Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine) vs ForgeRock comparison

Cisco ISE is an all-in-one solution that streamlines security policy management and reduces operating costs. Cisco ISE delivers visibility and access control over users and devices across wired, wireless, and VPN connections.

Identity Services Engine enables enterprises to deliver secure network access to users and devices. It shares contextual data, such as threats and vulnerabilities, with integrated solutions from Cisco technology partners. You can see what is happening in your network, which applications are running, and more.

Features of Cisco ISE

• Centralized management helps administrators configure and manage user profile characteristics - a single pane of glass for integrated management services.
• Contextual identity and business policy: The rule-based attribute is a driven policy model. The goal is to provide flexible access control policies.
• Wide range of access control options, including Virtual LAN (VLAN) URL redirections, and access control lists.
• Supplicant-less network access: You can roll out secure network access by deriving authentication from login information across application layers.
• Guest lifecycle management streamlines the experience for implementing and customizing network access for guests.
• Built-in AAA services: The platform uses standard RADIUS protocol for authentication, authorization, and accounting.
• Device auditing, administration, and access control provide users with access on a need-to-know and need-to-act basis. It keeps audit trails for every change in the network.
• Device profiling: ISE features predefined device templates for different types of endpoints.
• Internal certificate authority: Qn easy-to-deploy single console to manage endpoints and certificates.

Benefits of Cisco ISE

Cisco’s holistic approach to network access security has several advantages:

• Context-based access based on your company policies. ISE creates a complete contextual identity, including attributes such as user, time, location, threat, access type, and vulnerability. This contextual identity is used to enforce a secure access policy. Administrators can apply strict control over how and when endpoints are allowed in the network.
• Better network visibility via an easy-to-use, simple console. In addition, visibility is improved by storing a detailed attribute history of all endpoints connected to the network.
• Comprehensive policy enforcement. ISE sets easy and flexible access rules. These rules are controlled from a central console that enforces them across the network and security infrastructure. You can define policies that differentiate between registered users and guests. The system uses group tags that enable access control on business rules instead of IP addresses.
• Self-service device onboarding enables the enterprise to implement a Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) policy securely. Users can manage their devices according to the policies defined by IT administrators. (IT remains in charge of provisioning and posturing to comply with security policies.)
• Consistent guest experiences: You can provide guests with different levels of access from different connections. You can customize guest portals via a cloud-delivered portal editor with dynamic visual tools.

Support

You can get ISE as a physical or virtual appliance. Both deployments can create ISE clusters that create scale, redundancy, and requirements.

Licensing

Cisco ISE has four primary licences. Evaluation for up to 100 endpoints with full platform functionality. The higher tiers are Partner, Advantage and Essential.

Reviews from Real Users

"The user experience of the solution is great. It's a very transparent system. according to a PeerSpot user in Cyber Security at a manufacturing company.

Omar Z., Network & Security Engineer at an engineering company, feels that "The RADIUS Server holds the most value."

“Whether I deploy in China, the US, South Africa, or wherever, I can get all the capabilities. It allows me to directly integrate with 365, and from a communications point of view, that is a good capability," says Rammohan M., Senior Consultant at a tech services company.

Hassan A.,Technology Manager at Advanced Integrated Systems, says that "The most valuable feature is the integration with StealthWatch and DNA as one fabric."

ForgeRock is a comprehensive open-source identity and access management solution designed to meet the unique needs of your users and workforce. With ForgeRock you can orchestrate, manage, and secure the complete lifecycle of identities in any cloud or hybrid environment. ForgeRock allows you to set up bot detection, identity proofing, and risk-based authentication.

With ForgeRock, you can define access policies and automate the management of the identity lifecycle all from a central, easy to use, and graphical dashboard. ForgeRock Access Management allows you to build safe authentication using options like passwordless and usernameless logins, single sign-on, biometrics, contextual analytics, and behavioral authentication. When threats appear, you can swiftly change how your users access your most sensitive applications and provide users with secure access to the applications, systems, and resources they need on demand.

ForgeRock Benefits and Key Features

• Elevate your security and efficiency: Consolidating your legacy systems under one single platform provides reliable, unified control over all your user identities and access-related policies. ForgeRock Access Management also supports scaling existing policies for application onto new setups.
  
  
• Passwordless authentication: Implementing passwordless authentication is simple with ForgeRock Access Management. You can easily replace user-selected passwords with other options, such as easy multi-factor authentication, biometrics, and SSO.
  
  
• Identity governance: ForgeRock Identity Governance is a modern, AI-driven identity governance solution. By leveraging ForgeRock generated analysis reports, you can identify and apply appropriate user access, automate high-confidence access approvals, recommend certification for low-risk accounts, and review high-risk and inappropriate user access privileges. In addition, you can grant and enforce access to systems, applications, and infrastructure according to established policies.

Reviews from Real Users

ForgeRock stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its robust identity and access tools and its being easy to manage and scale with one central dashboard.

PeerSpot users note the effectiveness of these features. A technology solutions leader at an outsourcing company writes, “We need it for multiple clients, multiple implementations. Not all of them are necessarily a multi-tenant solution. We need a very versatile solution that can do a lot of work, but from a single instance that we can centralize authentications and we don't duplicate the efforts and that's where ForgeRock seems to do better.”

Mohamed B., a cyber security consultant at a tech company, writes, "Their access management solution, OpenAM, is most valuable because it meets the needs of a lot of users. ForgeRock secured our system so that it is accessed only by authorized people, and it implemented the SSO."