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.
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Nmap
Score 8.8 out of 10
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Nmap is a free, open source network discovery, mapper, and security auditing software. Its core features include port scanning identifying unknown devices, testing for security vulnerabilities, and identifying network issues.
$49,980
one-time fee
Pricing
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
Nmap
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Nmap OEM Small/Startup Company Redistribution License - Quarterly Term Maintenance Fee
$7,980
Every Three Months per license
Nmap OEM Mid-Sized Company Redistribution License - Quarterly Term Maintenance Fee
$11,980
Every Three Months per license
Nmap OEM Enterprise Redistribution License - Quarterly Term Maintenance Fee
$13,980
Every Three Months per license
Nmap OEM Small/Startup Company Redistribution License - Annual Maintenance Fee
$14,980
per year per license
Nmap OEM Mid-Sized Company Redistribution License - Annual Maintenance Fee
All perpetual licenses include a six-month trial period during which you can cancel for any reason and receive a full refund of all money paid (including maintenance). The term license is only a 3-month commitment and cal also be terminated with full refund during the first 30 days of the initial quarter.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
exporting, There's a serious lack of ability to export the information in a readable format to present to VPs and such. I always find myself doing a lot of data massaging to get it in a pretty format
some scans can trigger sensitive IDS/IPS
SYN scans can be particularly aggressive and cause problems on remote systems.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
