Aug 17, 2021
Aruba ClearPass is a Network Access Control tool that gives secure network access to multiple device types. You can adapt the policies to VPN access, wired, or wireless access.
You can securely connect different types of devices to the network and get identity access control for human or non-human entities. This helps our company to control user access to exactly what we need. I like that it can also do Mac authentication. We could then apply different policies for different types of devices.
If you need diverse network segmentation, Aruba ClearPass gives you the ability to restrict what your users can access. On the downside, it was a kind of frustrating to set up and we needed outside help for installing it. However, once we set it up, it was very easy to manage.
The standards are compatible with almost any device with 802.1X capability. It saves us from having to separate users by running multiple SSIDs. We can easily create guest accounts for visitors and specify their permission levels.
I see Cisco ISE as more suited to managing high-privilege access. With it, you can assign privileges and access levels according to the user and device, which improves the user experience since the access level is set depending on the device. We find it very useful for users that need to log in physically or via remote VPN access.
The end-to-end visibility helps implement a zero-trust-security approach. However, the integration of third-party products is limited, and the interface is not very user-friendly. Integrating with social networks could be a good idea for authenticating guests.
Conclusions
In my opinion, Cisco ISE is a very valuable product that is great for accounting, authorization, and authentication. However, Aruba ClearPass has the advantage of solving very different authentication scenarios, so in my opinion, in these days of remote and hybrid working, it has the upper hand.
