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Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs Symantec Identity Governance and Administration 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
8.4
Cisco Identity Services Engine enhances security, reduces breaches, ensures compliance, simplifies management, and consolidates systems for cost savings and efficiency.
Sentiment score
7.6
Symantec Identity Governance boosts ROI by streamlining onboarding, enabling self-service, and automating user management, enhancing IT efficiency.
Direct comparisons with Forescout reveal up to 30% to 40% difference in cost savings.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
5.9
Cisco ISE support is praised for knowledge and responsiveness, yet occasionally inconsistent with integration and follow-up challenges.
Sentiment score
6.2
Symantec's customer service is praised for responsiveness but needs improvement in geographical support and complex issue expertise.
I rate the technical support as one out of ten.
Sometimes it's challenging to identify which support team is responsible for certain issues, which is a significant concern.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) offers high scalability, supporting large deployments and enterprise expansions despite hardware and setup challenges.
Sentiment score
7.3
Symantec Identity Governance scales well and adapts to organizational needs, though some face customization and resource challenges.
Factors like architecture, business nature, and legal limitations such as GDPR affect it.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Cisco ISE is highly reliable and stable, though larger deployments may experience occasional performance and configuration challenges.
Sentiment score
6.6
Symantec Identity Governance's stability is generally satisfactory, with performance issues arising under heavy loads or improper tuning.
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is considered very reliable and stable.
The stability of Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is poor for certain use cases, like authentication.
 

Room For Improvement

Cisco Identity Services Engine requires improved integration, user interface, documentation, compatibility, and management efficiency to enhance user experience.
Symantec Identity Governance needs improvements in UI, integration, documentation, security, cloud performance, scalability, and user-friendliness.
The whole setup works well with Cisco access points and Cisco switches, but when you have multiple vendors in the environment, such as HP switches or access points like Aruba, you'll find they will not work well with Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE).
Additionally, the product is vulnerable and has many bugs.
Pricing can be more expensive compared to other vendors, and there is a significant price gap observed, which doesn't seem justified by some specific features.
 

Setup Cost

Cisco ISE offers three pricing tiers, with high costs and complex licensing, but provides extensive features and potential discounts.
Symantec Identity Governance pricing is mid-range, seen as expensive, with flexible licensing but time-consuming implementation.
The license costs can range between $50,000 to $100,000 per year for enterprises.
Compared to other solutions like HPE ClearPass, Cisco is more costly, and the conversation suggests a possible forty percent price gap compared to competitors.
Making large organizational costs significant.
 

Valuable Features

Cisco ISE enhances network security with integration, 802.1X authentication, policy management, ease of use, and strong access control.
Symantec Identity Governance streamlines provisioning, access control, and policy compliance with flexible integration and user-friendly self-service features.
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) offers authentication using RADIUS, enhancing network security by separating and segregating networks.
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is very good at device administration.
The solution is integrated with other Cisco devices and can offer automation for an organization, making deployments more dynamic and providing real-time visibility.
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Identity Services Eng...
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
142
Ranking in other categories
Network Access Control (NAC) (1st), Cisco Security Portfolio (1st)
Symantec Identity Governanc...
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
66
Ranking in other categories
User Provisioning Software (11th), Identity Management (IM) (27th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) and Symantec Identity Governance and Administration aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is designed for Network Access Control (NAC) and holds a mindshare of 25.8%, down 31.3% compared to last year.
Symantec Identity Governance and Administration, on the other hand, focuses on Identity Management (IM), holds 1.4% mindshare, up 1.3% since last year.
Network Access Control (NAC)
Identity Management (IM)
 

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.
Efrén Yanez - PeerSpot reviewer
Identifies, debugs and models the privileges of your organization, adapting it to business strategies.
* Identifies, debugs and models the privileges of your organization, adapting it to business strategies. * Helps discover roles based on available patterns ("basic roles" / "Iterated Search" / "Characteristic Roles" / "Rule Hierarchies Roles" / "User Hierarchy Based Roles" / "Structured Search" / "Obvious Roles"). * Enables review campaigns to certify user privileges, roles and resources, activating the RACI model in the process. * Identity Governance comes with Connector Xpress but if you have Identity Manager you can use the integration between them and import the information that comes from CA Identity Manager and its connectors. * Allows the construction of segregation of rights (SoD) rules by definition of the client and enables “detective" and "corrective" levels for violations of business rules policies. * Provides a set of SoD rules for SAP in order to apply "best practices" to this type of "endpoint" (more than 3,000 rules / Consult CA Technologies if available in last version). * Helps to analyze privileges to find points of cleaning and improvement (Similar Roles / Roles Hierarchy / dual link / Suspect connections / Collectors, etc.). * Regulatory compliance is one of the objectives of the solution. * Covers the life cycle of enterprise privileges and maintains the role model "shallow" or "deep" / "functional" or "granular per application". * Helps you take advantage of the Identity Governance on the portal but better if you integrate with Identity Suite (best user experience). * You can enable LDAP authentication (AD/others) or integrate with CA Single Sign-On for portal access. * Real integration between CA Identity Manager and CA Identity Governance for better use of compliance approved roles, data exchange, and improved customer experience. * Data Transformation available using PDI (Pentaho Data Integration) * New functionality when integrating with Identity Portal.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
24%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
29%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Real Estate/Law Firm
8%
 

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 adapt the policies to VPN access, wired, or wireless access. You can securely ...
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 cannot secure the port if a device does not support 802.1x. Cameras, badge readers, ...
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 someone plugs in with a device that is not allowed and will block it. The user exper...
What do you like most about Symantec Identity Governance and Administration?
The product’s most valuable feature is flexibility. It can be customized as per the customer’s requirements.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Symantec Identity Governance and Administration?
The pricing has been very reasonable, but licensing costs vary based on the customer. It follows a user-based licensing model.
What needs improvement with Symantec Identity Governance and Administration?
Symantec should develop a SaaS solution for cloud environments to make the solution available in various marketplaces for easy deployment. It should also offer bundle installation instead of one by...
 

Also Known As

Cisco ISE
CA Identity Suite, Symantec IGA, Layer7 Identity Suite, CA Identity Manager (CA IDM), CA Identity Minder, CA IAM, CA Identity Manager (CA IDM), CA Identity Governance
 

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
Acciona, Core Blox, DBS
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