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Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs Symantec Privileged Access Manager comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Identity Services Eng...
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
139
Ranking in other categories
Network Access Control (NAC) (1st), Cisco Security Portfolio (1st)
Symantec Privileged Access ...
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
52
Ranking in other categories
Privileged Access Management (PAM) (21st)
 

Mindshare comparison

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) and Symantec Privileged Access Manager aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is designed for Network Access Control (NAC) and holds a mindshare of 29.2%, down 31.6% compared to last year.
Symantec Privileged Access Manager, on the other hand, focuses on Privileged Access Management (PAM), holds 1.7% mindshare, down 1.8% since last year.
Network Access Control (NAC)
Privileged Access Management (PAM)
 

Featured Reviews

Rohit-Joshi - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Krishnan Srinivasan - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 12, 2024
Enhances credential management and relatively inexpensive but needs feature improvements
I work for a service provider company, and we implement Symantec Privileged Access Manager solutions for our clients, which include various banking and mining clients We have implemented both the remote access and credential management features. The agent-based credential management solution…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It has all of the features available, in fact, more than what you need."
"Profiling is one of the most valuable features. We have a lot of different devices between cameras, access points, and laptops that get plugged in."
"Improves switch account management."
"They have recently made a lot of improvements. My clients don't have much to complain about."
"The most valuable feature is 801.1x and another very good feature is the TACACS."
"The most valuable features are the NAC and the bundles that are available with Cisco ISE, such as Cisco ACS being integrated."
"The integration with Active Directory is the most valuable feature for us."
"My team has gained a lot from Cisco ISE as it does also provide automation, which is a big asset in the eighth hour. After setting it up, it took a lot of the weight off in many ways. We have a co-worker, who we call the ISE Master because he's in charge of the ISE configurations. He's able to save a lot of time by being able to monitor everything from there. So it did take off a lot of time that we would waste by going individually to that different device and trying to figure out what was wrong."
"It reduces the viral attacks on my website. It also allows certain users access to see what happens daily."
"Transparent login for users of privileged IDs (Linux, Windows). This prevents sharing of the password because it is never seen."
"We can check the activities in the server for fragile files and documents in case of any issues."
"The RDP-gateway: For limiting which server an operator can access."
"For me, it is the robust API which is the most valuable feature. This allows for low maintenance costs and allows applications to automatically connect. This is great to automate security of the DevOps pipeline for shared secrets across environments. Also, being on Linux and a virtual appliance is great."
"The interface is very friendly, colorful, and bold."
"The two factor authentication, and the single most important capability was it supported PIV and CAC as one of the two factors. That was pretty huge for us."
"It is great for identity governance."
 

Cons

"There is room for improvement in its ability to allow end users to self-enroll their devices. Instead, you should be able to assign that permission by AD group, which is currently not available."
"The knocks I have against the product are the number of bugs that we encounter, constantly, and the amount of upgrading that we have to do."
"Third-party integration is important, as well as the continuous adaptation feature which is the AIOps. It would be helpful to include the AIOps."
"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."
"I would like to see integration with other vendors, and the RADIUS integration needs to be improved a little bit."
"Some of the reporting could be improved."
"Some of ISE's features need to be more agile. For example, we couldn't integrate our data because Cisco needs your data to be in its own format."
"Cisco ISE's performance could be better, faster, and more robust."
"We experience stability issues after every patch upgrade. This is a place where CA needs to improve drastically."
"They need to have zero tier and active-active setup ​with zero minimum downtime, which they are working on it. ​"
"The service account management functionality needs to be extended to application pools, SQL database, PowerShell scripts, service account discovery, etc."
"Instead of just giving passwords to the user based on job function, from auditing perspective, turn that cycle around. That would really help from an auditing standpoint."
"The support for other remote assistance tools would be excellent. Free included tools in Windows (Remote Assist) and Microsoft SCCM Configuration Manager (ConMgr Remote Control) allow companies to reduce the amount of RDP connections and expand the usage of the tools are frequently used by companies to provide technical support for remote assistance."
"The response time for support could be faster. Some features should be added: cloud-based, VPN-less, more secure, and it should be adjusted in a hybrid environment."
"They should include some assignments in the test environment to explore the product's features."
"It'd be great if you just stuck in your PIV card and Windows popped up, asked you for your password. You typed it in, then it remembered your credentials."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's damn expensive and the licensing is terrible... If you have perpetual licenses on 2.7 and you upgrade to 3, you are forced to go with Essentials. That is one of the issues that I'm seeing with my clients now."
"The solution’s pricing is okay."
"The pricing is complicated."
"Pricing and licensing are not my expertise. As far as budgeting is concerned, we run an ELA with Cisco. It's a part of our ELA."
"Cisco is moving towards a subscription service, which would mean additional costs."
"I get very good pricing from Cisco, so I don't have a problem with that. I also don't have a problem with licensing because we get enterprise or global licensing."
"It is difficult to measure security breaches, but since we have not been attacked so far, it has paid for itself over the years."
"In terms of the licensing and the pricing structure of the Cisco Identity Services Engine, there's been a huge advantage to our clients recently with the advent of the enterprise agreement."
"The version we are using is affordable compared to BeyondTrust, which is maybe three to four times as expensive, but it depends on the features."
"Appliances are relatively cheap, don’t skimp. Make sure you have redundancy, high availability, and enough appliances to manage the concurrent workload."
"They offer per-device, per-user, or monthly and yearly licensing models."
"It is more expensive than other solutions on the market."
"The prices are not low, but one can ask for a discount. It’s not the cheapest PAM solution."
"It is reasonably priced."
"Cost-wise, CA was better compared to others in the market. ​"
"I would prefer better licensing options for the 20-100 users we have at a given time."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
26%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Government
9%
 

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 ...
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, ...
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...
What do you like most about Symantec Privileged Access Manager?
We can check the activities in the server for fragile files and documents in case of any issues.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Symantec Privileged Access Manager?
Pricing is reasonable. It's neither as expensive as BeyondTrust nor as cheap as other solutions. One can negotiate corporate discounts through franchises, as Broadcom manages most customers through...
What needs improvement with Symantec Privileged Access Manager?
Broadcom has neglected product development since acquiring Symantec, and nothing major has been added to PAM. The product has not kept up with market demands or introduced new features to compete w...
 

Also Known As

Cisco ISE
CA PAM, Xceedium Xsuite, CA Privileged Access Manager
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

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
NEOVERA, Telesis, eSoft
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, HPE Aruba Networking, Fortinet and others in Network Access Control (NAC). Updated: October 2024.
815,854 professionals have used our research since 2012.