IT Consultant with 501-1,000 employees
Consultant
Top 20
With the reduction in risk, we spend less time on end-user support
Pros and Cons
  • "The Global Block List is one of the most valuable features because it's really easy to block domain names as well as URLs. Sometimes you don't want to block the whole site, you just want to block one URL. The Global Block and Allow Lists are the best features for us."
  • "There are some situations where we would like to block things for specific user groups. I know that Umbrella does that, but it's not that easy.... when you want a specific task for specific rules and policies for user groups, you have to go three levels down in the menu, and it's hard to find where you do that task."

What is our primary use case?

One of our purposes for acquiring Umbrella was to block phishing links that we get in emails and to manage risky websites. We're using it for our internal network and the roaming client for external users.

Blocking malicious websites and preventing users from going into them, as well as the phishing attacks that usually come with malicious links, were the challenges. With Umbrella we can block them.

We use it in our Active Directory domain and for about 175 users. We use it on desktop computers and on laptops for external users. It's all on-premises, protecting servers and workstations.

How has it helped my organization?

It has improved our company a lot because we now see where the users are going and prevent them from going to malicious websites. It has reduced, by a lot, the chances of hackers getting into our organization.

With Umbrella, it's our IT staff who we feel secure. Sometimes the end-users, our clients, don't fully understand the purpose of the tools when we install them, such as the roaming client. And sometimes they get false positives and they don't fully understand why. But for us, as IT admins, we feel a lot more comfortable with the tool in place, because we know that it's unlikely our users will go to a malicious website. Umbrella is protecting us.

Umbrella has also helped us remediate threats more quickly. It's really good for securing our infrastructure from end to end. Umbrella's footprint is really small. If you want to secure infrastructure, such as servers, you don't have to install an agent. You just have to use DNS forwarders and point them to the umbrella servers. That's easier. It helps us protect our infrastructure for sure.

What is most valuable?

The Global Block List is one of the most valuable features because it's really easy to block domain names as well as URLs. Sometimes you don't want to block the whole site, you just want to block one URL. The Global Block and Allow Lists are the best features for us.

Cisco Umbrella also provides a single pane of glass for management. It's really helpful and it's important for us because we have multiple locations. Without a single pane of glass, if you want to block websites you have to go to every location, in each firewall, one by one. But when you have a single management portal, it's a lot easier.

The user experience is good because, as IT and admins, it's easy to use. But that's not only for admins, it's also true for the clients because they know the reason a website is blocked. The user experience is pretty smooth because they can report a false positive or a malicious website that has not been blocked in Umbrella. We are happy with the user experience.

And when it comes to applying and maintaining network connectivity consistently across all workplaces, Umbrella is excellent. We can track, among the different locations that we have, where the users are trying to get to. That means the risk of disruption is reduced by using Umbrella. And in that way, Umbrella contributes to maintaining network connectivity.

The user interface is pretty nice. Once you know how to do tasks, it's easy.

What needs improvement?

There are some situations where we would like to block things for specific user groups. I know that Umbrella does that, but it's not that easy. When you go to the Global Allow and Block Lists, that's the easy part. But when you want a specific task for specific rules and policies for user groups, you have to go three levels down in the menu, and it's hard to find where you do that task.

Also, the policies are not that easy to manage.

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For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Cisco Umbrella for around a year and a half.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is really good. They have about 99.99 percent uptime. I can't think of a significant disruption in the service.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We are a small organization, but from what I have seen, it is very scalable.

How are customer service and support?

We have never requested support.

How was the initial setup?

The initial deployment was straightforward.

The solution is on-premises but the management is cloud-based.

What about the implementation team?

We did it all by ourselves.

What was our ROI?

We have seen return on investment by reducing the risk we had in the past. That has saved us from having to invest a lot of time in support, which is something we had to do when a user didn't know what they were doing and got infected. We now spend less time on end-user support.

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

The pricing is pretty fair. It's good.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

In my former company, we used Area 1 for DNS protection, not Umbrella. I knew OpenDNS before it became Umbrella. In fact, I used OpenDNS for my personal accounts. In my current company we evaluated Area 1, but in the end, we loved Cisco's support and that is one of the reasons we went with Umbrella. But, obviously, the features in Umbrella are pretty good.

What other advice do I have?

Once our end-users understood why we use Umbrella, that it was for improving our organization's security, it improved their morale. Nowadays, they are aware of cyber threats and they know that Umbrella is one of the tools that we use to prevent a breach. They feel more secure now.

Resilience helps a lot in cyber security. One of the things that makes Umbrella great is that you don't have to detect threats by yourself. Wherever in the world a new threat is detected, it's in the Global Block List of Umbrella and we don't have to manage those threats one by one.

That kind of resilience is more and more important for our organization every day. Fortunately, our C-level now understands the risks and what the organization could lose. They understand the impact. With the support of management, cyber security is really important for our organization.

I would tell the leaders of other organizations who want to build more resilience that cyber security is more important now because we are serving our internal and external customers. The problem with a cyber security risk, a threat or a disruption in IT services, is that it will probably cause us to stop producing what we produce. Our customers will have a bad experience, and that means it is not only a financial issue but one of reputation. I would tell such leaders to always keep cyber security in mind because it's not just about your IT guys, it's for the whole organization.

It's an excellent product. It has worked really well. The only reason I don't give it a 10 out of 10 is, as I mentioned, that there are some tasks that could be done more easily.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Chief Technologies Officer at Astorg
Real User
Top 20
A highly stable solution that can be used for DNS filtering and as a secure gateway
Pros and Cons
  • "We use Cisco Umbrella for DNS filtering and as a secure gateway."
  • "I would like to have more applications being recorded."

What is most valuable?

We use Cisco Umbrella for DNS filtering and as a secure gateway.

What needs improvement?

Users need to have a bit of understanding regarding setting policies in Cisco Umbrella. I would like to have more applications being recorded. If you want to do things the right way in the console, functions have to be more automated in terms of classification, application, and recording.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Cisco Umbrella for three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I rate the solution a nine out of ten for stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Around 170 users are using Cisco Umbrella in our organization.

I rate the solution an eight out of ten for scalability.

How are customer service and support?

The solution should provide more helpful technical support to help us understand some settings.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

How was the initial setup?

The solution’s initial setup is straightforward.

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

What about the implementation team?

A basic setting can be done in minutes. If you want to go deep, it would take several hours. The solution's deployment time depends on how deep you want to go.

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

The solution’s pricing is reasonable.

What other advice do I have?

Cisco Umbrella filters more traffic and gives us insights into what's being accessed. Cisco Umbrella is useful for protecting endpoints and internet access. Cisco Umbrella is deployed on the cloud in our organization.

Cisco Umbrella is detecting threats more often because we've set it up more effectively than the other security solutions we have in place. It's catching threats in the first place because it's more strict.

We're using the Meraki firewall. Some Cisco Umbrella settings are directly linked to the Meraki console, which was quite easy for us.

Cisco Umbrella is very efficient and needs to be deployed on all endpoints. The solution requires some settings. Depending on how much you set it up, you should check its usage because it would require some day-to-day administration.

Overall, I 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.
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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.
765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Consultant Engineer at a tech company with 51-200 employees
Consultant
Has DNS integration with data directories and enables our customers to be secure
Pros and Cons
  • "Umbrella enables customers to be secure. We are happy with this and this is the most important benefit for customers."
  • "The pricing changes too fast. We get the license and we need to relicense it because they already made changes to it. We always need to be on top of the licenses because they're always changing."

What is our primary use case?

Our customers use Umbrella for a security network. They want to have DNS connectivity and drop traffic before it becomes dodgy. 

Clients implement Umbrella with the full proxy. 

How has it helped my organization?

Umbrella enables customers to be secure. We are happy with this and this is the most important benefit for customers.

What is most valuable?

DNS is the most valuable feature of Umbrella. We want to have DNS integration with data directories and we have customers asking about the Azure Integration. 

We try to fit all the Cisco Secure products together. This is the value the customers can see as well. We enable the Firewalls, Umbrella, and AMP so that the customer can see the whole view of what Cisco is doing. 

What needs improvement?

Our customers want to be able to work remotely. They want Umbrella to work securely from the office and to work securely outside of the office. 

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using Umbrella for years now. We have an Umbrella internally as well. I sell Umbrella to customers. We offer the full setup to them.

We are resellers and integrators.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is getting better.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is fine. The central management, that comes with most solutions, is really good. It's easier for us to go from two devices to 20 devices.

How are customer service and support?

We have had quite a good experience with their support so I can't complain about it. Most of the time TAC cases are quite straightforward and do not take a long time to fix.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

Our clients deploy on public cloud, private cloud, hybrid cloud, on-premise, or SaaS.

I am an engineer and do the initial deployment for them and make tweaks until it works for them. 

The complexity of the deployment will depend on the client's requirements. Some of them have straightforward requirements and some of them are quite detailed. The implementation itself is fine but there can be details where we need to check the documentation and make sure we're following what they require. 

Customers use the Firewall Migration for the migration mostly from the ASAs. We do the ASA to FTD migration, which doesn't work well.

Two or three engineers are required for the deployment. The installation is done by different engineers.  

We also do the maintenance. So whatever we deployed, we also support. We do all the support requirements, updating and reviewing the deployment that we did. We do the config that is required. For example, for the migration, if we deploy something, we come back to review what we did because we want to make sure that the customer is more secure than it was before. So we just rerun the same configuration, trying to find out if there's a gap that we can fix and make sure that the customer is secure.

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

The pricing changes too fast. We get the license and we need to relicense it because they already made changes to it. We always need to be on top of the licenses because they're always changing.

What other advice do I have?

Cisco Talos seems to be working fine for our customers. 

My advice to somebody considering this solution is to try it. It's probably the best option to try it and see if it works. Do a proof of concept and proof of value for the customer.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Reseller
PeerSpot user
Daniel Kuhl - PeerSpot reviewer
CEO / Owner / Network Specialist at NSCON Network Services & Consulting GmbH
Real User
Has good documentation and its general ability to detect and remediate threats is quite good
Pros and Cons
  • "The documentation is good, and we have been able to resolve any issues ourselves."
  • "It would be good to have more extensions to third-party products and a client for other device types."

What is our primary use case?

We use it for DNS security.

It is deployed on the Umbrella cloud dashboard.

How has it helped my organization?

Cisco Umbrella helped to improve security by detecting and prohibiting threats.

What is most valuable?

I like the API. I also like the way Cisco Umbrella uses DNS to block malicious sites before they are opened.

Its general ability to detect and remediate threats is quite good.

The documentation is good, and we have been able to resolve any issues ourselves.

What needs improvement?

It would be good to have more extensions to third-party products and a client for other device types.

For how long have I used the solution?

We've been working with Cisco Umbrella for four years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I have not had any issues with stability.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is very easy.

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

The price is fair, and the licensing cost is based on the number of users. We have seen a good ROI.

What other advice do I have?

Overall, on a scale from one to ten, with ten being the very best, I'd rate Cisco Umbrella at nine.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
Michael Abadeer - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Security Operations Manager at BeyondTrust
Real User
Top 10
Securing DNS, specifically for the remote workforce we have today, fills a big gap
Pros and Cons
  • "It enables us to go granular in the customization of blocking some categories on the DNS."
  • "Having ready-to-go templates with best practices is definitely something that would be an improvement. Deployment, from day one, is something that definitely needs to be improved for Cisco customers."

What is our primary use case?

We use it for DNS filtration across all data centers, offices, and remote users.

How has it helped my organization?

The blocking of all the non-malicious traffic from DNS request queries has been huge. DNS is very important from a security perspective. Securing this layer, specifically for the remote users and the remote workforce that we're seeing today, is definitely a big gap that needed to be filled.

The DNS Umbrella agent is already installed on the core machine. So from day one, when our CEO sent all employees to work remotely, all we had to do was flip a switch to have a DNS filter on all core machines.

The visibility that Umbrella gives us into what a user is doing, versus what we want to block, is huge. It's not that we're policing things. It's just a matter of watching and having visibility. We're definitely not going to block every domain, but having visibility is very big.

What is most valuable?

It enables us to go granular in the customization of blocking some categories on the DNS. 

Also managing all the DNS aspects from one portal is definitely great from a security perspective. Sometimes we get a malicious URL in a phishing campaign on the email side. Blocking a domain across the whole company in one minute is definitely great. To block a DNS request very quickly you just add the domain to the Global Block List and in one second it's blocked.

Another feature that is good in Umbrella is applying and maintaining network connectivity consistently across all workplaces. You can go through the categories and do templates based on the sites, such as a data center or a branch and apply policies based on that.

What needs improvement?

Having ready-to-go templates with best practices is definitely something that would be an improvement. Deployment, from day one, is something that definitely needs to be improved for Cisco customers.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Cisco Umbrella for four years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is a 10 out of 10.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is also a 10 out of 10. We use it across all the company's offices and data centers. We have 1,500 users.

How are customer service and support?

The Umbrella service itself is great. Sometimes, with technical support, we go through "tag" problems, but otherwise, it's pretty smooth.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

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

We did not have a previous solution. We used to use CWS, which was Umbrella before it was named Umbrella.

What was our ROI?

The ROI is visible in the portal through the executive reports. They show how many times we block malicious sites. Management definitely gets a view of the fact that we're blocking a lot of malicious domains with Umbrella.

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

We have a security Enterprise Agreement with Cisco, so the pricing is good. We take many security products in one agreement, so we have no complaints about the price.

What other advice do I have?

From a DNS perspective, Cisco Umbrella is the number-one technology now.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Network Architect at a government with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Top 20
Easy to use and the categories are very clear
Pros and Cons
  • "We are very new users of the solution and are still in the exploration stages, but we are happy with the product thus far."
  • "I would like to see Cisco enable us to get objects from the internet. I would also like to be able to choose groups."

What is most valuable?

What I find most valuable about Cisco Umbrella is its ease of use. I also value the clearness of the categories. We have not experienced any issues or incidents with the categories. However, we are looking more deeply at the product now. 

What needs improvement?

We are very new users of the solution and are still in the exploration stages, but we are happy with the product thus far. However, there are some features available in Fortinet and Palo Alto that are not available in Cisco, like objects, for example. I would like to see Cisco enable us to get objects from the internet. I would also like to be able to choose groups. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Cisco Umbrella for two to three months now. 

How are customer service and support?

For most of our technical support needs, we mostly go through our partner. However, for some infrastructure-related inquiries, we have had to contact Cisco's technical support and we were happy with the experience.  

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was simple. Deployment at our main sites took about three to four weeks. 

What about the implementation team?

We received help from a local partner, NTT Global, during the deployment. They helped us set up Meraki and Umbrella. 

What was our ROI?

We hope to see a return on investment with Cisco Umbrella. We have a big team managing the infrastructure, so we hope to save time in the day-to-day protection of the tower, which would be the return on investment.

Globally, we also hope to save time on the LAN. We aim for a single pane of glass management model with the dashboard. 

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

From what I remember about the pricing, Cisco Umbrella is a bit more expensive than the quotes we got from its competitors. 

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We looked at several products, including Fortinet and Palo Alto. We experienced a bug with Fortinet during testing and ultimately ended up going with Cisco Meraki products. We have not had an incident yet with Cisco Umbrella.

What other advice do I have?

The solution helped us save time and this was a major reason we chose it. We expect to save 15% to 20% in time.

We are aiming to consolidate our entire network and LAN infrastructure with Cisco Umbrella. We are on the way to achieving that with this solution.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Network security consultant at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Consultant
Enables us to control access to malicious websites and block URLs
Pros and Cons
  • "You can manage and create policies based on a group of users. It can permit some URLs and block others."
  • "The integration with other solutions is a little complex. If you want to integrate with something like ArcSight or LogRhythm or Splunk, you need to do a lot of configuration. There are no easy ways to implement it."

What is our primary use case?

It's usually used for DNS security, to block malicious websites and URLs, and for URL filtration.

How has it helped my organization?

It enables us to control access to malicious websites and block them from the start. And the URL filtration enables us to permit some URLs and block others.

What is most valuable?

You can manage and create policies based on a group of users. It can permit some URLs and block others. For example, we can block Facebook and YouTube.

From the DNS perspective, you can control and block malicious URLs. DNS security is the best way to use it to protect against malicious websites.

Cisco Umbrella provides a cloud management system. We can manage every client from a single workspace because they're in our portal. The single pane of glass management is user-friendly.

What needs improvement?

I would like to see improvement in the user and group policies. Sometimes it is not very accurate and they apply only to specific users in a group. It needs to be more accurate.

Also, the reporting needs some enhancements.

Finally, the integration with other solutions is a little complex. If you want to integrate with something like ArcSight or LogRhythm or Splunk, you need to do a lot of configuration. There are no easy ways to implement it.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Cisco Umbrella since 2016. As a solution partner, I implement Cisco Umbrella for customers. I have designed the implementation multiple times for different customers.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I have never heard of an outage in the service. The stability is good. The performance and accessibility are very good. The service is always operational because it runs on multiple servers and multiple load balancers.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's scalable. Scaling depends on the licensing you have and the number of users. If you want to add a user or an endpoint, they can provide it.

How are customer service and support?

Cisco's support is very good. They provide solutions and they don't take much time to resolve issues.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

When our clients switch to Umbrella, it's either because I suggest it to them or they know about the product and they ask to have it brought into their organizations.

How was the initial setup?

The implementation is easy.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
Laurent Dauphin - PeerSpot reviewer
Account Manager at Axians
Reseller
Top 10
A DNS security solution that is useful for web filtering
Pros and Cons
  • "The customer experience is very good, and the product improves security posture."
  • "Cisco Umbrella is difficult to manage and needs to include a dashboard. It needs to improve pricing as well."

What is our primary use case?

We use the solution for DNS security and web filtering. Our industries include banking and insurance. 

What is most valuable?

The customer experience is very good, and the product improves security posture. 

What needs improvement?

Cisco Umbrella is difficult to manage and needs to include a dashboard. It needs to improve pricing as well. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the product for three years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I rate Cisco Umbrella's stability a nine out of ten. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I rate the tool's scalability an eight out of ten. 

How was the initial setup?

The tool's deployment is easy; I rate it a nine out of ten. The speed of deployment depends on various factors, including our communication with other customer contacts.

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

I rate the tool's pricing a five out of ten. 

What other advice do I have?

Cisco Umbrella is the best solution for DNS security in the market. Our customers are enterprise businesses. I rate it an eight out of ten. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:
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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.