Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) Reviews

Our use cases are based around dot1x. Basically wired and wireless authentication, authorization, and accounting. 

In terms of administration, only our networking team uses this solution. Probably five to ten administrators manage the whole product. Their role pretty much is to make sure that we configure the use cases that we use ISE for — pretty much for authenticating users to the wired and wireless networks. We might have certain other advanced use cases depending on certain other business requirements, but their job is pretty much to make sure all the use cases work. If there are issues, if users are complaining, they log into ISE to troubleshoot those issues and have a look at the logs. They basically expand ISE to the rest of the network. There is ongoing activity there as well. The usage is administrative in nature, making sure the configurations are okay, deploying new use cases, and troubleshooting issues.

This solution has definitely improved the way our organization functions.

In terms of features, I think they've done a lot of improvement on the graphical user interface — it looks really good right now. ISE is always very complicated to deploy because it's GUI-based. So they came up with this feature called work centers, that kind of streamlines that process. That's a good feature in the product right now.

An issue with the product is it tends to have a lot of bugs whenever they release a new release.

We've always found ourselves battling out one bug or another. I think, overall they need to form a quality assurance standpoint. ISE has always had this issue with bugs. Even if you go to a Cisco website and you type all the bug releases for ISE, you'll find a lot of bugs. Because the product is kind of intrusive, right? It's in the network. Whenever you have a bug, if something doesn't work, that always creates a lot of noise. I would say that the biggest issue we're having is with all the product bugs.

Also, the graphical user interface is very heavy. By heavy, I mean it's quite fancy. It's equipped with a lot of features and animations that sometimes slow down the user interface.

It's a technical product — I don't think a lot of engineers really need fancy GUIs. We pretty much look for functionality, but I think Cisco, for some reason, is putting an emphasis on its GUIs looking better. We always look for functionality over fancy features.

We've had issues with different browsers, and sometimes it's really slow. From a functionality standpoint, we would rather the GUI was light and faster to navigate.

ISE has a very good logging capability but because their GUI is so slow, we feel it's not as flexible or user-friendly as we would like it to be, especially when it comes to monitoring and logging. At the end of the day, we're implementing ISE for security. And that means visibility.

Of course, you can export the data into other products to get that visibility, but we would like to have a better type of monitoring, maybe better dashboards, and better analytics capabilities within the product.

Analytics is one thing that's really lacking. Even if you're to extract a report, it just takes a lot of time. So, again, that comes down to product design, but that's definitely an area for improvement. I think it does the job well, but they can definitely improve on the monitoring and analytics side.

I have been using this solution since they released the first version over ten years ago.

Scalability is pretty good, provided that you design it properly from the get-go. There are design limitations, depending on the platforms, especially the hardware platforms that you select. On the scalability front, it's not a product that can be virtualized very well — that's an issue. Because in the world of virtualization, customers are always looking for products that they can put in their virtual environments. But ISE is not a truly virtualized product, as in it doesn't do a lot of resource sharing.

As a result, it's not truly virtualized. Although they do have the VM offering, it's not virtualization in the proper sense of the word. That's one limitation of the product. It's very resource-intensive. As a result, you always end up purchasing additional hardware, actual ISE physical servers. Whereas, we would like to have it deployed in virtual machines if it was better designed. I think when it comes to resource utilization, it probably isn't optimized very well. Ideally, we would like to have a better-virtualized platform.

Tech support tends to be pretty good for ISE. We do use it extensively because of all of the bugs we encounter. 

Mostly it's at the beginning of setting the whole environment up. Typically, once it's set up properly, it tends to work. But it's just that the product itself integrates with a lot of other products in the network. It integrates with your switches, with your APs, etc. So, it's a part of an ecosystem. What happens is, if those products experience bugs, then it kind of affects the overall ISE solution as well — that is a bit of a dependency. The ISE use cases are dependent on your network access devices, but that's just the nature of it. The only issue with support is you might have to open a ticket with the ISE team, but if you're looking at issues in your wireless network or switches, you might have to open another ticket with their tech team for switches. 

For customers using Cisco, end-to-end, they should improve the integration and providing a seamless experience to the customer. But right now, they have to refer to other experts. They come in the call, but the whole process just takes some time.

That's an area that they can improve on. But typically, I would say that the support has been good. We've been able to resolve issues. They are responsive. They've been good.

Overall, I would give the support a rating of eight.

The setup is not straightforward. It's complex. You need to have a high level of expertise.

It's an expensive solution when compared to other vendors. It's definitely more expensive than ClearPass. It's expensive, but the issue, again, comes down to scalability. Because you can't virtualize the product, there's a lot of investment when it comes to your hardware resources. Your CapEx is one of the biggest issues here. That's something Cisco needs to improve because organizations are looking at reducing their hardware footprint. It's unfortunate that ISE is such a resource-intensive application to begin with. As it's not a properly virtualized application, you need to rely on physical hardware to get the best performance.

The CapEx cost is high. When it comes to operational expenditure, it all depends on the features you're using. They have their tiers, and it all depends on the features you're using. The basic tier, which is where most of the functionality is, is relatively quite cheap. But if you're using some advanced use cases, you need to go to their higher tiers. So, I'm not too worried about operations costs. You need to buy support for the hardware: you need space, power, and cooling for the hardware-side. All of that adds up. So, that all comes down to the product design and they need to make sure it's properly scalable and it's truly virtualized going forward.

We've evaluated other products, for example, Aruba ClearPass. There's another product, Forescout, but the use case is a bit different.

When it comes to dot1x authentication, I think it's ISE and Aruba ClearPass. Forescout also comes into the next space, but the use case is a bit different.

We prefer ISE because, I think if you're using Cisco devices, it really kind of integrates your ecosystem — that's why we prefer ISE. When it comes to NAC or dot1x products, from a feature standpoint, ISE has had that development now for 10 to 11 years. So, we've seen the product mature over time. And right now it's a pretty stable and functional product. It has a lot of features as well. So, I think the decision is mainly kind of driven by the fact that the rest of the ecosystem is Cisco as well. From a uniform figure standpoint, the other product is probably the industry leader at this point in time for network admission control.

The main advice would be in terms of upfront design — this is where a lot of people get it very wrong. Depending on the platforms you choose, there are restrictions and limitations on how many users. We've got various nodes, so how many nodes you can implement, etc. Also, latency considerations must be taken into account; especially if you're deploying it across geographically dispersed regions. The main advice would be to get the design right. Because given that directly interferes with the network, if you don't get your design right it could be disruptive to the network. Once you've got the proper design in place and that translates into a bit of material, the implementation, you can always figure it out. Getting it right, upfront, is the most important thing.

Overall, I would give ISE a rating of eight out of ten. I don't want to give it a 10 out of 10 because of all the design issues. There is definitely room for improvement, but overall out there in the market, I think it's one of the best products. It has a good ecosystem. It integrates well with Cisco devices, but it also integrates with third-party solutions if you have to do that. It's based on open standards, and we've seen the ecosystem grow over the years. So, they're doing a good job in terms of growing the ecosystem and making sure ISE can work with other products, but there's definitely room for improvement on the product design itself — on monitoring, on analytics. 

I use it for licensing and profiling. It's like a "traffic cop." It's an endpoint user migration tool. It's also a TACACS server. It depends on what I'm using it for at the moment.

For the applications it's authentication and then authorization into the network. It's the networks you're on and what AD gives you. Your profile is based in AD or an LDAP server. ISE talks to those two servers and says, "What groups do you belong to, and should you have access to those roles?" With ISE, if AD says you can have it, then go for it.

I use it in big campus environments, anywhere that needs authentication and authorization to work with AD. It's a great tool for that, if you want to profile your network and you want to secure your network inside. We're not talking about firewalls but about what the tool can do for you, what it's designed for.

It has improved internal security, in-to-out, out-to-in. Without ISE, you can't posture or profile your network. Authorizations, authentications. ISE is not the only product that can do it, but it's a great tool.

Among the most valuable features is TACACS. Also, the rules and logging, but TAC is just as easy. Cisco TAC is great.

The area where things could be improved is education. It's complicated to deploy initially because you have to know what you're getting into. That's true with any customer. I don't know them so I have to learn about them. I have to figure it out, but there are very limited windows to do that. If a customer's going to hire you, you are the professional. You should know this already. You should come in with a base knowledge of what you need to do and, after that, grow with the customer. More education is how it can be improved.

I have been using Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine) since 2016. I usually come into an environment after everything is there already. Customers bring me in to fix things that are broken.

The stability of the solution depends on how you scale it. If you have set it up properly, it will be great. If you put all your eggs in one basket, in one part of the network, and that goes down, then you have lost everything.

It's scalable. It can grow with your network. You can create new nodes or move everything from local to the cloud. It's easy to spin up a VM, so you can put it on a VM real quick and be done within a couple of days. But you have to know what you're doing. You can't just do it with the assumption that you can copy and just redeploy it. ISE doesn't work like that. It has to be done properly.

Cisco's TAC is excellent. Cisco always has great support.

Positive

I previously used the older versions of the hardware that were the original predecessors to ISE.

The deployment model for ISE depends on the customer: where their data centers are, what they can afford, and what type of maintenance agreements they have with Cisco's support. Are they on a VM or a physical device? Deployment depends on what we are trying to do and the environment.

In terms of establishing trust for every access request, trust is only as good as the rules and definitions you build. Without that, you need not only to trust the device, you need the trust of the customer too. That's important.

Trust is only eliminated when a customer wants the rules loosened. When the customer says, "This is too difficult, you're making it too hard," that is when exposure happens, things start collapsing, and there are breaches. You can't give the customer everything they want, because they don't know the consequences. You have to educate them. They need to know that the inconvenience of hitting "enter" to log in, and having it take three seconds or five seconds is because you'd rather have the machine and the network think before they let you on the network. A lot of times a customer will say, "If I'm hitting enter and it's not bringing me to where I need to be, then this is not a good solution." You have to educate them.

The solution is like an iPad that someone set up for you. If they didn't do a good job setting it up, you're going to rate the tool as bad. A lot of times, I come in and it's already done and I have to fix the problems. There are times that I do create it from scratch and it works really well. 

We're using version 3.1, which is very stable. There have been a lot of improvements.

I like the automation of the collection of information.

We have only been deploying this version for three months. We haven’t had any issues, but we'll see how it goes. One of the issues that we used to have was with profiling because we're working with a service provider that uses a lot of bring your own devices. We haven't had any issues since we started using version 3.1.

I have been using this solution for over 12 years.

There are no stability issues with version 3.1.

It's stable. We deployed with a client in petroleum with about 200 users worldwide, and it was stable.

Setup wasn't easy, especially if you haven’t worked with it intensively. VM is a little bit easier. If you don't deploy ISE with correct policies, it will be difficult.

If you deploy it with the correct policies, it's a wonderful product. You don't need to attach anything like your firewalls or creating rules.

ISE has always been expensive compared to other products in terms of what it does on a user level. I haven't had a client who didn't say that ISE wasn't expensive. I’ve had an issue where I was just selling four boxes, and it was four million. It was a high-end box, and the client didn't take it. They end up going with VM.

I would rate this solution 9 out of 10.

It's one of the more difficult products to deploy.

You can learn a lot about ISE from their training videos. I would suggest watching the videos before deploying the solution. They have created good videos for ISE, from version 1.3.

We primarily use the solution for user authentication and wireless segmentation of users for actual radius purposes.

The actual radius is the most valuable aspect of the solution. We need to have a centric solution either on MarTech X and for the wireless user authentication. We were mainly on Cisco and we continue to use them. However, this is the time period for a refresh as the five-year lifespan is completed. We may look for other options.

Technical support is okay.

The solution is not so user-friendly. It's very difficult to navigate through different manuals. The documentation should be simplified so that it is easier to understand.

It would take time for a beginner to understand and familiarize themselves with the solution. There's a bit of a learning curve.

Cisco ISE is not very stable. They could work on that aspect. 

We'd like the pricing to be better.

The product is not easily scalable.

Currently, if you want to do something with authentication, you need to have an additional document agent, however, these are short on all Microsoft endpoints. We then need to come up with some alternate options so that I don't have to modify any native applications on it. By default, Windows should be able to support and onboard the devices. Right now I need to have a Cisco AnyConnect as an agent to be deployed for authentication.

I've been using the solution for over five years at this point. It's been a while.

The stability of the solution needs to be improved. It's not ideal. It's lacking overall. If we have five or six items activated, the box shakes and we're scared to touch anything. When we do have to reconfigure things, it's a nightmare as it can go down and it can take us a day or two to sort things out.

In terms of scalability, it needs to be reactivated, which means that I need to add more nodes. It's got its own design limitations. We had only a two-node deployment in it. We need to add more hardware and we need to reduce so many things. It's not an easy option to scale this hardware. Scaling, in general, is very difficult.

We have roughly 9,000 users on this product currently.

Technical support is fine. However, we may need to depend on support to resolve some of our many issues. We need to spend an enormous amount of time with them and to explain so much stuff. It would be easier if we could troubleshoot the issue ourselves or if the solution was more reliable.

I don't know about other alternative products. I don't have any experience with other alternative products. I've only ever used Cisco ISE.

The solution's initial setup can be a bit complex as there are so many features that are available. It all depends, however, upon which one you want to activate. In our case, we have five or six activated and the box always shakes. It's not stable. So my colleagues are always afraid to touch the box. If it is working well and good, you don't touch it, and we don't reconfigure it. In cases where we encounter any issues, it's a nightmare and we need to spend a minimum of twenty-four to forty-eight hours to recover everything.

We pay a fee based on a subscription model.

The pricing could always be better.

I've been looking at evaluating Aruba's Clearpass as a potential replacement option for this solution. I haven't gotten too far into my research, however. I'm looking for a solution that's scalable and easy to use.

My advice to Cisco would be to simplify as much as possible so that a normal IT guy can understand the CCD and set it up. If they can simplify the manuals, navigation, and documentation, it would be nice. It will always be difficult for a beginner, however, to, rearrange or design the network.

I would rate the solution five out of ten.

We use it for Community WiFi and TACACS authentication. It is service provider authentication, both for the core infrastructure and Community WiFi.

We were looking to solve captive portal and centralized authentication with Cisco ISE.

It has allowed us to pull in multiple authentication databases, then centralize them into a captive portal system.

It is important for our organization that the solution considers all resources to be external. It treats them with minimum trust.

Integration is a big factor. That has really been the driving force behind it.

Documentation is probably the worst part of the software.

I have been using it for about five years.

It is very stable. I would rate the stability as 10 out of 10.

We don't use its scalability. I would rate it as five out of 10.

The technical support is good. I would rate them as six out of 10.

Neutral

We previously used an open-source solution. We switched for vendor support and scalability.

We don't monetize this solution.

It is fair.

We did not evaluate other options.

It is worth checking out the integration that it provides. It is a strong platform.

Cybersecurity resilience has not been that important for our organization.

I would rate ISE as eight out of 10. It does exactly what it is supposed to do without much issue.

We use it for SDA infrastructure. We have a challenge in recognizing different kinds of devices and that's what we are using ISE for in the SDA fabric.

We can better recognize our endpoints and we know whether they are allowed to access our network. That's really important for us.

It has also eliminated some rogue devices from accessing our network.

The integration with Active Directory is the most valuable feature for us.

The admin interface is really slow. It's horrible.

I have been using Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine) for five years.

It's really stable.

It's scalable, but we need to upgrade some of our hardware to support more users.

Our SDA fabric has about 1,500 users that we are authenticating. We have plans to use it throughout the City of Helsinki, which has about 38,000 personnel whom we will need to authenticate in the future.

I haven't used the tech support.

We also currently have Microsoft RADIUS, but we are planning to move away from it and use ISE as our only authentication solution.

Other than the slow admin interface, it's an excellent product.

We are a partner with Cisco and am a part of an information security team that uses Cisco to provide security policy management via network, device and wireless access. 

Cisco offers automation, visibility, and control as well as third party integration capabilities.

I would like for the next release to be easier to implement and to limit its dependencies around ISE, Windows, the network as a whole, etc.

I have been using Cisco ISE for over six years.

This is a very stable solution with many integrations.

Cisco's scalability depends on the design - small deployments are not scalable.

Cisco support is good.

This solution is a bit more complex to set up than in comparison to other options - it can take anywhere from two to five months depending on the use case.

The price for Cisco ISE itself is very low, however, Cisco professional services are quite expensive. Subscription amount is dependent on number of users.

We looked at Forescout which is more user-friendly but they have a very vulnerable network.

This is a good solution for security teams. If you do not have a security team, I would not recommend this product. 

Overall, I would rate Cisco a seven out of ten.

The company implemented the solution to keep track of wired and wireless devices.

One of the most important features is the authentication security for the individual connection to the network through their computer or laptop. The solution is very complete overall.

There should be better documentation on the implementation of the solution. I learned how to implement it from watching videos. I felt the documentation was too complicated and I also learn better from watching videos.

In my experience, there needs to be better documentation for firewall integration as well, we had some trouble early on.

I have been using the solution over the last year.

A co-worker of mine had some issues with the solution crashing unexpectantly or some processes went down. 

We are using the solution with around 200 people and we had no problems with scalability. Most of our clients are small businesses.

The customer server was great but it would have been better for me if they had support in other languages such as Spanish. It was difficult for me to communicate in English.

The setup was easy for this solution.

We implemented the solution.

There are other cheaper options available.

We did evaluate Aruba ClearPass before the client picked Cisco ISE. I had suggested ClearPass because it was cheaper but the client decided to go with Cisco regardless.

Our clients and my company plan to continue the use of the solution in the future.

I rate Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine) a ten out of ten.