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Cisco Defense Orchestrator pros and cons

Vendor: Cisco
4.1 out of 5

Pros & Cons summary

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Prominent pros & cons

PROS

Cisco Defense Orchestrator allows centralized management and upgrading of multiple devices simultaneously, enhancing operational efficiency.
It automates complex policy applications and unifies security management across different devices.
The platform provides pre-built templates for quick and easy policy deployment.
It identifies and notifies about shadow rules that may conflict or override existing policies.
Customer issues are addressed promptly and attentively by the Cisco Defense Orchestrator team.

CONS

When changes are made locally on a firewall, CDO signals a compliance issue, requiring manual verification to identify the active configuration.
MX devices have caused blockage issues for Windows Update without prior notification from CDO, leading to wasted time and unpushed updates.
CDO lacks device control features for third-party products and needs better inclusion of such management capabilities.
There are insufficient reporting features, particularly for ASA, and daily monitoring aspects require enhancement.
Customers in regions like Vietnam prefer on-premises deployment, but CDO only supports cloud management, limiting its appeal to sectors like banking and government.
 

Cisco Defense Orchestrator Pros review quotes

TE
Jul 10, 2019
There are a lot of templates that are already built-in. They give you quick-to-create and quick-to-apply policies that are typically a little more complicated for people.
DK
Aug 13, 2019
If we have a firewall go down, I can hop into CDO, pull the latest configuration off and apply it. That's really good. It helps save time.
PB
Jul 26, 2019
The ability to do operations on multiple firewalls at once is valuable because it saves time and mental effort. The solution's ability to make bulk changes makes it very convenient to manage things at once on multiple targets.
Learn what your peers think about Cisco Defense Orchestrator. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: November 2024.
814,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.
RB
Jul 24, 2019
The most valuable feature is being able to do centralized upgrades on the ASAs. We can select all of those ASAs, and say, "Upgrade these ASAs at this scheduled time." It will copy down the ASA image, ASDM image, and then do the upgrade and failovers, and then put it all back into service as required at a scheduled time. It automates that process for us.
HK
Aug 12, 2019
I like the upgrade feature. That is pretty valuable to me because I have dual ASAs and when I go through CDO it does it for me pretty well. It's all done in the back-end and I don't really have to be involved. I just initiate, pick the image, and I pick when I want it done and it just does it, whether I have a single ASA or have a dual ASA.
JM
Jan 7, 2020
We use a lot of image upgrades. We take some 20 devices and then we update everything at once, including the policies. We apply policies for groups. For certain groups, like anti-viruses, we send out policies and apply them to every single device. It's really easy and simple.
it_user1141920 - PeerSpot reviewer
Jul 10, 2019
The most valuable feature is that you can push one policy or one rule out to several devices at a time.
JS
Aug 13, 2019
The initial setup was straightforward. We spun up the VM onsite. We generated the key that it needed to talk to the Cloud Orchestrator. After that, as I started adding devices, it was relatively quick and easy.
it_user1004274 - PeerSpot reviewer
Jul 25, 2019
This product provides excellent centralized device controls and reporting.
IS
Aug 13, 2019
The bulk changes feature is definitely the most valuable.
 

Cisco Defense Orchestrator Cons review quotes

TE
Jul 10, 2019
We had some MX devices that were blocking Windows Update from happening. We found out it was a Meraki issue, but it would have been nice if it had been flagged for us: "Hey, these updates are failing because the MX is blocking it." It wasn't a huge problem, but there was a loss of our time as well as the fact that the updates didn't get pushed out... It would have been nice if CDO had let us know that that was an issue.
DK
Aug 13, 2019
I'd like CDO to be the one-stop-shop where we could do all the configurations easily. It would be nice, for ASA upgrades, if we could do them from a central repository and not have to reach out to Cisco. That would be a definite plus.
PB
Jul 26, 2019
I've found dozens of bugs over the year we've been using it. The more I use it for different things, the more problems I find... Most of the problems have to do with the user interface. A lot of thought and work has gone into the back-end component to make the product do what it's intended to do, but the way it is presented for use hasn't gotten nearly as much thought to make it smart and bug-free.
Learn what your peers think about Cisco Defense Orchestrator. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: November 2024.
814,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.
RB
Jul 24, 2019
There could be some slight improvements to navigation. In some of the navigation you've got to go back to be able to get into where you need to be once you've made a change. If I make a change, I've then got to go back to submit and send the change.
HK
Aug 12, 2019
The main thing that would useful for us would the logging and monitoring. I have to check it out, to get the beta, because I don't have access to them... I wanted CDO to be a central place so where I could do everything but right now I don't think that's possible. I really don't want to go back and forth between this and FMC. Maybe the logging portion, when I look at it, will give me some similarities.
JM
Jan 7, 2020
CDO doesn't have a report, an official report that I can check daily. It has another module called FTD, but it doesn't have that specifically for ASA. In the reporting, there are a lot of things that aren't there. There is also room for improvement in the daily monitoring.
it_user1141920 - PeerSpot reviewer
Jul 10, 2019
If I make a change locally to the firewall, CDO gives an alarm or an error message and says there's a change in compliance: "The firewall has this configuration but the last time it was compiled it had that configuration." That view of new changes versus the old could be better... I had to log in manually, locally on the firewall, to check which version, which configuration was actually running. I couldn't see it in CDO.
JS
Aug 13, 2019
When logging into the device, we sort of had problems with it staying in sync. If somebody made a change onsite, it wouldn't do an automatic sync. It would have to wait, as you would have to do a manual sync up.
it_user1004274 - PeerSpot reviewer
Jul 25, 2019
It would be a better product if it incorporated device control for third-party products easily.
IS
Aug 13, 2019
It should have more features to manage FirePOWER appliances.