Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) Reviews

I am a reseller. I provide solutions to our customers.

We used Cisco ISE for Wi-Fi implementation for one project at the International Airport.

The most valuable features of this solution are guest authentication and stop authentication.

I felt that it was quite good and well suited for us.

Overall, the features and the product are quite good. 

It has all of the features available, in fact, more than what you need.

The initial setup could be simplified.

The support could be faster and the pricing could be reduced.

Cisco ISE is a stable product.

It is a scalable solution.

Technical support is fine.

It might take some time. At times, it will take two hours to come online.

Support is available as long as you have the support contract.

I have not worked on any other product.

The initial setup is a bit complex. The integration with the Active Directory is a bit involved.

The price is a bit on the high side.

The features are quite comprehensive, but it's okay. However, the pricing is on the higher side.

Feature-wise, it is a nine out of ten. Overall, I would rate Cisco ISE an eight out of ten.

The solution is primarily used for Network management and Network Access Controls.

The general usefulness of the product is not specific to a particular feature. This is a comprehensive solution covering access to network to create a zero trust environment. It covers Network Access Control, Network Segmentation & policy control

The solution integrates well with other Cisco solutions. It works both from a single-vendor perspective and in cases where the client might have a hybrid network and multiple security solutions.

The product offers very good functionality.

From a configuration point of view, it's simple. It's not very complex. I don't see any major challenges when using the product.

The solution is reliable.

The scalability is good.

We haven't had any issues with technical support. They have been helpful. 

I have not come across any missing features. 

It would be ideal if Cisco could provide some short training videos or documentation to customers to help them understand how to use the product. 

We have not used this solution for ourselves but implemented it for various organisation's.

The solution is stable and reliable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. The performance is good. 

This solution can work well for large enterprises that have a larger environment, such as a distributed environment. Mostly, from my organization's perspective, we deal with SMEs.

The solution is quite scalable. 

I've been in touch with technical support in the past. They are quite good. I am satisfied with the level of support they provide. I don't have any complaints. 

Positive

The initial setup is not very complex. All similar solutions will have a similar type of configuration as well, so it's pretty simple to figure things out. 

In terms of how long a deployment takes, it primarily depends upon the environment the customer has. Customers might have a very basic environment wherein it might get done in a couple of hours or so. If it is a very complex environment and they have multiple policies to be deployed, then it could definitely take more time.

There aren't any challenges when it comes to maintenance. It's pretty simple. 

I don't handle the licensing aspect of the product. I can't speak to the exact costs involved. 

We have not faced any major challenges in terms of getting a good price point from our customer's perspective. That said, the pricing would depend upon the perceived value of the solution rather than the actual cost of the product. If the solution is able to help the customer in mitigating its challenges many customers don't see any point in discussing the price point if POC is successful

We are a system integrator.

The version of ISE we are using depends on the customer. 

We primarily have the solution set up on premise. 

In terms of advice, from a security standpoint, it is paramount for any organisation, to be secure, no matter its size (large or small). Having secure network access control will always make it safer & help organisation in attaining a zero trust environment 

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten. 

It's a network access manager.

After the product was installed, no one could access the secure connection network. In order for any laptop or any endpoint device to attach to my network, it needs to be authorized or be certified to be connected.

It has many valuable features. 

It has many complications from the administration perspective, it's not easy to learn. Not like other solutions that are very friendly and easy to go through. It needs to be more user-friendly. We'll see the same name on more than one tab so we need to realize why that name is there or why only the main tab is not like the other. I cannot believe that Cisco is the best case of security integration however it is easier to implement.

They are good at integration, I do not expect more from them in that regard. They could think about developing VXLAN. They have LDN switches, we need to get into contextual switches, not catalyst switches. Normal switches. I wish they could explore developing more VXLAN options.

Stability is not something absolute. 

Scalability is good. We have 60,000 users. 

Their technical support isn't good. 

The initial setup took four to six hours to do. The image between six, seven GB, is a huge image, huge process, and it takes too much time. If somebody has a solution of five, four pieces you need to re-image one or you need to incorporate the solution. It will take days to upgrade the solution. It's very complicated. The deployment will take an entire day. And if you have a complication it can take two days because of the complexity. 

We are a big organization and we can arrange for licenses because we are a big customer. We have an agreement for the security license. Licenses aren't an issue for us. We pay for licenses every five years or six years.

I would rate this solution a 7.5 out of ten. To make it a ten they should have more people on tech support. They need to invest more in the product. It's a good product. They should just work on tech support. More support for the customer. It's not that easy to get somebody to understand this product. I have had some issues with tech before for the solution. One of them brought the solution down due to some of his activity. They need to hugely invest in their tech support. 

Cisco ISE now competes with any other product in the space because of its centralized and unified highly secure access control with ISE. ISE grew out of ACS and in the process has grown up.

The learning curve is steep and the initial setup is complex.

We've had no issues with stability.

We've had no issues with scalability.

Customer Service:

Customer service is good.

Technical Support:

Technical support is very good.

Yes. I am a consultant, so I have used many competing products over the years.

The initial setup is complex, but not if you fully vet the solution and leverage the functionality.

I am the services firm that does this work and the SME for my organization.

It is hard to quantify ROI. It is more easily measured in increased mobility and security.

There are three levels of pricing: basic, plus, and apex. Basic satisfied our needs.

Yes, we used ClearPass.

Not all features are available with base license, plus license allows for profiling and provisioning

Profile Sets help organize how AAA is handled by grouping, like traffic into separate subroutines.

We implement this for customers is various verticals. Most of the time oit is in Education. It really helps secure, classify and manage users including guest and BYOD users.

The product has improved with its evolution. The initial setup, though, is extremely complex.

10 years. I have used this since it was Cisco ACS

As the product matures I encounter less and less problems.

The produt scales well.

Excellent. TACis quite knowledgable.

I have used Microsoft IAS/NPS, Funk, and Aruba ClearPass. ClearPass is the only product in the same league as Cisco ISE.

ISE is extremely complex. With the functionality and flexibility it offers that is to be expected.

I am the vendors's partner.

Licensing and pricing is a complicated calculation, so it is best to really understand your customers' needs. Also team up with the right resources at Cisco for help.

The interconnection with the ecosystem and the ability to force rules all over the network are the most important features.

It is a good product, but in order to use all of the functions of the product, you must have a good understanding of the product. You must know how to use and manage it. It is a little bit complicated to configure and manage. It must be simplified to make it easy to manage for end users. In the initial stage, we found ISE complicated for end users. It was not easy to manage it or to write authentication and authorization protocol. They must improve its management and make it easy for end users. 

The monitoring and reporting capabilities can be improved because end users want to quickly see what is happening in their network. There were some restrictions in working with other vendors. It should also have a better and easy integration with other vendors. 

I have been using this solution for five or six years.

It is a stable product.

It is scalable.

It has good technical support. We also have local support now, which is better. There is no problem with their technical support. 

People who are experts should deploy such products. In order to preserve the reputation, a product must be set up with the help of a talented or expert person because when you set up, deploy, or install the product in a wrong way, it gives negative feedback to customers.

The price can be lower, especially for subscriptions. It should be a lot cheaper to have a wide range of customers. The price should be comparable to competitive products like Forescout or Fortinet FortiNAC. Forescout is cheaper for customers looking for a cloud solution.

I would rate Cisco ISE an eight out of ten.

Our primary use case is to grant access to users, we deploy the bring your own device policy.

Visitors can be granted access to the wifi network using their cellphones, notebooks or tablets in a very easy way. The ease of accessibility that anyone can have to the network is very quick and is a big improvement for our network.

The flexibility to grant anyone access to the network easily and in a secure way is its most valuable feature.

There should be an easier way to do the upgrades. Customers were having issues going from one version to the next. There are a lot of steps to get to the next version from the previous version which ends up being a bit of the headache with the upgrade. 

It's very stable. We have around 200 users and only four people are required for maintenance. 

As Cisco partners, the point is that we provide our own support. We prefer our own engineers to be ready to support the solution to provide the service to our customers.

We have seen ROI from using this solution. 

We plan to increase usage by around 20 to 30%.

It gives people the peace of mind that they have the possibility to grant access to the people that visit their premises and ensures that they are working in a safe environment that is pure and clear when they use the posture services of the solution.

I would rate it a nine out of ten. 

We are using Cisco ISE for limiting port access in our organization's building for wired and wireless networks.

We were originally a Cisco shop and Cisco ISE integrated well with our other Cisco switches and networks.

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

The solution is stable and has good performance.

Cisco ISE  is scalable.

We have approximately 200 people using this solution in my organization.

When I have contacted the support for Cisco ISE I have always been satisfied.

The installation is not straightforward, it took us approximately one month.

They need to reduce the number of options for the installation or have a wizard that covers small, medium, and large enterprises.

We had an integrator help with the implementation. For the deployment, we had five engineers and for the maintenance and support, we use three engineers.

The price of Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine) is expensive and we are thinking about changing to FortiGate.

I have evaluated Fortinet FortiGate solutions.

I would not recommend this solution.

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