Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
The Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) offers a network-based approach for adaptable, trusted access everywhere, based on context. It gives the user intelligent, integrated protection through intent-based policy and compliance solutions.N/A
Pricing
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
Editions & Modules
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Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
Free Trial
No
Free/Freemium Version
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
Considered Both Products
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
Chose Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
Aruba ClearPass and Cisco ISE are very similar in nature. The biggest differentiator that I have seen is the Cisco ISE ecosystem around native Adaptive Network Controls, programmable interfaces, pxGrid, and Cisco TrustSec environment. Due to the span of products Cisco has in …
Chose Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
Words apart. NPS is very simple, troubleshooting is primitive, for example, manually looking through log files.
Chose Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
So I also have deployed a system called TPAs by Aruba. It's functionality-wise, it's similar to ISE, and also has its pros and cons, but I'm more towards ISE in this case. And I also use some other systems that are in the same field, for example. But this is not really fully …
Chose Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
We just use Cisco for this kind of purpose, I know the market and the other vendors, other players have a lot of solutions that perform the same action, but for me Cisco is the best one.
Chose Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
I've always used the Cisco ISE. I can't remember using other products.
Chose Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
So the security team selected Forescout because of its inventory functionality. We have had to utilize Cisco ISE though to actually push the SGT Policies as well as the SGACL mappings and the SXP Propagation across the switch infrastructure. There is a lot more configuration …
Chose Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
It works really well with Cisco network devices working natively with all Cisco products.
Chose Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
ISE integrates well with DNA Center but it is in no way a replacement.
Chose Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
They provide similar functionalities
Chose Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
Cisco ise is great at what it does. There are much cheaper solutions, but that also comes with it's disadvantages of the support that is usually there. But when you are up against Free Radius....what more is there to say for a lot of the smaller companies that is going to be …
Chose Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
ISE stacks well up against other products in our portfolio with protocols like RADIUS, TACACS and REST APIs.
ISE is in many ways good for integration with both other Cisco products (switches, firewalls, WLAN controllers) and products from other vendors. Even with cloud services …
Chose Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
I didn't make the selection. My company did.
Chose Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
ISE has the most rich features compared to them.
Chose Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) Stacks up nicely alongside them and we chose Cisco because our business is a Cisco shop and keeping our number of support vendors low is a big way that we keep things simple resulting in a low headcount in the IT Dept. We use it in …
Chose Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) stacks up well against other systems because it does what it says and is stable. For us, Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is great for managing access to our network devices and systems. Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) might not do …
Chose Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
We are using a lot of other Cisco solutions, so the integration between them became much better and easier and also gave us a relatively easy way of implementing network automation. We have planned to implement Software define network with the Cisco DNA Center, so Cisco …
Chose Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
In our case, the entire core of our network is based on Cisco technologies as well as user access. For this reason it was the simplest choice given that both by integration and by knowledge of the platform it was the solution with the least complexity and the best adoption …
Chose Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
Cisco ISE is way ahead of other products when it comes to Network Access Control technology. With its granularity level controls and zero trust architecture, we can leverage its extensive policy enforcement to create rules based upon users/processes/machines. It gives so much …
Chose Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
We have used Microsoft NPS but found it to be hard to craft policies and it didn't have near the options that ISE had.
Chose Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
Cisco ISE is very well designed and information is provided in very logical and consistent form in the WebGUI, which cannot be said about Aruba ClearPass or others. Policy design and flow are far clearer than in Aruba ClearPass, Microsoft NPS, or FreeRadius. Cisco ISE …
Chose Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
Meets requirements, this is also easy to use, [easy to] set up, and [provides] quality of support. It [also] provides data protection, network access, security, [and] scaling on wider scope. As mentioned previously it helped on bring-your-own-device (BYOD) setup [and] guest …
Chose Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
Cisco ISE is not cheap, but if your network is not too complex, this could fill your needs. I do think Forescout makes an easier product to manage.
Chose Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
I haven't tried any other vendor when it comes to AAA. It seems that ISE was preceded by Cisco ACS. Cisco seems to be the front runner when it comes to this level of security and implementation. Why would you go to another vendor if you know Cisco is the vendor setting the …
Chose Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is definitely better, PxGrid alone wins the race. Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is more dynamic and vibrant, with a myriad of features.
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User Ratings
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
Likelihood to Recommend
8.7
(39 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
7.0
(3 ratings)
Availability
7.0
(1 ratings)
Performance
9.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
7.0
(6 ratings)
Implementation Rating
7.0
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
8.0
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
Likelihood to Recommend
Cisco
Overall, management is not terrible if you have a stable network that is not overly complex. If you don't, this product will take considerable time to plan for an effective solution. I will say support is not very helpful, so if you need assistance after the initial sales rep assisted setup, good luck and be prepared to spend hours on the phone.
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Pros
Cisco
  • Manage high-privilege access to communications equipment. It allows to be granular in the permissions, to have it integrated with the LDAP users and, most importantly, to audit what tasks each user performed.
  • Profile users and devices and assign privileges and access levels based on that combination. It greatly improves the user experience, since it does not depend on the network it is in, but on the access levels it has depending on the device. It also allows self-managed guest access with approval flow, which is essential for our business.
  • It has also allowed us to automate actions based on findings from StealWatch, Umbrella, AMP, etc.
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Cons
Cisco
  • I guess the user experience itself, it's sometimes a little bit slow, but this is also dependent on the platform and the scale of the deployment of course. But actually functionality-wise it's really, really good. But yeah, it could sometimes be a little quicker to react on the good front.
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Likelihood to Renew
Cisco
We are so very reliant on Cisco Identity Services Engine at this point that finding another solution would be a big hassle for us.
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Usability
Cisco
For us the solution is very easily useable on its own. Perhaps that has to do because we started using ISE in the 1.2 days and have seen it grow during the years. Policy creation, etc. is all very visible and thus easy to use. Deployment of multiple nodes is also incredibly easy and flexible. You can easily add or remove nodes as you wish.
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Reliability and Availability
Cisco
We do have to occasionally reboot the servers when they get low on memory, but we're also a few versions behind. Availability has generally been pretty good though with no major outages in the time that we've had it implemented.
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Performance
Cisco
ISE performance has never been an issue for us. The system doesn't tend to slow down at all.
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Support Rating
Cisco
Cisco support is second to none, both in terms of how you access support but also the knowledge of the individual support teams. If you focus on one technology and provide "manufacturer support" then you can rest assured that you are accessing Cisco's top individuals. I feel like this is a USP for Cisco support.
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Implementation Rating
Cisco
I did participate in the implementation of Cisco ISE and while there were times when it was confusing and we had a lot of trial and error, overall the experience was fine.
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Alternatives Considered
Cisco
So the security team selected Forescout because of its inventory functionality. We have had to utilize Cisco ISE though to actually push the SGT Policies as well as the SGACL mappings and the SXP Propagation across the switch infrastructure. There is a lot more configuration that has to happen in Forescout in order for it to manage the switches.
Read full review
Scalability
Cisco
Yes, we have the ability to scale ISE to however many nodes and clusters we want, but of course this takes time and money for licenses.
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Return on Investment
Cisco
  • Cisco ISE is fairly expensive, but I feel that the time it saves our team is well worth it.
  • We have been able to roll this our to all of our teams, and they can each manage their own device and it is really convenient to have each team mange their own devices
  • Once it is deployed and configured, it seems like there isn't much upkeep, so we don't have to hire someone to manage it we do it by committee.
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