Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) Reviews

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.

We use this solution to provide wireless for our residence halls and guest networks. We're also a college that works primarily off of iPads, so we have to be able to keep resident hall activity off of the network so that students can do their homework and class activities. We use the Services Engine to authorize all of them.

The biggest value of ISE is that it can get so granular with gaming systems, versus IoT and BYOD.

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.

I have had a very good impression of its stability.

We're actually upgrading right now from a small version to a medium-sized one. It's not as simple as I'd like it to be for scalability, but it's still working well.

We were very late adopters in the education arena of wireless. We didn't adopt until about five years ago. We had a great relationship with our partner and got to see this demo several times. It was really good.

The initial setup was complex.

The name of the company at the time was MSN but they've been recently purchased. The engineers did a really good job. I would have liked a greater share of knowledge at the time, but they did a great job in implementing a complex situation.

Cisco was the only one that we evaluated. There was also Aruba, but Cisco was really the top choice.

My advice to someone considering this solution would be to seek the most comprehensive solution for residence halls.

I would rate this solution as eight out of ten. I would like the flow of authentication and authorization metrics to be easier to see.

We mainly use it for endpoint security.

Cisco ISE has made our network more secure. 

It has saved the time of our security team. I can't say how much time it has saved because I'm on the network side, but I'd imagine it has saved quite a bit of time. It lets them sleep better at night.

It does a good job of securing our infrastructure from end to end so that we can detect and remediate threats, but I don't have a similar product to compare.

It hasn't helped to consolidate any tools. The customer is in the process of migrating from their current ACS to ISE. When they've done that, we'll consolidate that piece. This consolidation would provide a single pane of management versus multiple tools.

I'd imagine it has helped our organization improve its cybersecurity resilience, but the security team would know more about it.

The ability to allow or deny hosts onto the network is valuable. It provides great security to the network environment.

It could be more intuitive in terms of how to configure the policies.

I've been using Cisco ISE for four years.

It's very stable.

It's very scalable. We have deployed it globally.

Their support is good. I'd rate them a seven out of ten.

Neutral

We didn't use any other solution previously. We went for Cisco ISE because we're a Cisco shop. It helps to have one vendor for network management and security.

Cisco's Professional services did the installation. I wasn't involved in its installation, but they did a pretty good job.

I'd imagine we have seen an ROI, but I'm not involved in the pricing or purchasing. The security it provides gives peace of mind. That's a good return.

My advice would be to do an evaluation of the product and purchase it.

I'd rate Cisco ISE an eight out of ten.

We use it for the TACACS authentication, for administrator login to network devices, and the RADIUS service for VPN and wireless authentication.

Initially, we were looking for a single sign-on for administrators to log in to every network device, but we also wanted a good way to control remote user access for logging in. Later we started using it for VPN and wireless.

It gives us a better way to authenticate users. It helps us identify a user with their device to establish trust. When a remote user is trying to access network resources, we need to find out who they are and where they want to go and make an appropriate decision about where they can and cannot go.

Resilience in cyber security is very important. Without security, nothing else can happen.

The TACACS and RADIUS have been the most valuable features so far.

Cisco ISE has almost all the features we are looking for now, but sometimes the configuration, such as the conditions, is a little difficult to understand and not so easy to navigate.

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

It is stable.

They have resolved my issues, but sometimes they have been slow.

Positive

We used to use Cisco ACS and that evolved to Cisco ISE.

The initial deployment was not a process that was easy to understand. But after I completed it, looking back, I see it was reasonable. It's just hard to understand upfront. There is a steep learning curve.

I did the migration too late, so I couldn't do a direct migration and that meant I had to kind of rebuild it.

Security is something we need, but I don't think that there is a return on investment. It causes more delays to the regular workflow.

The Essentials licensing is reasonable, but I would like the Premier version to be perpetual instead of a subscription.

An idea we are looking into is associating it with the MAC address table, so that approved devices can log in to the more restricted network.

My advice is to attend training before going for it. Otherwise, it will not be easy to understand. Each product, from ACS to ISE, does similar things, but they do them in different ways.

I rate Cisco ISE a nine out of 10. If it could become a little bit easier to understand that would help.

We use this solution for network security.

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 interface could be more user-friendly and the ability to apply rules to MAC addresses, for example, if I wanted to allow a certain MAC address access at a particular time I cannot make this adjustment.

In an upcoming release, they could improve by providing rule-based bandwidth consumption, bring your own device (BYOD) need to be more mature, and the reports could be more user-friendly.

I have been using this solution for approximately four years.

The solution is stable.

The controller has to manage a certain number of access points and we did not see any problems with the scalability. It is able to handle more access points than we need it for.

We do not have experience with The technical support from Cisco directly because the technical support we receive is from our partners which they have been excellent.

We have used 3Com wireless controllers previously.

We used Cisco partners to do the implementation of the solution.

Recently, I have evaluated Aruba solutions and I found them to be better than Cisco. There is room for improvement, Cisco can do better.

When deciding to implement this solution it is a good idea to assess and define the requirements to determine whether there is a need for this solution. It is important to know what you can use from it. You can have a WiFi environment without the need for a Cisco ISE. This solution has advanced security that might not be needed for your use case. Be sure about your needs.

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

One of the use cases was the certificate-based authentication for the endpoints. All the laptops and mobiles are embedded with certificates and once they get authenticated, then only they would be able to connect to the LAN. 

The other use case was the NAC use case wherein the integrity of the laptops and mobile and such were checked before the scan. They fulfill the policy requirements and then they are able to connect to the network.

The third use case was the consolidated access control management for all the network devices and security devices. 

It's flexible and stable. It's been good as a standard environment to run.

It was implemented in my last organization and we used it for three years. We are evaluating and will be implementing it in a couple of months at my current organization. 

It is stable and scalable. We have 5,000 to 6,000 users. 

Technical support is good because the partner is quite competent so we have all the support that is required.

The initial setup was a little bit complex. It's not that simple because it requires a lot of prerequisites for the solution to get a hold on. So the prerequisites and then onboarding all this like the landscape of endpoints was quite tedious. That was no surprise, because this is something which would be with other products as well. It took a long time for the implementation, but it's been rock stable now.

The deployment took six to seven months. 

We had consultants and we had a partner for the deployment. The system integrator was involved with the roll out.

The management part is much smoother. It takes care of all the costs across branded devices as well, so that it is a single panel we can manage all the end-to-end entry devices as well. That's something would be really good for Cisco ISE product.

I would recommend Cisco ISE. I would rate it an eight out of ten. I would like it to be more stable. 

To be clear, I'm not an expert in networking, so I'm pretty much like a user.

I really like the guest WiFi. Those kinds of features are pretty convenient. When I have a guest in the form of a third party, I can grant access to the guest for a certain period of time and have a dynamic password generated. It's great.

The user experience of the solution is great. It's a very transparent system.

As I treat the system basically as a user would, and am not overly technical, I can't say what features, if any, the solution is missing.

I'm working from China currently and the only real issue is that, within the country, there's some concern around Cisco and its ability to offer the solution for the long term. As the United States has banned the Huawei version in their country, we feel there may be retaliation in ours and Cisco will get banned as a countermeasure from the government. The future of Cisco in China is in question. Our local partners are worried about the situation.

To be perfectly frank, I'm unsure of the exact amount of time we've used the solution. It's been a number of years. I've basically lost count.

The stability, from a users' perspective, is very good. I haven't encountered any issues before, and we've used it for quite a long time. It doesn't freeze. It doesn't crash. There aren't bugs or glitches. It's pretty reliable overall.

I'm not sure how many users are on the solution ultimately. Our reach is pretty global. I'm not with the network team, so I can't speak to the ability for the solution to scale.

As I'm not a member of the network team, I've never had to reach out to technical support. I don't know if they do or how often or how Cisco's technical support ultimately is. I've never dealt with them directly. I can't speak to the quality of their service.

I'm not a member of the network team, so I didn't participate in the implementation process. I can't speak to how straightforward or complex it was.

We're just a customer. We're in the manufacturing industry, not IT. We don't have a business relationship with IBM.

We try to keep up with the latest upgrades, therefore, I believe we are using the latest version of the solution.

From a non-technical user-based standpoint, I'd rate the solution ten out of ten. 

I'd recommend it, however, there is this ongoing concern in China at this time that Cisco could get banned in the ongoing trade war with the United States. That should be a concern for companies here. That may not be so much of a concern abroad.

I'm an engineering student, studying smart information and communication technology.

The product has many useful features. It enhances compliance and security posture. It provides client provisions and profiling as well as guest access, features not available in other solutions. The product can be customized. 

Although the solution is easy to implement it's not so easy to understand. You need to be able to figure out the protocols, the nodes, and the personals of the nodes in order to implement correctly and make good use of it. Because it's a Cisco product, if you're not in a Cisco environment, it's difficult to integrate with anything else, so the big concern is its interoperability with other technologies and other vendors. 

I've been using this solution for two months. 

The solution is stable. 

ISE is extensible. It can be deployed for small and large organizations, and can even be distributed and centralized. 

We haven't used the customer support but if I do need some assistance my supervisor and the manager I'm working with can help. 

I've looked at other network access control solutions and ISE is among the leading technologies. I recommend it but suggest taking a close look at the technology before implementing it. Try to really understand it, because if you miss anything and don't configure correctly, it's going to be awful and you'll lose the benefits that the solution provides. Even if you only need one or two of the features that the solution provides, I would recommend using it. 

I rate this solution nine out of 10.