Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine) vs One Identity Safeguard 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."

One Identity Safeguard is an integrated system that combines a secure, toughened password safe and a session management and monitoring solution with threat detection and analytics into one integrated solution. It stores, manages, records, and analyzes privileged access in a secure manner.

One Identity Safeguard Features

One Identity Safeguard has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

• Policy-based release control: Seek access and approve privileged passwords and sessions using a secure online browser that supports mobile devices. Depending on your organization's policies, requests can be authorized immediately or require dual/multiple approvals. You can set One Identity Safeguard to match your personalized needs, whether your policies consider the requestor's identity and level of access, the time and day of the request attempt, and/or the specific resource requested. You can also enter reason codes and/or connect to ticketing systems.
  
  
• Vault for personal passwords: In a free personal password vault, every one of your employees can keep and generate random passwords for non-federated business accounts. This allows your company to use a sanctioned tool to securely share and retrieve passwords, giving you much-needed security and visibility into your company's accounts.
  
  
• Auditing, recording, and replaying entire sessions: All session activity is collected, indexed, and kept in tamper-proof audit trails that can be viewed like a video and searched like a database, down to the keystrokes, mouse movements, and windows viewed. Security teams can search across sessions for certain events and play the recording from the exact point where the search criterion happened. For forensics and compliance purposes, audit trails are encrypted, time-stamped, and cryptographically signed.
  
  
• Approval in any location: Approve or refuse requests from anywhere, using One Identity Starling Two-Factor Authentication, without having to connect to a VPN.
  
• Instantly on: Safeguard for Privileged Sessions can be implemented in a transparent manner, with no changes to user workflows required. Safeguard, when acting as a proxy gateway, can act as a network router, unseen to both the user and the server. Admins can continue to use their normal client programs and access target servers and systems without disrupting their everyday routine.
  
  
• Biometrics of user behavior: Even when performing identical operations like typing or moving a mouse, each person has his or her own unique pattern of behavior. These behavioral characteristics are examined by the Safeguard algorithms. Keystroke dynamics and mouse movement analysis aid in the detection of security breaches while also acting as a continuous biometric authentication system.
  
  
• Favorites: Right from the login screen, quickly access the passwords you use the most. You can combine many password requests into a single favorite, allowing you to log into all of your accounts with a single click.
  
  
• Discovery options: With host, directory, and network-discovery options, you can quickly find privileged accounts or systems on your network.

Reviews from Real Users

One Identity Safeguard stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its stability and its connection control. PeerSpot users take note of the advantages of these features in their reviews:

One PeerSpot reviewer, a Software Solutions Architect at a computer software company, writes, “I have found the most useful feature of One Identity Safeguard to be Privileged Sessions. One Identity Safeguard is a stable solution.” He adds, “I rate One Identity Safeguard a nine out of ten.”

Walid S., Networking and Security Engineer at a tech services company, mentions of the solution, “We deployed it into our company for controlling a client's behavior in our data center. It is very useful to control their connections, such as RDP.”