HPE Aruba Networking ClearPass Policy Manager vs. Nmap

Aruba ClearPass is suited well for large enterprise networks with many connecting buildings and branches. Aruba ClearPass protects your endpoints from unauthorized or unknown devices accessing your network. You can apply policies that prevent devices from meeting the required policies in ClearPass. ClearPass will allow only authorized access for devices that are using the policies.

Incentivized

If you're a sysadmin, or anyone who's had to deploy network services, you've almost certainly had to use Nmap at some point or other. Need to see what devices are on your LAN? Nmap can tell you that. Want to check which ports your web server has open to the internet? Nmap is your friend.

Nmap is a powerful command-line tool and has many options that require some reading of documentation to get the best out of (although generally straightforward). If the thought of working at the command-line scares you (presumably not if you're reading this review), then you may want a much simpler tool, or at least check out Zenmap GUI.

Incentivized

• You can use ClearPass authenticate using wired and wireless network devices. This is helpful that you don't have to have multiple systems to accomplish this.
• Because devices can have different purposes Clearpass can configure groups that will specify what access they have. You can use parameters such as vendor or mac address so clearpass know what group to push them to.
• It is very easy to view device logs. This is really helpful to troubleshoot auth issues. Once you find the device Clearpass provides more than enough info to know what the issue is and to fix it.

Incentivized

• NMap provides a very fast and a very thorough network "sweep" that allows you to quickly map out exactly what's on your network.
• NMap is highly configurable. The "canned" choices are very good in most instances, but using various switches and options, you can create a very specific scan and get exactly the results you're looking for.
• NMap is easy to use. Even a new administrator will be able to use the graphical version (Zenmap) with efficiency right away.

Incentivized

• Going to the end of the page to edit the rules and save them later causes problems.
• An AND operation can be performed within a rule, but an OR operation cannot. therefore having to write too many rules
• The license structure seems very complex at first.

• The GUI version on Nmap could use some improvement with the options that are available to do scans. For example, they could make it easier to select options for the different types of scanning for people who are beginners
• There are no abilities to schedule a scan in the Nmap tool.
• An intensive scan sometimes takes too much time to complete.

Incentivized

It's a great product, does what we expect from it however it's not easy to set up. You'll likely need an integrator to assist

Incentivized

Though Aruba ClearPass offers a lot of insight and features, it is not the easiest to navigate. A lot of other systems can be figured out as you go, but Aruba ClearPass often requires a lot of research in order to set something up correctly. It's not always easy to find what you're looking for. Once you learn the basics, it becomes a lot more manageable, but it's definitely worth investing in some sort of training.

Incentivized

Nmap uses are very practical and I don't think there is a better tools for what Nmap does. It is open-sources that therefore there is no cost to use it. It offers a number of benefits, including but not limited to network mapping, port scanning and more. It is very reliable as a network scanning tool.

Incentivized

We have it as a cluster

Incentivized

It’s very responsive

Incentivized

This product has consistently provided the results needed from it and when issues arose, Aruba TAC was able to provide support effectively. In the previous question, I stated that Aruba Wireless is used as well. With those systems in place with ClearPass troubleshooting becomes much easier. I am sure other issues may arise if calling support while using another vendor for wireless such as Cisco, Juniper, etc.

Incentivized

There is a very large support community and a robust selection of add-ons and scripts. Once you get the use down this is one of the most powerful tools and you can find anything you are looking for as far as examples on the web. While not having official support its not lacking by any means.

Incentivized

From my experience, ClearPass has been the best NAC server of all I've seen. Even though configuration is somewhat hard and it's hard to get training, once you learn how to configure it it works very well. The policies are very granular and scalable and the interface is a well-done web GUI that does not need any extra plugins installed, as some of Cisco's product require. There are many more options than with FortiNAC, and many more integration options. Also, troubleshooting and logging is good.

Incentivized

Alternatives to Nmap (other IP scanners) are often much more limited in what they can do; They often only allow you to scan a specific subset of ports or a limited number of IP addresses in one command. Nmap is unrestricted in that regard. What makes Nmap stand out above the rest, is the complete network analysis package you get with it. It allows IP scanner, network deep-dives, hardware analysis, vulnerability analysis, encryption detailing, and so much more, in one free application

Incentivized

It’s very reliable

Incentivized

Got the job done

Incentivized

• ClearPass has streamlined everything so we don't have to have as many people managing our device auth systems.
• Our Security team loves that ClearPass can deny unauthorized users and devices from the network. This alone has probably saved us a lot of money and headaches.

Incentivized

• Nmap with Wireshark is free, so it's been a great combo team to gather info and test.
• It's allowed us to avoid fines from false positives and to fix actual issues ourselves.
• Great for finding hosts, helps keep the network secure.

Incentivized