Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs Cisco Secure Workload comparison

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) and Cisco Secure Workload are both solutions in the Cisco Security Portfolio category. Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.4, while Cisco Secure Workload is ranked #9 with an average rating of 8.7. Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) holds a 22.0% mindshare in CSS, compared to Cisco Secure Workload’s 7.1% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Cisco Secure Workload users who would recommend it.

Cisco Identity Services Eng...

Read 139 Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) reviews

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895 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

Cisco Secure Workload

Read 15 Cisco Secure Workload reviews

258 Views
167 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Cisco Identity Services Eng...

Cisco Secure Workload

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) and Cisco Secure Workload based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Cisco Security Portfolio solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs. Cisco Secure Workload Report (Updated: September 2024).

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs. Cisco Secure Workload

September 2024

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Helped 813,418 peers since 2012

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Identity Services Eng...

Ranking in Cisco Security Portfolio

1st

Average Rating

8.2

Number of Reviews

139

Ranking in other categories

Network Access Control (NAC) (1st)

Cisco Secure Workload

Ranking in Cisco Security Portfolio

9th

Average Rating

8.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud and Data Center Security (8th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (16th), Microsegmentation Software (5th)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2024, in the Cisco Security Portfolio category, the mindshare of Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is 22.0%, up from 15.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Workload is 7.1%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cisco Security Portfolio

Featured Reviews

Rohit-Joshi

Head of IT Infrastructure at LTI - Larsen & Toubro Infotech

Aug 3, 2023

Enables us to ensure that any machine that comes into the network is patched and secure

Posturing is the most valuable feature. There are other tools available that can do some of their other features, like network authentication. The posturing was something because of the nature of the industry that we are in. There are people who go outside for work. Their machines are at times not in the network, and not patched properly. We don't know when they're going to come back, whether it is in a good state, whether it has antivirus, whether it's installed on those machines. Posturing is something that we have made our baseline policy that whenever a machine comes back to our network, it should have a certain level of the operating system and a level of security and antivirus installed. We couldn't have done this posturing without Cisco ISE. This is its greatest feature. It does help me to detect and remediate my network. It enables me to detect any external threat that comes to my network and remediate. If a machine comes into my network that does not qualify per my baseline policy, I have a policy that the machine gets redirected to where it can be patched and remediated. I can ensure that it is fully patched and secure. The entire idea of having ISE is to enhance cybersecurity resilience. The zero trust architecture was coined by the cybersecurity team itself. It was a task given to us in the infrastructure space to see how we can bring resilience into the cybersecurity network and ISE was the solution.

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Raj Metkar

Director, Head of Networks at MUFG Bank EMEA and Securities International

Sep 6, 2024

Discover internal application dependencies and create a dependency map

We actively seek improvements in integrating the Infoblox DDI platform with Cisco Secure Workload. This integration allows Cisco Secure Workload to learn about our networks and network tags, providing valuable insights into vulnerabilities related to the operating system and various applications installed on our servers. Recently, Cisco announced a new product called HyperShield, an AI-based autonomous micro-segmentation solution. While Cisco has not stated that HyperShield will replace Cisco Secure Workload, it represents a natural evolution for the company. HyperShield features dynamic policy discovery and enforcement; however, once policies are enforced, they do not change until a discovery occurs, requiring a re-enforcement process. This new platform operates autonomously, minimizing the need for user or security engineer intervention. I would have expected Cisco to incorporate more automatic discovery and enforcement features within the existing Cisco Secure Workload product. Instead of enhancing the current product, they have introduced a new solution. Cisco plans to honor existing Tetration licenses, allowing users to transition to HyperShield without additional costs, reflecting the investment enterprises have already made. From Cisco’s perspective, this represents a natural progression in their product line. While the product name changes, it seems more of a rebranding effort. The enhancements are greater autonomy, improved discovery, and automatic enforcement, which are now being introduced in HyperShield. Cisco Secure Workload offers automatic policy enforcement but cannot adjust policies dynamically as the application needs to change. Having used the platform for the past five years, the recent announcement has been reassuring. Cisco has confirmed that our investment in the platform will not go to waste. They will honor our existing licenses, providing a natural migration path to the new solution without any disruption

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"TACACS and .1X security are the most valuable features. TACACS acts for user control, so no one can authenticate to our network devices, and .1X is to validate that unauthorized devices are plugged into our network."

"One of the most important features is the authentication security for the individual connection to the network through their computer or laptop."

"The most valuable feature is AnyConnect Posture because it scans all the programs on the workstation and checks if the antivirus is up to date, as well as the cryptographic keys on our SSD."

"Cisco ISE's profiling and posturing features ensure that all devices are compliant with regulatory authorities."

"Cisco ISE provides authentication for various applications. It can integrate with other applications to manage access, including Privileged Access Management for those applications. For a comprehensive environment, Cisco ISE should be able to integrate and provide asset management for an IT organization or any organization."

"So far, we have had no issues with the stability."

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

"The best feature of the Cisco ISE platform is that it is compatible with Microsoft products."

More Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) pros

"The product provides multiple-device integration."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is that we don't have to do packet captures on the network."

"Instead of proving that all the access control lists are in place and all the EPGs are correct, we can just point the auditor to a dashboard and point out that there aren't any escaped conversations. It saves an enormous, enormous amount of time."

"The most valuable feature is micro-segmentation, which is the most important with respect to visibility."

"The solution offers 100% telemetry coverage. The telemetry you collect is not sampled, it's not intermittent. It's complete. You see everything in it, including full visibility of all activities on your endpoints and in your network."

"The only use case I can see that makes sense is micro-segmentation. I think there are other use cases for it. The main purpose of the product is to do micro-segmentation by collecting IP. That could be done by installing an agent, and then you have all the communication coming in and out. You could also use some flow sensors installed in the network that receive a copy of the traffic and then report that back to the system."

"Generally speaking, Cisco support is considered one of the best in the networking products and stack."

"Secure Workload's best feature is that it's an end-to-end offering from Cisco."

More Cisco Secure Workload pros

Cons

"There are still some bugs in ISE that need to be worked out."

"Migration could be better. Right now, we back up with the new version, and it requires a lot of licensing and other things. Whenever we choose a product, it's very difficult because we have to meet the requirements of each feature. There is no standard feature, so the best system that we bought may not fit the solution. We have to look at every feature that the customer uses. If you compare it with other products like Aruba, it's not the same. With Cisco, I have to read all about the features on this version and the licensing required for the product. In Aruba, that thing is covered when you get one license because it covers almost everything. It could also be more scalable."

"If you have someone taking care of it, it can be quite easy to manage the solution. Otherwise, if you don't look after it and take care of it day-to-day, then it will become more complex to run."

"We would definitely like to see a little bit of an improvement in the web GUI navigation. Some of the things are a little bit hidden in the drop-down menu. If we could get a way to get to those quicker, it'd be much more useful."

"It should be virtualized because many people have begun migrating to the cloud. They should offer a hybrid version."

"On the network services devices, when you click on filter, the filter comes up. However, when I type in a search and I want to click on something it defaults back to the main page. I keep having an issue with that, and I'm not doing anything wrong."

"They should improve their licensing. Licensing is always trouble with Cisco, and Cisco Identity Services Engine is no different. The way the product is licensed could be improved."

"There should be more visibility into TrustSec policy actions. When TrustSec blocks something or makes any kind of changes to the network, we don't always see that. We have to log into the switch itself, or we have to get some type of Syslog parsing to do that."

More Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) cons

"They should scale down the hardware a bit. The initial hardware investment is two million dollars so it's a price point problem. The issue with the price comes from the fact that you have to have it with enormous storage and enormous computes."

"It is highly scalable, but there is a limitation that it is only available on Cisco devices."

"There was a controversy when Cisco reduced the amount of data they kept, and the solution became quite cost-intensive, which made its adoption challenging….Although they have modified it now, I preferred the previous version, and I wish all the functionality were back under the same product."

"It has an uninviting interface."

"There is some overlap between Cisco Tetration and AppDynamics and I need to have a single pane of glass, rather than have to jump between different tools."

"It is not so easy to use and configure. It needs a bunch of further resources to work, which is mainly the biggest downside of it. The deployment is huge."

"Secure Workload is a little complicated to use, and the dashboard isn't intuitive, so it takes a while to learn how to use it."

"The emailed notifications are either hard to find or they are not available. Search capabilities can be improved."

More Cisco Secure Workload cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"That's where things got a bit more complicated. Previously, it was a one-time purchase and we just had to renew support. These days, there's a subscription model, which is supposed to be easier and cheaper as well, but it's more pricey"

"The SMARTnet technical support is available at an additional cost."

"I think the price is okay."

"I would rate the pricing an eight out of ten, one being cheap and ten being expensive."

"The technology is good, but to use some of the other features, and capabilities, they request that we purchase the Cisco DNA Center. As a result, the bundled price is a little high."

"We are running Version 2.9 because Version 2.9 of the ISE has a persistent license — it's a one-time payment. The latest version (3.1) is only available if you do a yearly subscription."

"For the Avast virus scan, we pay around USD $95 per machine for five years which includes all updates and technical support."

"Being fully honest, the Cisco licensing model right now is really confusing. We don't know what licenses we have where. We have Smart licensing, but the different levels are way confusing."

More Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) pricing and cost advice

"Regarding price, Cisco Secure Workload can be expensive if you don't have a budget. If you're not doing micro-segmentation, every extra security measure or enforcement you're putting on top of your existing environment will be an extra cost. It's not a cheap solution at all. But from my point of view, if you need to do micro-segmentation, this is one of the best tools I've seen for it. I can't compare that to Microsoft's solution because I haven't looked into it. I've looked into VMware and Cisco. Those are the only two that I know of. I didn't know that Microsoft could do micro-segmentation at all. Maybe they can, but I haven't heard anything about it."

"It is not cheap and pricing may limit scalability."

"The price is outrageous. If you have money to throw at the product, then do it."

"Pricing depends on the scope of the application and the features. Larger installations save more."

"The pricing is a bit higher than we anticipated."

"The cost for the hardware is around 300k."

"The price is based on how many computers you're going to install it on."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

26%

Computer Software Company

16%

Government

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

30%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

Which is better - Aruba Clearpass or Cisco ISE?

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 ...

See all answers

What are the main differences between Cisco ISE and Forescout Platform?

OK, so Cisco ISE uses 802.1X to secure switchports against unauthorized access. The drawback of this is that ISE cannot secure the port if a device does not support 802.1x. Cameras, badge readers, ...

See all answers

How does Cisco ISE compare with Fortinet FortiNAC?

Cisco ISE uses AI endpoint analytics to identify new devices based on their behavior. It will also notify you if someone plugs in with a device that is not allowed and will block it. The user exper...

See all answers

What do you like most about Cisco Secure Workload?

The product provides multiple-device integration.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Secure Workload?

CloudStrike offers antivirus capabilities and firewall features for servers and VDI but lacks automatic policy discovery. This raises questions about the resources required to discover and write po...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Cisco Secure Workload?

See all answers

Comparisons

Aruba ClearPass vs Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)

Compared 27% of the time

Fortinet FortiNAC vs Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)

Compared 19% of the time

Forescout Platform vs Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)

Compared 14% of the time

CyberArk Privileged Access Manager vs Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)

Compared 6% of the time

Fortinet FortiAuthenticator vs Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)

Compared 4% of the time

More Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) Competitors

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs Cisco Secure Workload

Compared 20% of the time

Illumio vs Cisco Secure Workload

Compared 20% of the time

VMware NSX vs Cisco Secure Workload

Compared 13% of the time

Cisco ACI vs Cisco Secure Workload

Compared 12% of the time

Cisco Secure Endpoint vs Cisco Secure Workload

Compared 2% of the time

More Cisco Secure Workload Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)

October 2024

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) report

Download Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) product report

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Secure Workload

October 2024

Download Cisco Secure Workload product report

Also Known As

Cisco ISE

Cisco Tetration

Learn More

Cisco

Overview

Cisco ISE is an all-in-one solution that streamlines security policy management and reduces operating costs. Cisco ISE delivers visibility and access control over users and devices across wired, wireless, and VPN connections.

Identity Services Engine enables enterprises to deliver secure network access to users and devices. It shares contextual data, such as threats and vulnerabilities, with integrated solutions from Cisco technology partners. You can see what is happening in your network, which applications are running, and more.

Features of Cisco ISE

Centralized management helps administrators configure and manage user profile characteristics - a single pane of glass for integrated management services.
Contextual identity and business policy: The rule-based attribute is a driven policy model. The goal is to provide flexible access control policies.
Wide range of access control options, including Virtual LAN (VLAN) URL redirections, and access control lists.
Supplicant-less network access: You can roll out secure network access by deriving authentication from login information across application layers.
Guest lifecycle management streamlines the experience for implementing and customizing network access for guests.
Built-in AAA services: The platform uses standard RADIUS protocol for authentication, authorization, and accounting.
Device auditing, administration, and access control provide users with access on a need-to-know and need-to-act basis. It keeps audit trails for every change in the network.
Device profiling: ISE features predefined device templates for different types of endpoints.
Internal certificate authority: Qn easy-to-deploy single console to manage endpoints and certificates.

Benefits of Cisco ISE

Cisco’s holistic approach to network access security has several advantages:

Context-based access based on your company policies. ISE creates a complete contextual identity, including attributes such as user, time, location, threat, access type, and vulnerability. This contextual identity is used to enforce a secure access policy. Administrators can apply strict control over how and when endpoints are allowed in the network.
Better network visibility via an easy-to-use, simple console. In addition, visibility is improved by storing a detailed attribute history of all endpoints connected to the network.
Comprehensive policy enforcement. ISE sets easy and flexible access rules. These rules are controlled from a central console that enforces them across the network and security infrastructure. You can define policies that differentiate between registered users and guests. The system uses group tags that enable access control on business rules instead of IP addresses.
Self-service device onboarding enables the enterprise to implement a Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) policy securely. Users can manage their devices according to the policies defined by IT administrators. (IT remains in charge of provisioning and posturing to comply with security policies.)
Consistent guest experiences: You can provide guests with different levels of access from different connections. You can customize guest portals via a cloud-delivered portal editor with dynamic visual tools.

Support

You can get ISE as a physical or virtual appliance. Both deployments can create ISE clusters that create scale, redundancy, and requirements.

Licensing

Cisco ISE has four primary licences. Evaluation for up to 100 endpoints with full platform functionality. The higher tiers are Partner, Advantage and Essential.

Reviews from Real Users

"The user experience of the solution is great. It's a very transparent system. according to a PeerSpot user in Cyber Security at a manufacturing company.

Omar Z., Network & Security Engineer at an engineering company, feels that "The RADIUS Server holds the most value."

“Whether I deploy in China, the US, South Africa, or wherever, I can get all the capabilities. It allows me to directly integrate with 365, and from a communications point of view, that is a good capability," says Rammohan M., Senior Consultant at a tech services company.

Hassan A.,Technology Manager at Advanced Integrated Systems, says that "The most valuable feature is the integration with StealthWatch and DNA as one fabric."

Cisco Secure Workload is a cloud and data security solution that offers a zero-trust policy of keeping an organization’s application workloads safe and secure throughout the entire on-premise and cloud data center ecosystems.

Cisco Secure Workload will consistently provide protection by discovering workload process anomalies, stopping threats immediately, minimizing the risk threat surface, and aborting any lateral movement.

Today’s ecosystems are very elastic, and in the application-focused dynamic of today’s aggressive marketplace, Cisco Secure Workload delivers a robust security solution that works effectively with today’s most popular applications. The solution uniquely surrounds each and every workload to ensure organizations are able to keep their data, network, and applications safe and secure at all times. Cisco Secure Workload ensures that enterprise organizations can maintain secure applications by consistently building firewalls around every workload level throughout the entire ecosystem. The solution can manage applications that are deployed on containers, virtual machines, or bare-metal servers.

Cisco Secure workload is able to meet an organization's busy needs and offers flexible options such as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and on-premises options. Using the Secure Workload SaaS options, users receive all the benefits of Cisco Secure Workload protection without the hassle of having to deploy and maintain the platform on premises. Users are responsible for acquiring the necessary software licensing and deploying software agents. Using SaaS, Secure Workload runs in the cloud and is operated and maintained by Cisco. This option offers the ability to scale easily and is a popular choice for SaaS-first and SaaS-only clients. Many organizations find they get the best TCO and achieve the best productivity and profitability using the SaaS options.

When choosing on-premises options, organizations choose between hardware-based appliance models (large or small form factors). Platform selection is dependent on scalability goals, the desired fidelity level of flow telemetry, and the actual number of workloads. When a user chooses to configure Cisco Secure Workload for a conversation-only flow telemetry for all workloads, each platform has the capability to scale up vertically twice the default platform scale. Additionally, with Secure Workload, it is possible for the platform to be scaled horizontally in order to satisfy the demands of extra large widely distributed enterprise environments using federation capabilities.

Cisco Secure Workload also provides a robust disaster recovery (DR) tool, which helps to make it a complete, comprehensive solution. The DR allows for continuous restore and backup capabilities that enable users to quickly remediate operations and data to a standby cluster in the event of a drastic failure or disaster.

Reviews from Real Users

“The solution offers 100% telemetry coverage. The telemetry you collect is not sampled, it's not intermittent. It's complete. You see everything in it, including full visibility of all activities on your endpoints and in your network. Other valuable features include vast support for annotations, flexible user applications, machine learning, automatic classification, and hierarchical policies.” - CTO at a tech vendor

Sample Customers

Aegean Motorway, BC Hydro, Beachbody, Bucks County Intermediate Unit , Cisco IT, Derby City Council, Global Banking Customer, Gobierno de Castilla-La Mancha, Houston Methodist, Linz AG, London Hydro, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Molina Healthcare, MST Systems, New South Wales Rural Fire Service, Reykjavik University, Wildau University

ADP, University of North Carolina Charlotte (UNCC)

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs. Cisco Secure Workload

September 2024

Free Report: Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs. Cisco Secure Workload

Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs. Cisco Secure Workload and other solutions. Updated: September 2024.

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