HPE Aruba Networking ClearPass Policy Manager vs. Symantec Advanced Threat Protection

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

It is valuable software for when it comes to a large or medium organization, since it helps to protect the endpoints, but as the number of servers increases its value increases. However, it is important to keep in mind that when it comes to low end devices, its protection can affect their performance. This is because it is not a software with a very light agent.

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

• The incident management piece is the heart and soul of the product. A single area where all data in relation to network and email protection is available.
• Works well in conjunction with the standard Symantec Endpoint product.
• URL Protection is advanced and very helpful
• Technical support is great and definitely the best I have ever seen for a "anti-virus" type product.

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.

• I don't like that I have to maintain the client and keep it up to date. Updating the client is not a very easy process.
• Deploying the client could be easier. They have a deployment tool, but it doesn't really get to all PCs, which means I still have to manually deploy it.
• Because the product has so much customization, it can also be very difficult to set up and understand.

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

Symantec Advanced Threat Protection has done a sufficient job at identifying true positives. However, the UI could be improved and the amount of false positives is a little too frequent for my liking

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

There is a small learning curve, but compared to other AV products it is fairly simple and easy to catch onto

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

Support responds fast for higher priority issues, they have always been good at solving the problems we encounter.

Incentivized

No, besides to review documentation prior to beginning. That is what helped lead to a smooth implementation

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

Frankly, the other products were too expensive to make the change from Symantec so we continued with the tried and true protection. We don't have the funding to move to a more expensive product and the manpower that it would take to implement a new solution.

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

• Some digital assets were lost due to failures to detect various threats.
• We had to use other products in combination in order to trust that all threats were actually detected, taking extra time. We couldn't use just SATP.
• Ability to quickly manage/deploy via AD made maintenance of the application itself quick and easy.

Incentivized