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Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs Portnox vs Varonis Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Mindshare comparison

Network Access Control (NAC)
Network Access Control (NAC)
Data Loss Prevention (DLP)
 

Featured Reviews

SunilkumarNaganuri - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhanced device administration hindered by complex deployment and security limitations
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) needs to improve the profiling preauthentication. They are very poor in asset classification and should focus on improving the preauthentication profiling, especially for NAC use cases. This will give them a roadmap for software-defined access (SDA) use cases and network segmentation. Threat detection capabilities are very weak. Additionally, the product is vulnerable and has many bugs.
Scott Kerr - PeerSpot reviewer
It is seamless and integrates well with our Azure setup
We use devices like PLCs and controllers, and when we receive a request to allow one on the network, we bypass typical authentication, associate it with a group account, and push it to a firewalled VLAN. However, problems arise when the same MAC address is requested for a different project. Our current system only finds authenticated MAC addresses, making it difficult to troubleshoot when the same device is used for multiple purposes. Ideally, we should be able to search for any MAC address in the database, regardless of its authentication status, to see all its associated groups and potential conflicts.
Frederic  Delos - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers the ability to identify sensitive areas, allowing you to drill down into the sensitive data
The most effective feature for me is its ability to identify sensitive areas, allowing you to drill down into the sensitive data, provided you have access, to determine whether it's a false positive or a true positive. That's the best thing for me, out of all of it. It's got everything, like other ones, but I like to be able to look at something if I'm doing forensics on the alert and say, "Okay, do I really need to do something with this?" For example, we don't want sensitive data in our OneDrive. So it identifies the sensitive data that's possibly in the OneDrive. And what I can do is look at it and identify whether it's actually sensitive data in Datalert or whether it looks like sensitive data, but I know it's a false positive. If it is a false positive, I can basically say ignore this pattern based on X, Y, and Z, you know, whether it's Redjax or keyword proximity. So I like that. With other tools, I gotta go through a whole process because it's a little bit more complex. Here, I can tag it and bag it in one shot. And the next good time I scan, it slips over it. So it helps in that.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"It's scalable."
"When we use ISE, one of the helpful things is that I can go through the dashboard and get every step along the way of how a device was authenticated. If it's failing, why did it fail? Why is it unauthorized? If there's an error, what is the error and how can I fix that error? If it's something that, if they should be passing, why are they failing?"
"It's flexible and stable. It's been good as a standard environment to run."
"The way the ISE works is you can get into defining. Let's say, in my case, I've got a Windows laptop and I've got an Apple product and those have unique identifiers, unique back addresses. It would say that this in my profile so I could get to those apps with either device, 24/seven. That's how granular the ISE or these NAC Solutions can get."
"The most valuable features are authentication, we have more granular control on the access policies for the administrators. The solution is easy to use, has a center point administration, and has a good GUI."
"With NAC, the profiling feature is valuable. We're able to see what we have out there in the network and dynamically assign policies to it. We can then use that to enforce TrustSec policy or anything else with NAC."
"The WiFi portal in Cisco ISE is very useful for WiFi customers."
"The endpoint profiling feature is among the most valuable because it keeps me from having to manually maintain a MAC address bypass list to track endpoints. I can have ISE profile them for me and then put them in the right bucket."
"The technical support is top-notch."
"The most important feature is that this solution is agentless. So, you don't have to install any agents on endpoints."
"The Portnox dashboard is very easy to use, and the UI is simple."
"I like the fact that you can take your device anywhere and still have that visibility from anywhere because it's agent-based."
"The cloud-based feature is very nice."
"There is an add-on feature for application control to kill unwanted applications when launched on a user's device."
"The Vidahost feature is currently in action, and it appears to be providing valuable data insights."
"I am impressed with the solution's voucher capability and authentication. The tool is integrated with Active Direct storage."
"The solution has significantly improved data security and compliance posture by allowing us to track and monitor activities. We can see who accesses data and when files are created and understand what's happening in our environment."
"It can easily identify unusual behavior or access patterns that may pose a potential threat, while operating as a unified reporting system."
"The solution ensures that users have not accidentally shared sensitive information with the wrong people or too many people."
"The solution's classification engine is highly configurable and efficient."
"Varonis Platform is transparent and captures everything in the environment without impacting the performance. The tool helps us unify data feeds into a single reporting system."
"Varonis offers robust data access governance, allowing us to understand which sensitive data exists and who has access to it."
"The most important feature is remediation. In remediation support, there is no group permission. We'll go ahead and remediate the access from the Dell folder to the parent folder."
"The 24/7 support is the most valuable feature. They have been able to answer support questions pretty quickly."
 

Cons

"The area where things could be improved is education. It's complicated to deploy initially because you have to know what you're getting into."
"Cisco ISE requires a lot of time-consuming administration."
"I'm working from China currently and the only real issue is that, within the country, there's some concern around Cisco and its ability to offer the solution for the long term. As the United States has banned the Huawei version in their country, we feel there may be retaliation in ours and Cisco will get banned as a countermeasure from the government. The future of Cisco in China is in question. Our local partners are worried about the situation."
"If I was going to improve anything, it would be the ease of migration. It's really difficult at the moment if you're looking to upgrade ISE 2.1 and you want to go to ISE 3.1 or 3.2, that whole upgrade path and, particularly, the licensing is quite a minefield to sort out."
"It does a good job of establishing trust for every access request. We have had a little bit of a challenge with profiling, but we are probably about 80% there."
"They should improve their licensing. Licensing is always trouble with Cisco, and Cisco Identity Services Engine is no different. The way the product is licensed could be improved."
"I don't like the fact that we can see the logs only for 24 hours. Maybe that happens because of the way we set it up."
"In the next release, I would want to see this kind of solution in the cloud as opposed to on prem because when enhancements are made to the software, if it's in the cloud, it's overnight. I mean you're not going to have to respin the servers that the license sits on, it's all microservices kinds of things in the cloud. That would be my recommendation. If I'm a customer, that's what I'm looking at - for cloud based software subscriptions."
"The integration between Portnox CORE and Portnox CLEAR can be better. These are two different systems, and there is no unique console for both devices. Portnox CORE is agentless, whereas Portnox CLEAR is not agentless."
"The price could be better."
"I believe there is a lot of room for improvement in terms of integration."
"It would be good to integrate Portnox CORE with CLEAR."
"Ideally, we should be able to search for any MAC address in the database, regardless of its authentication status, to see all its associated groups and potential conflicts."
"It might be beneficial to improve the ease of integrating the product with firewalls."
"Their filtering system tends to lag quite a bit, so when I'm doing filtering at times, it doesn't filter the items properly."
"The support team is very limited. They don't have much support during Asia Pacific hours; the team sits in during the EMI and US hours."
"The solution's interface is a little complicated with regard to setting up filters and reports."
"I'd like to see automatic updates for this solution. Currently, it's a manual process to update all the keywords"
"The remediation process can be improved. There will be no existing permission group for the McAfee channel domains. We can create a new permissions group for the required folder."
"We have Microsoft Office 365. I just saw an article today which says that they're actually getting integrated with Microsoft Office 365, which would be a useful feature. For user-based reports, log on activity, and stuff like that, it doesn't seem to really be present like Log360. That could just be my inexperience with it. I've been dealing with it for only about two and a half months."
"For unstructured data monitoring, it's one of the top ones, if not the top one, due to its usability."
"Varonis requires more access permissions for its core functions compared to competitors, which can be a concern for companies about data safety."
"The product is very complicated."
"The solution's areas of improvement are the interface and the dependency on on-premises deployment for some components."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If you're not going through an agreement, it's very expensive."
"We are running Version 2.9 because Version 2.9 of the ISE has a persistent license — it's a one-time payment. The latest version (3.1) is only available if you do a yearly subscription."
"I think the price is okay."
"I would rate the pricing an eight out of ten, one being cheap and ten being expensive."
"This solution requires an annual license and it is a bit expensive than competitors."
"The price can be lower, especially for subscriptions. It should be a lot cheaper to have a wide range of customers. The price should be comparable to competitive products like Forescout or Fortinet FortiNAC. Forescout is cheaper for customers looking for a cloud solution."
"It would be beneficial to have a single license that included all of the features."
"The licensing can be confusing, but it is still pretty good."
"Pricing is quite reasonable."
"It's not cheap. It's not expensive. It's in the middle."
"It is not bad. It is a bit on the high side, but considering the cloud features and how much it costs to run the instance in the cloud, it is not unreasonable. We do have RADIUS servers for the US, Asia, and Europe."
"Portnox CORE's pricing is adequate and cheaper compared to other complex solutions. Its licensing costs are yearly and include support. Cost is calculated per device."
"The cost of Portnox Clear is reasonable."
"The licensing module should be reviewed to count the number of devices instead of port numbers of total switches. There is a case for this where not all ports for a switch are used by devices. Unused ports are calculated in the license, then the customer pays for license for those unused ports."
"We pay for port licensing and support on a yearly basis, and it's not cheap."
"The pricing is a bit high, possibly due to the cloud features and running instances across regions like the US, Asia, and Europe."
"The platform is expensive. I rate the pricing a nine out of ten."
"I would rate the pricing an eight out of ten, with ten being the most expensive."
"Varonis Platform wasn't certainly the cheapest solution."
"It's expensive, kind of, really expensive."
"Licensing is on an annual basis. Maintenance and renewal fees are separate. Varonis Datalert is quite expensive."
"The pricing is good. It neither expensive nor cheap. It is average."
"You could do a subscription, where you pay yearly, or you could purchase it outright. The licensing cost is based on the number of users on the system that you are monitoring."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
24%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Insurance Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Which is better - Aruba Clearpass or Cisco ISE?
Aruba ClearPass is a Network Access Control tool that gives secure network access to multiple device types. You can...
What are the main differences between Cisco ISE and Forescout Platform?
OK, so Cisco ISE uses 802.1X to secure switchports against unauthorized access. The drawback of this is that ISE cann...
How does Cisco ISE compare with Fortinet FortiNAC?
Cisco ISE uses AI endpoint analytics to identify new devices based on their behavior. It will also notify you if some...
What do you like most about Portnox CORE?
It's easy to manage and troubleshoot thanks to the lightweight components.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Portnox CORE?
It's not cheap. It's not expensive. It's in the middle, so I'll probably give it a seven out of ten, where one is che...
What needs improvement with Portnox CORE?
We have been having some issues with it. That's why we're considering migrating to Portnox Clear due to some limitati...
What do you like most about Varonis Platform?
The solution has significantly improved data security and compliance posture by allowing us to track and monitor acti...
What needs improvement with Varonis Platform?
Varonis started as an on-premises solution and is transitioning to cloud. It hasn't fully moved yet, which is an area...
What is your primary use case for Varonis Platform?
The primary use case for Varonis Platform is data discovery, specifically for discovering sensitive data in our organ...
 

Also Known As

Cisco ISE
Access Layers Portnox, Portnox CLEAR
No data available
 

Interactive Demo

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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Aegean Motorway, BC Hydro, Beachbody, Bucks County Intermediate Unit , Cisco IT, Derby City Council, Global Banking Customer, Gobierno de Castilla-La Mancha, Houston Methodist, Linz AG, London Hydro, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Molina Healthcare, MST Systems, New South Wales Rural Fire Service, Reykjavik University, Wildau University
Data Realty, Royal London, Wales Millennium Centre, McLaren Construction Group, EL AL Israeli Airlines, 
Nottingham Building Society
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