We performed a comparison between Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine) and Symantec Privileged Access Manager based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, HPE Aruba Networking, Fortinet and others in Network Access Control (NAC)."Profiling is one of the most valuable features. We have a lot of different devices between cameras, access points, and laptops that get plugged in."
"The most valuable features are the ability to retrieve information about Active Directory user names, viewing the log files to see which MAC address tried to connect with the created SSIDs, portal designing for your company, hotspot tools, and creating network rules for WiFi access."
"The policy sets give us more granular groups for end-user access."
"The feature that I found most valuable is profiling. We use that to profile certain types of devices, and then depending on the manufacturer, drop them into the appropriate VLAN without us having to go in and manually add the devices."
"For my use cases, the in-depth troubleshooting into why a client can't connect or why they failed, is very valuable. I can go back to someone and say, 'Hey, it's not my network. It's their certificates or user error,' or something else."
"It is a good product for what it does...So, it is one of the most critical systems that we have."
"We were originally a Cisco shop and Cisco ISE integrated well with our other Cisco switches and networks."
"Cisco offers automation, visibility, and control as well as third party integration capabilities."
"The key benefits are we improve our governance. We ensure we can build more trust in the way we run and operate our environment, and most of all is the accountability."
"It gives you list of servers, so you can see which users have access to which servers. This is really useful, so we can make sure nobody is getting extra access than what is needed."
"We can enforce complicated password policies and very important frequent password changes."
"It reduces the viral attacks on my website. It also allows certain users access to see what happens daily."
"It's easy to use and easy to configure."
"Transparent login for users of privileged IDs (Linux, Windows). This prevents sharing of the password because it is never seen."
"The two factor authentication, and the single most important capability was it supported PIV and CAC as one of the two factors. That was pretty huge for us."
"It is great for identity governance."
"A lot of people tell you the hardware requirements for ISE are pretty substantial. If you're running a virtual environment, you're going to be dedicating quite a bit of resources to an ISE VM. That is something that could be worked on."
"I'd like to see an easier way to upgrade to larger versions, as well as more best practices that are easier to locate on their support page."
"The support could be faster and the pricing could be reduced."
"The price could be better. I would like to see more integration with third-party solutions in the next release. This is because many of my clients don't have Cisco."
"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."
"Segmentation can be improved."
"They should improve the upgrades. It's not easy to upgrade the solution."
"The opinion of my coworkers, and it's mine as well, is that the user interface could use some tender loving care. It seems counterintuitive sometimes. If you go to the logs, it's hard to figure out which one you need to look at."
"It'd be great if you just stuck in your PIV card and Windows popped up, asked you for your password. You typed it in, then it remembered your credentials."
"I’m no fan of Java as an application front-end, as it tends to have issues depending on what browser one’s using."
"The management console could be improved."
"I wish it could create local accounts on desktops."
"What I hope happens with the new product CA PAM is to keep all the useful features that exist in PA, but what I’ve noticed with many new products is the UI gets polished but systems lags stability and performance or it adds additional complexity instead of simplifying the user experience."
"We experience stability issues after every patch upgrade. This is a place where CA needs to improve drastically."
"It's difficult to locate the reports, there are limits on what reports can be run from the GUI, and the report formats are lacking."
"An improvement for this solution is that it should not be constantly based on user name and password. There should be a condition to edit and update your username."
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Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine) is ranked 1st in Network Access Control (NAC) with 135 reviews while Symantec Privileged Access Manager is ranked 18th in Privileged Access Management (PAM) with 50 reviews. Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine) is rated 8.2, while Symantec Privileged Access Manager is rated 7.8. 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 Symantec Privileged Access Manager writes "Allows IT and consultants to access the infrastructure environment but needs more security and better support". Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine) is most compared with Aruba ClearPass, Fortinet FortiNAC, Forescout Platform, CyberArk Privileged Access Manager and Fortinet FortiAuthenticator, whereas Symantec Privileged Access Manager is most compared with CyberArk Privileged Access Manager, BeyondTrust Endpoint Privilege Management, ARCON Privileged Access Management, Delinea Secret Server and VMware Identity Manager.
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