Portnox Cloud is straightforward to use with an intuitive configuration pane. I obtain a tenant assignment and then begin integrating and onboarding. In my initial days, I used professional services for provisioning, but for my current deployment, I am handling it hands-on myself. The admin guides are comprehensive, so I do not need to search externally. The process is truly intuitive. Portnox's unified access control platform is essentially network access control with the intent that before accessing your infrastructure's access layer, you must authenticate and prove that you are not infected, meeting device health and device risk thresholds. I integrate it with standard identity providers, EDR solutions, and antivirus solutions to perform device posture checks. Access is granted only if you achieve a decent security posture. The term unified applies because it works regardless of your connection location. If I am working from Dallas and travel elsewhere, Portnox deploys the same policies specific to my user and endpoint, not my location. This uniformity brings everything together. Portnox's conditional access is not used extensively because we leverage Microsoft Entra ID conditional access policies. Previously, depending on integration verdicts, if the result was benign, we proceeded. For medium risk, we restricted access from potentially malicious endpoints to critical assets. For high risk, infected devices did not access the network at all. This approach provides incremental access based on endpoint risk posture. Currently, we use device control and device compliance policies within Entra ID, so we did not feel the need to use NAC-level conditional access, as enforcement at deeper layers slows things down. Portnox has helped me save on hidden maintenance costs, patches, upgrades, and after-hours calls because these are transparent to the end user. They notify me of scheduled downtime and changes, sometimes only affecting the UI, allowing me to avoid making changes during maintenance windows. Regarding backend issues, I experienced one or two problems primarily from poor design and insufficient resiliency planning before deployment. It was not a Portnox issue. Portnox is deployed on existing hyperscalers, specifically Azure. One instance involved an outage with the underlying hyperscaler itself, creating challenges. However, we have local enforcement devices and virtual devices that cache data. Different scenarios require different resiliency considerations. With proper design and failover planning, it works well. For example, we had deployments where people worked on deep-sea oil rigs and faced regular challenges due to poor transport connectivity, which is expected and not unique to any solution. Otherwise, Portnox has been stable from their end. Portnox has definitely saved me time for other IT security priorities because I do not waste time on patching, upgrades, or routine maintenance since it is cloud-hosted. The current deployment has just two people covering two shifts, capable of managing the entire deployment and operations themselves. If I compare this to an on-premises environment using Cisco ISE or Aruba ClearPass, it would require phenomenally large teams for infrastructure management. Portnox definitely reduces the time needed for solution management.
