test connectivity for specific users and computers. That saves time in troubleshooting. It saves hours per week in comparison to the previous solution. 

What is most valuable?

The agent that gets installed on the endpoints or on people's laptops and devices is a Cisco AnyConnect Umbrella module. It's one of the most impressive things because you are able to protect your users anywhere they are.

What needs improvement?

Its reliability and the response time of the support team can be better. 

In terms of features, I know Cisco Umbrella has a lot of potential, and I'm not sure if we're using it to its full potential. I'm not aware of all the functionality, and for the functionality for which we're using it, it has been great. There probably is one place for improvement. We'll love to see any new features, new functionalities, and maybe better integration with other cloud platforms, but for us, it's good as it's now.

For how long have I used the solution?

We've been using Cisco Umbrella for around four and a half years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

In terms of availability, we've seen it down a couple of times. It has become very stable recently, but we've seen it down. Maybe that's one area that they can improve on. It was not for a long time, but it caused a little panic among our users.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability is happening with ease with Cisco Umbrella because you're either deploying another appliance in your branch office or another office, or you're pointing the endpoints to the existing appliances in your head office or any other place, and you're good to go. It's very scalable and easy to use, and you can have a new office ready in a day or less.

How are customer service and support?

It's great. We've had some cases and issues, but they were resolved quickly and in a timely manner, and we're happy with it. I'd rate them an eight out of ten. They could be a little quicker, but technically, they're great.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

The previous solution was a proxy solution. I'd not state the name of the solution, but it was a proxy solution. It was heavy. It was slow, and there was no easy way for tracking old things. And of course, you can't protect your users outside of the company environment.

How was the initial setup?

I found it easy to implement. Cisco Umbrella has great documentation and great support teams, and implementing it was very easy for us. We just deployed the appliances, and we got through the initial basic policies. We were prepared to do it, so for us, it was very easy.

What about the implementation team?

We did it ourselves. The documentation was good. We're experienced architects and network-oriented guys, so for us, it was just a great experience doing it.

What was our ROI?

The return on investment is in terms of time savings. It saves time and helps focus on other important things instead of digging into problems with users.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Because we're mostly Cisco-oriented, the solution was obvious. It was already integrated with all of our equipment. We already had Cisco AnyConnect, so it was just a matter of adding the module to it. We're Cisco-oriented, and that was just an obvious choice.

What other advice do I have?

Do your math and check the competitors, but in the end, you won't find a much better solution that's already integrated with your Cisco environment. If you are a Cisco company, that's the way to go.

I'd rate Cisco Umbrella an eight out of ten. 

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Network and security architect at Airbus Group
Real User
Good visibility, good support, and simple to deploy
Pros and Cons
  • "We can have a full overview and a quick overview of all the DNS requests. For us, it's quite important."
  • "They can maybe simplify the configuration. For example, sometimes, the proxy part is quite difficult, and that's why we didn't deploy that."

What is our primary use case?

It's for the VPN nomad connection. We capture all the DNS requests, log them, and check them in case of troubleshooting for security or malware issues.

How has it helped my organization?

Through Cisco Umbrella, we managed to deploy our M365 system and our connection. It was very good for deploying access to those cloud systems. It was a very important requirement to check all the connections from outside when the laptops are remote, and we managed to capture all the DNS requests. It was a security requirement.

It hasn't saved us time, but we managed to deploy the connectivity to the cloud system such as Azure or M365.

What is most valuable?

We can have a full overview and a quick overview of all the DNS requests. For us, it's quite important.

What needs improvement?

Cisco Umbrella is a good solution. It meets all of our needs. They can maybe simplify the configuration. For example, sometimes, the proxy part is quite difficult, and that's why we didn't deploy that.

For how long have I used the solution?

We've been using it for two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We have no issues at the moment. It has been two years, and we did not have any issues. So, for us, it's quite good.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have about 6,000 devices. So, I have no problem with scalability.

How are customer service and support?

Their support is very good. We have a lot of feedback from our partners and our Cisco contacts. They get in touch to be sure that we are using the product correctly and whether we have any questions. I have had no problem with them. It's super good. I'd rate them a ten out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

We didn't use any other solution previously. It's the first time we are using such a solution.

How was the initial setup?

We were already using Cisco AnyConnect, and for us, it was a simple plugin. We didn't spend much time. We did some tests. We worked with a local French team, and after that, we deployed it. For us, it was very simple to deploy.

What about the implementation team?

We deployed it ourselves with the help of a partner in France. The partner company is called Nomios, and we had a good experience with them. They know a lot of Cisco products, which is very good. They are into security and network architecture.

What was our ROI?

We haven't yet seen an ROI.

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

Its price for us is quite expensive because it's a subscription, and we just use it for the DNS log. So, for us, it's quite expensive.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We didn't evaluate any other solution. We went for Cisco Umbrella because we already had Cisco AnyConnect. We just used the plugin, and it was very simple for us to deploy it.

What other advice do I have?

I'd rate Cisco Umbrella an eight out of ten. For me, it's quite a good product. 

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Walter Poole - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at Infinite Energy Center
Real User
Top 20
Allows us to see threats in real time and be more proactive
Pros and Cons
  • "If it didn't have a single pane of glass, we would not be using it. The single pane of glass gives you a one-stop shop. It's like going to Home Depot. You find all your stuff there. You can see all your threats and your endpoints. It's a very important feature and makes things very simple."

    What is our primary use case?

    In general, we use it for the security of our network.

    How has it helped my organization?

    We wanted to get an idea of what's happening outside of our network and what's coming to our network. We had no way to know before and we were just sitting there waiting for something to happen. At least now we can be proactive.

    It has helped us to be more secure. Cisco Umbrella allows us to see threats in real time. We can also see if there are any bad actors inside of our network who are trying to do malicious things. It gives us a quick glance at the situation, at where we are and how vulnerable we are.

    Another definite benefit is that it has helped us to remediate threats more quickly.

    What is most valuable?

    It's very important that the solution helps support hybrid work. In the past, we might have had one or two people who were working from home because of illness or pregnancy. Now, with 60 percent of our people working from home, Cisco Umbrella has really helped us out with threats that they might not even know exist on their side. We can monitor them and be proactive about them.

    Also, if it didn't have a single pane of glass, we would not be using it. The single pane of glass gives you a one-stop shop. It's like going to Home Depot. You find all your stuff there. You can see all your threats and your endpoints. It's a very important feature and makes things very simple.

    Another point is that it's very easy to maintain network connectivity.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I have been using Cisco Umbrella for about eight years.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    The stability of Cisco Umbrella is very good.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    I haven't had to scale it, but I would assume the scalability would be good.

    How are customer service and support?

    We haven't contacted them from the time we were up and running.

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

    We did not have a previous solution.

    How was the initial setup?

    The deployment was straightforward.

    What about the implementation team?

    I used an integrator, Harness LLC, and the experience with them was all good.

    What was our ROI?

    Our ROI is due to the level of threats that we don't have to deal with, threats that are being blocked by Cisco Umbrella.

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

    There is room for improvement when it comes to the cost.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    We looked at Trend Micro, but that was several years ago.

    What other advice do I have?

    Look for programs that have a track record and that are proven. No matter what any individual might say, that person can't do it by themselves. They have to have support, and Cisco Umbrella is a good support.

    Resilience in cyber security is like raising kids. You really can't stop. You have to be resilient continually. Every day is a different challenge. Just because you're good on Tuesday doesn't mean you're going to be good on Wednesday.
    Cyber security resilience has been key for us, with people going home to work or to other places to do their jobs. That resilience keeps them working and keeps our network safe.

    I love it. It's almost like trying to look at WiFi. You can't see the WiFi signal with your naked eye. It's the same with threats. You can't see them by just walking around the building. With a tool like Cisco Umbrella, you can see what you have and how to fix it.

    For our employees, it means that their systems are working. They have no idea what we're doing behind the scenes to keep their systems working, unfortunately. I wish I could say, "Hey, guys, today Cisco Umbrella stopped 84 threats."

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    Private Cloud
    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    Tim Woodhouse - PeerSpot reviewer
    IT Operations Manager at a manufacturing company with 201-500 employees
    Real User
    Top 10
    Easy to install, doesn't use too many resources, and is highly effective for adding another layer of security around your company
    Pros and Cons
    • "I was able to implement it myself. It was really easy to install. You could install it on a server locally if you want to. If you have the biggest site, you would do that, but for my site, it was just directing all the traffic out through the Cisco Umbrella DNS. It was really handy. When the owners of the company went overseas, I knew that they would be secure because even if they were not on the company network, they would still go through the Cisco Umbrella servers. It was a complete solution for protecting the company with outgoing data."
    • "It had the ability to do a lot of app control. So, every single app that went through that portal was registered, but there is a general issue with the whole app control. As soon as you add a mobile phone to your network, all of the apps get registered through the system, and you can approve, reject, or just let them go through. When I looked at it, it was impossible to manage app control. There was just so much data. I didn't apply that service because I just didn't have the time to manage it. It would be good if there was a way to categorize applications."

    What is our primary use case?

    I had implemented Cisco Umbrella at a previous company. I'm now working at another company where I'm not using this solution. We've got another solution here.

    The policy of the company was to make sure all outgoing traffic was sent through a filtering service, and OpenDNS, and then Cisco Umbrella, was chosen for that purpose. Once it was taken over by Cisco Umbrella, it had far more capacity and far more functionality written into it. 

    In terms of the deployment model, I just used Cisco services. It would be through Cisco's private cloud. My site wasn't big enough. So, I didn't deploy the Cisco service on-premises. 

    How has it helped my organization?

    It was really valuable to me in protecting the outgoing data of the company. It was good for reporting. Every computer had the Cisco Umbrella program installed. So, I had good reporting on any issues related to outgoing data, such as whether there were any phishing or dodgy sites connected. It protected that part of the business.

    A combination of Cisco ASA, Cisco Umbrella, and Cisco AMP connecting to the SecureX portal gave me all-around security for the site because they all reported into a central reporting server. If there were any issues, I could have got full details, even if a crypto locker attempt was made. I never had any security incidents that I'm aware of. So, it was a very effective tool.

    It kept itself updated. So, I didn't have to worry about continuing to push out new installs of the program.

    I felt safe, supported, and secure, and so did the owner of the company. It worked silently in the background, and no one else really knew it was working on their computers. When we went into lockdown with COVID, I was happy knowing that all the computers that left the business had the app installed and were going to be functioning securely. We got no viruses and no issues on any computer on the network, which is quite unusual. A lot of other people or a lot of other companies I spoke to reported that they had quite a few issues.

    It worked 100% in terms of applying and maintaining network connectivity consistently across all workplaces. We never had any issues. The only issues we had were when sites might have been blocked because they were suspected of being within a filtering group. It would report back to the user and say, "This site is currently blocked by your administrator. Please click this button. An email will be sent to your administrator, and they can resolve the issue." I would then get the email, and I'd look at the site, and then I'd release it through whitelisting. It was very user-friendly in that regard.

    It certainly helped to remediate threats more quickly because I was able to stay free of any virus outbreaks. It definitely locks out that part of the transmission where the virus will go out and attempt to download a package.

    It worked silently and didn't use too many computer resources. It was really silent in its operation on the network. It had a really good impact on me. I'd love to put it in my new company, but we've gone down a different pathway. That's being resolved through Office 365 now, and I'm not proposing to change that technology.

    What is most valuable?

    I wanted to ensure that all outgoing traffic went through Cisco AMP servers. So, if we did get a crypto locking incident or any malicious sites that wanted to direct traffic to particular websites, they would be unable to do that because they would be blocked by the Cisco Umbrella DNS servers.

    It also did website filtering for preventing access to porn sites and gambling sites. It had all other standard features. It had a good section where you could whitelist and blacklist websites.

    I was able to implement it myself. It was really easy to install. You could install it on a server locally if you want to. If you have the biggest site, you would do that, but for my site, it was just directing all the traffic out through the Cisco Umbrella DNS. It was really handy. When the owners of the company went overseas, I knew that they would be secure because even if they were not on the company network, they would still go through the Cisco Umbrella servers. It was a complete solution for protecting the company with outgoing data.

    The other useful feature was that if we were to get a malicious actor onto a server or service running somewhere, it would still have to go out through the Umbrella servers. So, it would more likely be blocked through there. It had multiple features that were super handy.

    What needs improvement?

    It had the ability to do a lot of app control. So, every single app that went through that portal was registered, but there is a general issue with the whole app control. As soon as you add a mobile phone to your network, all of the apps get registered through the system, and you can approve, reject, or just let them go through. When I looked at it, it was impossible to manage app control. There was just so much data. I didn't apply that service because I just didn't have the time to manage it. It would be good if there was a way to categorize applications. However, that's dangerous too because you can be turning off an app in a group because you don't know what it is doing. It could be a vital company app. So, App control is the main area in which they need to keep working.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    Originally, Cisco Umbrella was called OpenDNS. I have used OpenDNS and Cisco Umbrella for about six years.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    It is very stable. I never had any issue with it.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    It is highly scalable. You don't even have to install it on your computers. You just change your DNS, and it'll start to work internally immediately. I never had any issues with performance or anything like that. I'm sure it would suit larger companies as well, but larger companies would install their own Umbrella service on their own systems and deal with the capacity that way. So, it is very scalable.

    How are customer service and support?

    Their support is good. They always got back to me and answered issues. They showed me how to do my own debugging. They were always very professional and helpful. I would rate them a 10 out of 10.

    How would you rate customer service and support?

    Positive

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

    We previously used proxy servers, but I wanted a more modern interface, and that's why I chose Umbrella.

    How was the initial setup?

    It was super easy. I'm a general IT person, and I was able to deploy it. I read the documentation, changed some settings, changed the DNS on my servers, and then rolled it out to the team. It was a pain-free implementation.

    What about the implementation team?

    I deployed it. It was pretty intuitive. I didn't have a consultant help me. I was able to implement the solution myself and manage it myself. That's a really good rating for an application. There are different systems you get to manage these days, and you can't have training on all of them. Because I rolled it out, I knew I rolled it out properly, and the system was working effectively. It was good. I liked using it.

    What was our ROI?

    The return on investment was that we kept the company secure. Nothing happened, which is the ultimate return on investment.

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

    It was a little bit expensive on a per seat basis, but the company I was running was only a midsize Australian company, and it was a reasonable budget per computer for that system.

    It started off being a free product, and then Cisco bought it, and it went to a reasonable price. I was using Cisco AMP as well. So, my per computer cost was reasonably high, but for a small company, it was within an acceptable level.

    Not having reviewed other systems, I can't tell how they compare, but I know that when you do special security licensing with Microsoft, it is on par. So, it is probably standard within the industry.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    At the time, we were using OpenDNS, and then OpenDNS went to Cisco Umbrella. Because we'd had such success with OpenDNS, we just stayed on with the product. So, I didn't evaluate any other products at that time.

    What other advice do I have?

    It is just another layer that you need to wrap around your company to keep it safe unless you could just shut off that possible attack vector from external parties.

    To leaders who want to build more resilience within their organization, I would say that they've got to keep doing it, and they've got to keep working on it. I'm constantly looking for better ways to secure the company. Cisco Umbrella would be a very useful addition to their set of tools. 

    A part of my plan in the long term was to implement the full suite. I never got around to that, but it was really good to know that I could go right down to app-level control. It was a very successful product, and I'd certainly recommend it to any business looking to just add another layer of security around their company.

    In terms of providing a single pane of glass management, security does involve multiple systems, and I could log them all into the Cisco SecureX system. From there, I could get my single point where I could resolve issues with viruses, et cetera. So, in itself, it was a single pane of glass for DNS protection. It was fine, but I don't think there is ever going to be a single pane of glass anywhere. You're always going to have many different systems that you're using, but overall, it had a lot of features. It did the job it needed to do.

    I would rate it a 9 out of 10. It is just app control that I want them to develop more.

    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    Buyer's Guide
    Download our free Cisco Umbrella Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
    Updated: March 2024
    Buyer's Guide
    Download our free Cisco Umbrella Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.