We performed a comparison between Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine) and Cisco Umbrella based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Cisco Security Portfolio solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."The user experience of the solution is great. It's a very transparent system."
"It does what it's supposed to. We use a certificate-based authentication method for corporate-managed devices. That means when a user walks in with their managed laptop and plugs it into the network, it chats with Cisco ISE in the background, allows it on the network, and away they go."
"For guests we give them limited access to the internet when they come in so that access has been useful. Previously, we just used to give them the APN key which they would leave with. Now, we give them credentials to use that are for a limited period of time."
"A lot of customers use a third party to manage their guest Wi-Fi. Cisco ISE presents the ability to bring that in-house so that customers can have full control over it, change the branding, and get extra telemetry from it and the user data. It works really well for our customers."
"The solution is great for establishing trust for every access request no matter where it comes from."
"It works as a good RADIUS server. It has lots of features. It works with all the proprietary Cisco AB pairs and features."
"It's easy to change and add policies."
"The most valuable feature is the ASDM - the user interface makes it very easy to configure the firewall."
"Umbrella has helped my IT staff in two ways. First, our security team was able to get more insights into the users, their devices, and the sites they browse. Second, our system administration team was able to manage DNS resolutions in a way that is more accessible and less intrusive to our domain system."
"It blocks malicious DNS queries daily which is very beneficial."
"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."
"The most valuable features are the dashboard, visibility, and reporting capabilities. Our customers can see how much Umbrella is protecting their organization. If you don't know what you've got, you can't protect it. With Umbrella, you get the visibility and see the protection that it's providing. We can get PDF reports on a weekly basis of any malware activities and any denial of service or command-and-control-type activities."
"We immediately block impersonating users from accessing services over Cisco Umbrella-controlled devices."
"Cisco Umbrella is a totally different solution. They are the first to come up with this idea of security. It's a totally new concept of security for everybody, for every time, real time, perfectionism."
"Threats never come close to your network with security at the DNS level."
"The single-pane-of-glass management is really important. In today's era, administration costs and operational expenses will cost you a lot, and it reduces that as well. You don't need extra resources to manage all your parameter firewalls, looking at every single device to allow resources internal access. By just introducing the single-pane-of-glass management, it has lifted the burden off of management, especially the network management."
"In an upcoming release, the solution needs to be more agentless and more independent. Additionally, there could be improved integration with other next-generation solutions, such as Palo Alto, Fortinet, or Check Point."
"The software is a little bit complicated to understand in the beginning, meaning the implementation. It needs proper documentation so that we can understand the options more easily."
"The price here in Brazil is very expensive."
"Cisco ISE has numerous features that are impractical, and I won't utilize them since they require payment."
"Compatibility and integration with other vendors is what needs to be improved in Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine)."
"The solution could be more secure."
"The policies could be adjusted to make them more easily implementable."
"The interface could be more user-friendly and the ability to apply rules to MAC addresses, for example, if I wanted to allow a certain MAC address access at a particular time I cannot make this adjustment."
"Its DNS service does not support IPv6 query."
"It would be useful if they had a malware protection engine running inside their own VM."
"It could be improved by having a local data center and caching, which can provide protection support. I would like to be able to channel my intel and my network traffic to their clouds, and this feature is not available. Advanced protection or any malware file support, which might be required, is not available."
"I'm hoping for the conversion of Cisco ZTNA's features from Duo to Umbrella."
"I think it's a very basic solution, and because of that, Cisco Umbrella would not be a suitable solution for large companies."
"I would like to see more integrations with more products. Some of the integrations need to be simpler as well. For example, the integration with Cisco Secure Firewall could be simpler. It would be good to make reporting simpler. For those who don't use SecureX, it would be good to make Umbrella really simple to use upfront. It's not a difficult product, but it can be daunting for someone who isn't exposed to it because there are so many options."
"One of the issues with Umbrella is as you get into endpoint detection and response, such as EDR point solutions, some of them will not integrate well with Umbrella. Sometimes when you want to use technology, such as Always On VPN, it will not work. There are some looming issues as one type of technology starts to crossover with Umbrella. That is the challenge and Umbrella should find a way to be more compatible with some of the endpoint response solutions that are coming out on the market."
"With any Cisco product, it's the licensing side of things that needs improvement."
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Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine) is ranked 1st in Cisco Security Portfolio with 138 reviews while Cisco Umbrella is ranked 2nd in Cisco Security Portfolio with 108 reviews. Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine) is rated 8.2, while Cisco Umbrella is rated 8.8. The top reviewer of Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine) writes "Gives us that extra ability to assist the end user and make sure that we are making them happy". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Cisco Umbrella writes "Protects endpoints wherever they are, always pushing people to the right locations to avoid malicious intent". Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine) is most compared with Aruba ClearPass, Fortinet FortiNAC, Forescout Platform, CyberArk Privileged Access Manager and Fortinet FortiAuthenticator, whereas Cisco Umbrella is most compared with Zscaler Internet Access, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps, Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks, Palo Alto Networks DNS Security and Infoblox Advanced DNS Protection. See our Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine) vs. Cisco Umbrella report.
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