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Aditye Kumar - PeerSpot reviewer
Principle Consultant at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees
Video Review
Consultant
Enables us to inspect all the user traffic generated from anything
Pros and Cons
  • "By using Cisco Umbrella, you are sure of inspecting all the traffic. Whenever the user machine is connected to your network, it is inspected. That's the best thing. It means you are sure that nothing is being exported or imported without your choice. That is the best feature."
  • "If you wish to inspect all the traffic and it's integrated with Cisco AnyConnect, all the traffic basically goes through Cisco AnyConnect, which is not a good idea. That means you need to have more internet capacity as a data sampler, so in the case of a split tunnel, we cannot inspect the traffic that is being migrated through the local internet. I'm not sure whether there is a possibility wherein Cisco Umbrella can also inspect the traffic that is outside the AnyConnect tunnel."

What is our primary use case?

I'm a principal consultant for one of the energy sector companies, which basically extracts oil and gas and also deals with solar energy. We are dealing with anything related to energy. It's a supply chain as well.

We have been using Cisco Umbrella for more than one year. Basically, after the COVID situation, when the hybrid model came, we needed to give work-from-home options to the employees and look into cybersecurity. We had to get some cloud security. That is why we have introduced Cisco Umbrella.

How has it helped my organization?

We chose Cisco Umbrella because it's a better option industry-wide. It can inspect all the web traffic from anywhere. When traffic is generated from any local internet, it might be anything. It doesn't qualify for cyber security for any company. That's why you have to have something to inspect all the traffic. Cisco is a good vendor for us. That's why we chose Cisco Umbrella.

By using Cisco Umbrella, you are sure of inspecting all the traffic. Whenever the user machine is connected to your network, it is inspected. That's the best thing. It means you are sure that nothing is being exported or imported without your choice. That is the best feature.

It generates alerts, and you can integrate it with your ticketing tool. When it's integrated, it can also generate a ticket. That means you know when something is wrong or what's going on. It has helped a lot during this hybrid model, and I don't think that this hybrid model is going anywhere. So, you can simply say that Cisco Umbrella is a good tool for the future as well.

It hasn't freed up our IT staff for other projects because no one thought about this work-from-home model before COVID. There were many alerts after Cisco Umbrella was installed, which means many staff members were invested, but its automation, such as automatically generating alerts and automatically assigning tickets to a queue, has helped a lot. We don't need to do any physical or manual inspection. It's being done automatically, which is a good point, but it hasn't decreased any resource hours.

What is most valuable?

It's the best tool to inspect everything. We can inspect all the user traffic generated from anything.

What needs improvement?

If you wish to inspect all the traffic and it's integrated with Cisco AnyConnect, all the traffic basically goes through Cisco AnyConnect, which is not a good idea. That means you need to have more internet capacity as a data sampler, so in the case of a split tunnel, we cannot inspect the traffic that is being migrated through the local internet. I'm not sure whether there is a possibility wherein Cisco Umbrella can also inspect the traffic that is outside the AnyConnect tunnel.

Buyer's Guide
Cisco Umbrella
June 2025
Learn what your peers think about Cisco Umbrella. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: June 2025.
857,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using Cisco Umbrella for more than one year.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Simon Watkins - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Network Architect at Prosperity247
Video Review
MSP
100% availability, excellent support, and helpful for filtering out web requests we don't want
Pros and Cons
  • "The feature that we find most valuable is to be able to filter out those web requests that you don't want."
  • "With any Cisco product, it's the licensing side of things that needs improvement."

What is our primary use case?

We are a Cisco premier integrator, and I've worked for Prosperity for approximately seven months now. We just set up a new networking team predominantly servicing clients within the financial services industry.

We offer various products within the Cisco Secure product line, for example, Cisco Secure Firewall, AnyConnect, and Umbrella. As a Cisco partner, we predominantly deploy Cisco equipment, be it LAN switching or routers. Deploying Cisco Secure products makes sense because then we have one vendor in the network.

How has it helped my organization?

When we're deploying Cisco Umbrella, we're predominantly utilizing the DNS Essentials or the DNS Advantage license. We use it as a first layer of defense on the network because everything relies on DNS these days, so if you can capture that traffic and analyze it or analyze those DNS requests, you can very quickly start filtering out things like Command-and-Control and whether there's malware on the environments or shadow IT, for example. So, it can capture and categorize the apps that people use, and if you were to block something, you can very easily block it.

As a Cisco partner, the value we bring to our customers is our years of experience, and our customers can rely on us. We've got a saying in our company that if we look after our clients, we look after our colleagues, and we look after our customers, then we'll all prosper; hence the name Prosperity 24/7. That's our sort of motto, but it's very true. Our customers can trust us. We've got the experience. We've got the links to Cisco. We do all the training, so customers don't have to worry. It's about wrapping the customer up in a blanket and going, "Everything's going to be okay. We're here."

The benefit we get from our Cisco partnership is credibility within the marketplace because everybody has heard of Cisco, and it's probably one of the most deployed network manufacturers in the world involved in so many verticals. There's always a product there. I've been looking at so many products this week at Cisco Live, for example, that anything you can think of is there. There's always new innovation. It's an innovative company.

What is most valuable?

The feature that we find most valuable is to be able to filter out those web requests that you don't want. In a corporate environment, it can be damaging. It can be damaging to organizations as well. You don't want people going to certain sites. Also, the malware side of things and the Command-and-Control side of things are valuable because you can have serious reputational damage to your organization if there's malware in your environment. To be able to block that at its source is very important.

Umbrella is a constantly evolving product set in terms of what they had maybe four years ago compared to now. The number of features they're developing and facilities within that cloud platform are amazing. Things like data loss prevention (DLP) have been released in the last couple of years. It probably has remote browser isolation (RBI) as well, but I'll have to check that one. So, it's a constantly evolving product set. Our clients might start off on a lower tier of the Umbrella, but over time, they'll go, "Actually I want that feature." And then they'll go from DNS Essentials to DNS Advantage, and then they might start looking at Secure Internet Gateway (SIG), for example, which is just the secure web gateway (SWG). So, there's something for everybody, and as a layer of defense in your network, it's a great product.

What needs improvement?

With any Cisco product, it's the licensing side of things that needs improvement. Licensing changes and Cisco typically doesn't make it easy for us, but it does evolve. What's good now is that predominantly across the different product sectors within Cisco, you start off with DNS Essentials, Advantage, and even the Catalyst switches. That's now ubiquitous across the Cisco line. They've got to keep it simple on the licensing side so that when I go and talk to clients, I can say, "Right, here you go. With this license, you get these features, but you can always scale up." Once the customers experience Cisco Umbrella, then typically, they start thinking, "What else could I be doing?" You may start off with the DNS Essentials, but then you might move to SWG eventually.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Umbrella's availability is second to none. I remember attending Cisco Live in Barcelona where I went to one of the sessions, and they said that they've had a hundred percent uptime since forever basically, so I don't think they ever had an outage. They've got two DNS servers. They use Anycast, so it's available around the world. It will speed up your web browsing because you'll go to the closest data center. Umbrella pairs with the service providers, so it'll speed up your general web traffic as well.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

In our customers' environments, in terms of scalability, absolutely, it's a very simple product to deploy. It's cloud-based, so we don't have to worry about deploying resources locally. Networks rely on DNS anyway. The whole Microsoft stack, whether you open a web browser or use Teams, relies on DNS. So, it's the first step in any web transaction.

How are customer service and support?

I like working with Cisco products because I get excellent support. If it's four o'clock in the morning, I'm in a data center, and something has stopped working, I know I can just reach out to TAC, raise a TAC case, and get help. That's a comfort blanket that surrounds all of us Cisco engineers. We know we can call somebody, and we know we can get through to somebody who will have the answers for us.

I would give Cisco support a solid eight or nine. It's probably difficult to give a 10 because sometimes it depends on who you get as well, but with Cisco TAC, you can always escalate cases as well. So, there's always somebody within Cisco TAC who can help you.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

In the typical deployment model, we integrate it with, for example, the Meraki product line for using Cisco Umbrella directly within the Meraki dashboard. So, you can link it to an API. That's a nice integration. You're not having separate Meraki access points or Meraki MX. You can bring it all together in one place, so you've got a single dashboard. Typically, we've done that. In the bigger organizations, we have done deployments of the virtual appliances because essentially, you want to be able to identify individual users at that point. By using the VAs, you should be able to identify users on the network, and then you can deploy policies based on those user groups.

Cisco Umbrella can be deployed in minutes. In its simplest form, all you need to do is point at the Cisco Umbrella DNS servers, and that's it. It can be literally deployed in minutes. If you want to go to a different use case, for example, where you've got to deploy VAs, that's a bit more difficult, but there's something for everybody. It can be as simple or as complex as your environment requires.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I've always worked with Cisco. I've been working with Cisco products for the last 20 years. We do have other products that we can sell for a lower price point, for example, but typically, I like using Cisco products.

What other advice do I have?

To any customers who want to evaluate Umbrella, the first thing I would recommend looking at would be the product sheets within Cisco. Understand the technology, understand the features that are available, and then decide what level of Umbrella or what licensing level you require to meet your business requirements. If it's just protecting some guest WiFis, for example, then it'll be a very simple deployment. If you've got Meraki kits, you can easily link those two pieces together.

Talos receives so much traffic. I did one of the sessions yesterday with the guys from Talos, and the amount of web traffic that comes into Talos for them to analyze is huge. So, as a repository of what's going on and a view of what's going on the Internet with this new malware, they're very quickly going to be able to react to that. Even with just the behavioral type analysis in terms of what constitutes bad behavior on a network, they can very quickly analyze and deploy a new solution. They update things like Umbrella, and as a central repository, it feeds into Talos, and then Talos can inform the rest of the security community about what's going on and what things you might need to block, so Talos overall has a positive effect for our clients. For them to do it themselves would be impossible. You need somebody on the Internet, and Talos provide that service. It's about control and visibility, and those certainly are the features that Talos can bring to the table.

I'd rate Umbrella a solid nine out of ten. It's probably difficult to get any product in a 10, but they are always constantly developing it. So, if you come back in a year's time, there'll always be new features than what's available today.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Reseller
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Cisco Umbrella
June 2025
Learn what your peers think about Cisco Umbrella. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: June 2025.
857,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.
reviewer2143209 - PeerSpot reviewer
Solutions Architect at a mining and metals company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Video Review
Real User
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: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Director of Security
Real User
Helped us monitor activity and find bad actors who had managed to grab and control some of our domains
Pros and Cons
  • "Any time someone went off the network, the AnyConnect client had the Umbrella agent built in, and it would realize when their computer connected that they were not on the corporate network. It would monitor and they would have pretty close to the same rules that they had to follow when they were in the office, regarding what kind of website browsing they could do."
  • "The design of the screens could be improved. Sometimes you're trying to look for information, for what you think is critical that should be on that first screen of the dashboard so that you can quickly take screenshots to have people help out, but you have to hop between screens to find little pieces of evidence."

What is our primary use case?

In my previous company, there was a gap in being able to put controls on users when they were away from the network. We thought, "Okay, Umbrella can do this for us," and it was at a reasonable cost for our security budget.

How has it helped my organization?

With Umbrella, it didn't matter if the users were in the office or they were going to go out. When I trained them I said, "If you go to Target, Starbucks, or anywhere else you can get on a hotspot, you're going to be covered with our rules, so we can make sure you're protected and that our company device is protected."

It gave our users, from all of our sites, something like a first line of defense, including monitoring all the exit points of our offices. We also used Cisco AnyConnect on everybody's laptop so that any time they were out, we were making sure to secure their machine and keep an eye on it.

Having a single pane of glass allowed us to quickly monitor and find out what was happening at that moment. We could see active connections going to a public address on the internet. At one point there were so many of them, thousands and thousands to one public address, which was more than normal. I had to contact Cisco support, and say, "This is what I'm seeing. Something's not right," and they said, "You're right." In the main screen, we switched over to investigation and we found that it was a bad actor. The bad actor was checking for domains that are flying around, and he found a few of ours that weren't paid for. He bought them and then he started controlling where they were going by redirecting them. That raised a big red flag for our company. They never had any idea that that had been going on for a very long time.

There were other bad actors who had some of our domain names as well. I had to work with legal and we actually purchased back a few domain names from people. As a result, we taught our guys internally, "When you do a domain and you're going to do tests in the lab, make sure that we put purchase orders in. It's so cheap, let's buy them so that we have control of them, and not allow this again." That was a big awakening.

Another benefit of Cisco Umbrella was related to our wireless. If we had a vendor come to our company, I'd have to get permission for him to use our wireless. I'd have to put in a ticket with his machine name, the IP he would have, and ask for a two-hour window. But I could tell that vendor, "In the same way that you are helping us with the product we purchased from your company, we're going to help protect you at no charge. When you get on our wireless, we're going to have it set up so that everything you do is monitored, just like everybody else here in the company. Even though you don't work for our company, you'll be protected and that will help protect us." They would stare at me, and I'd say, "I know a lot of companies don't do that, but we're doing that because we want to make sure you have a good experience and that we have a good experience by staying safe."

What is most valuable?

I was able to make use of Cisco Umbrella because it acts like a proxy. The company also had content security, which I used on-prem with Blue Coat products. Any time someone went off the network, the AnyConnect client had the Umbrella agent built in, and it would realize when their computer connected that they were not on the corporate network. It would monitor and they would have pretty close to the same rules that they had to follow when they were in the office, regarding what kind of website browsing they could do.

The single pane of glass management was one of the really good features. From that single pane, not only could you look at what was happening security-wise, such as what was being blocked by domains and IPs, but you could check for your roaming users. With a deployment of AnyConnect, or just the Umbrella agent, on 5,000 machines, you could watch the main glass and see how many roaming users were out there that had it on their machines. And even if they were in the office, it was always active, talking to Cisco's cloud.

You could see numbers. I was able to watch, as we were deploying, how many people were getting the agent. I could see activity such as how many blocks we were getting, what types of blocks they were, and whether they were in categories. I would ask why those users were going to those categories that they shouldn't be going to. Maybe we needed to just refresh them with an email saying, "Hey, remember, we don't do this kind of thing."

Cisco's Umbrella client product is superb. It worked so well for us and was easy to deploy.

What needs improvement?

The design of the screens could be improved. Sometimes you're trying to look for information, for what you think is critical that should be on that first screen of the dashboard so that you can quickly take screenshots to have people help out, but you have to hop between screens to find little pieces of evidence.

They should work with their customers to find out, when they're troubleshooting, if they're going through multiple screens just to get little pieces of information. Maybe they could design an overall security screen for an event and pull that stuff in so that it's on one screen, rather than having to go search for it. Right now, you're always going back and looking on the left-hand side, going down the column, and trying to remember where something you need is. You have to click all over the place to go find what you're looking for.

For how long have I used the solution?

I used it at my previous company for about four years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It was always up. We never had any problems. It was always there.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scaling was very simple. Since we were using a VPN, we had Cisco AnyConnect on all the user machines, with Umbrella built into it, and that deployment was just blasted out and it was seamless.

How are customer service and support?

The Cisco Umbrella support group was wonderful; very strong. I loved it. I never had one issue with them. They were willing to be there with us, and walk us through things every bit of the way.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

We didn't have a whole lot going on in terms of security and when I got a new manager, he asked, "How do we protect the people when they're out in a store?" That's when we saw that's where the flaw was. We were protecting everything on-prem but the gap we found was that when users were traveling around, we were not seeing where they were going. We were holding them to a standard internally, but when they were outside they were doing whatever they wanted.

How was the initial setup?

What a simple product. It's a fast deployment. Then, you can start designing how you want to do your policies and what you're going to block. But once we told them what public addressing they were going to see, within a few hours we would see them go green. We said, "It's already seeing the data. Let's start applying policies, and we can start controlling all this."

What was our ROI?

We looked at metrics. As I mentioned, one of the benefits we received was finding the bad actors who had collected our domains that weren't paid for. That helped us to put the magnifying glass to use and say, "Hey, we have something going on." 

I also worked with an outside company that Cisco purchased. I sent them our data from Umbrella and they actually mapped out our data and found bots on our network. There weren't many, but there were a few. The guy shared that with me on the screen and said, "If you buy the service to have us be part of your Cisco deployment, we'll take your data, continually analyze it, and give you reports." 

There was one bot in particular that was just sitting there. The guy at the other company said, "That bot that you're seeing, it's asleep. Look again in a few hours," and it popped up. He said, "It just woke up at that point to try to do a command call." He said, "But we're blocking them, so you're not getting any threats." We didn't know that we had bots in there, and that was a big benefit.

I also had to run numbers for reports. One of them looked at our category-blocking on Umbrella, such as blocks of alcohol sites, social media, weapons, government. I would provide monthly reports to show how many blocks we had from our users trying to go to these types of categories, and it really woke up management: "Wow. That thing is blocking." 

Our investment in this worked, and we were showing it by numbers. It wasn't only that we found bots and bad actors, but we were also controlling things  by blocking phishing and categories. It was protecting us and no one was able to get past those blocks.

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

The pricing was marvelous. We only had to pay for licenses and they worked a very nice deal with us. It was a much better way to go because it was within budget. It was an easy cost for us to handle.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did not evaluate any other options. We invited Cisco to come in and do a demonstration, and it was so strong. I also come from a Cisco background of many years. In addition, the industry reviews rated them very well and we took that as our lead.

When they came in and showed us what they could do and how easy it was to monitor every one of our sites within a day, after we put in our external public addresses, it was a no-brainer. It was up and live by the next day, after just a few hours. It was easy to use and set up and we could use it like our internal proxies. We could manage the content and know what was going on and investigate things. We knew what sites people were going to. It was wonderful. Everything we needed was there. We didn't have to go any further, and we knew Cisco would have our back.

What other advice do I have?

All the users understood why we were putting the security control in place, to show that not only were they going to be protected at work on company-owned devices, but whenever they would go outside, we were also going to help. We had to mitigate the chances that they would get something on their machines and make sure that we stopped anything that shouldn't come in and affect our network or expose us to anything.

With Cisco Umbrella, employee morale was very high. We hardly had any complaints at all. One of the reasons is that, when doing regular security troubleshooting, we would go to Umbrella as our first line investigation. We might find a domain or IP that was being blocked by Cisco, something they consider a risk. We would check it out and if it didn't look to be bad we could bypass the block and allow that AD group or set of users to go to that site, because they had to do business as usual. With that ability, we had very few problems, if at all. Overall, it was smooth, with everybody happy, including management. They were happy that we had our first line of defense and that it worked out very well.

I introduce Umbrella to any company that I'm involved with. Cisco is already taking the correct steps right now, as a CASB for any cloud activity as well as DLP. Once they circled around to help companies with protection when they move to the cloud, that was the right direction. I'm not using Umbrella every day anymore, but I'm a proponent of it as a first defense for your company at a reasonable cost. And you don't have hardware to manage. You just rely on Cisco, get your support contract, and work with them to have them help fix things.

I'm a firm believer in Cisco Umbrella and I would definitely use it everywhere I go. I'm speaking to companies in the health industry and telling them, "Guys, you can't just have four people working on security and think you're going to do everything in the world to protect your hospital. You're going to end up on the news." I try to introduce them to this type of solution, to at least have something there to mitigate and help out.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
IT Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Real User
The end user has been much happier with their application performance
Pros and Cons
  • "Application performance has greatly improved and there are less operational issues. Productivity has been going up because we have less operational issues. Also, we have happy customers."
  • "Network connectivity was a bit of a challenge at the beginning, but we were able to get the right help from Cisco."

What is our primary use case?

We have a centralized security policy. For the end user traffic from the firewall to go out to the Internet, it traverses through the secure SD-WAN going back to the data center. It passes a lot of proxies, firewalls, and different security checks. Hence, there are some performance issues. Therefore, we asked Cisco to come in and see if there were any products that could improve this situation for the local Internet breakout, and this was the solution that they brought to the table.

We have a remote location that uses Viptela SD-WAN in conjunction with Umbrella.

How has it helped my organization?

It adds a lot of value to the environment. The end user has been much happier with their application performance after using it. I don't see any drawbacks with this solution. 

Hybrid work is also kind of important. Some users may be working from home these days, especially after COVID, as they don't necessarily have to come back to the centralized location for security checks. They can have security going out local from their home environment as well. 

The performance has been greatly improved, especially for some of the end users who kept creating tickets and complaining that it was really slow when everything had to go through the central tool for security checks. Now, everything is locally broken out. Also, security now has all the right filters and malware checks.

The malware piece protects the network from malicious attacks. We have had a lower case of security breaches. Therefore, that brings a lot of value to the table.

What is most valuable?

The content filtering piece is something that really ties back to what my customer is using because they do have some sites that they don't want end users to go to, in order for the security to be locally available, allowing the users to break out to the Internet. The content filtering is a key piece that our customers want to test and use. So, we tested, and it was successful.

The single-pane-of-glass management is very important. Management wants to look at a single frame, then expand it to get the information that they need, without relying on engineers to take it out. Sometimes, engineers need to go down multiple levels to get the information and package it, and then it is possibly not the information that they are looking for. So, it has to be done again.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the solution for about six months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We haven't encountered any issues.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is good. There aren't any limitations with its scalability. We can scale it out.

How are customer service and support?

We have had some tech cases. However, a lot of times we have our account engineers who help out. They are very savvy and knowledgeable. If something is unknown, they will reach out to internal Cisco for help. They are pretty good. I would give them 9 out of 10.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

We did previously use a different solution. 

We wanted to do the local breakout, but our previous solution wasn't able to do it. We spent quite a bit of time testing the other solution, but it just didn't work. This is why we reached out to Cisco.

How was the initial setup?

We did some testing. Network connectivity was a bit of a challenge at the beginning, but we were able to get the right help from Cisco. The POC probably took a month or so

What was our ROI?

Application performance has greatly improved and there are less operational issues. Productivity has been going up because we have less operational issues. Also, we have happy customers.

What other advice do I have?

Usually when we have a good solution, we share it with our peers who can then bring it to their customer's attention, if they need to solve the same problem.

I would rate this solution anywhere between 8 and 9 out of 10 because it addresses the needs of my customer, but leaving room for improvement.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1407087 - PeerSpot reviewer
Vice President Information Security & Compliance at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Significantly reduces investment in hardware-based firewalls by diminishing refresh frequency
Pros and Cons
  • "One of the most important features is the security posture check which Umbrella offers when a user accesses any website. That is one of the most unique features that it offers."
  • "If a hardware platform were provided for Umbrella, that would definitely improve the market for it... Especially when we are addressing governmental customers, they hesitate to connect to the cloud. That is where we need a hardware platform so that the solution can be used on-premises as well."

What is our primary use case?

One of the main use cases of Cisco Umbrella kicked in during the COVID pandemic, as a SASE deployment—secure access, secure edge. Most of the users within a company started working from outside the company and that is when Umbrella became deployed a lot.

What is most valuable?

One of the most important features is the security posture check which Umbrella offers when a user accesses any website. That is one of the most unique features that it offers.

What needs improvement?

I would like to see hardware-based integrations. If a hardware platform were provided for Umbrella, that would definitely improve the market for it. The solution is pretty good, but if a hardware-based solution came through, it would meet all the compliance standards in my country.

Especially when we are addressing governmental customers, they hesitate to connect to the cloud. That is where we need a hardware platform so that the solution can be used on-premises as well.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been deploying Cisco Umbrella for about five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's quite stable. I've gotten very positive feedback from the customers who have deployed it within their environment. The feedback has been amazing. It's up and running 99.9 percent of the time, since it's a cloud-based solution. We have had no problems related to bugs or any issues like that.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is very scalable. Although I'm not talking to the clients anymore, I'm sure that the organization I worked with is working with them to spread the solution to more users who were not covered in the initial deployment. There is an adoption roadmap for this product.

How are customer service and support?

Technical support is included as part of the subscription. At any point in time, if you have any queries, there's a 24/7 TAC number available. You can just call and log a case.

I'm also very satisfied with the documentation provided for the solution.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

The previous solution we used was Akamai, but Akamai was more costly compared to Umbrella, and the consumption model was not favorable. Cisco Umbrella cost at least 30 percent less compared to what Akamai offered.

How was the initial setup?

One of the key aspects of Umbrella is the deployment. It takes a matter of just 30 minutes to deploy it in any enterprise and, as soon as it is deployed, it starts to work, so it is seamless. The benefits are realized immediately.

The implementation strategy is pretty straightforward. On the customer's existing hardware you just have to make the entries that will enable the connection to Umbrella and it starts to run. It's a single-person deployment, a single network engineer. That is the beauty of it; you don't require a huge team to deploy it.

Umbrella doesn't require any maintenance. All the updates happen automatically. The configuration is a one-time process.

It can be deployed on the public cloud and private cloud. These are two of the selling factors, although public cloud is more common. It's a multi-location solution but can also be used by a single headquarters. On average, our deployments are for 2,000 endpoints.

What was our ROI?

If you look at the ROI, Umbrella significantly reduces investment in hardware-based firewalls. For example, typically, an enterprise has to refresh its firewalls every five years. By using Umbrella, they don't have to change their firewalls, rather the security posture is shifted to a cloud-based provider.

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

There are no hidden costs with Umbrella. Everything is included in the package.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Other than Akamai, there weren't many providers available in India.

What other advice do I have?

One important piece of advice would be to look at your existing framework and see which use cases Umbrella can address. That will make the adoption much easier.

Umbrella is the best product available as of now. 

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.
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:
PeerSpot user
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
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Cisco Umbrella Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: June 2025
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Cisco Umbrella Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.