Zscaler Private Access works really well in environments setup for FQDNs and where you know what users should/shouldn't be accessing on what ports. You can use Zscaler Private Access to figure out these kinds of features but that doesn't always mean you'll be correct. It also provides a consistent experience for users as they can access their materials anywhere. It also makes the user the last line of defense. If a user's account is compromised then the attacker has access to everything they already did. It doesn't work great in OT environments or Server based environments. Flows have to be initiated from the client and not the server for stuff to behave properly.
Connecting users remotely with a secure connection. I am a service desk agent who works with end users, and if there is an issue due to ZPA, it's most likely due to configuration. A really good service.
Logging, I believe, works well as I troubleshoot end users and can gather extra details for my network admin. IP.zscaler.com, and the debug logs are nice. Additionally, I like how it shows the App policy assigned to the user's machine ECT.
This tool is essentially a hack, making the user experience pretty weak. For example, we use it in an application which has a box to type your password. Every time you enter some data, ESSO steals the focus and types your password into the box, even if you aren't about to submit the form requiring the password.
This tool creates a 2nd CN in the directory and this broke some of our applications which were only expecting a single CN per user in the directory. Why can't it use a traditional database instead?
This tool caused performance issues with Putty. It would peg our CPUs at 100% if the user had Putty running. It took a very long time to resolve the issue.
Needs an interface for Support Desk/Help Desk to more easily understand that the problem is a lack of an FQDN or access is not allowed due to policy, not because of a technical shortcoming in ZPA.
Documentation of the BC solution is not well-detailed.
The environment feels more secure, and we are seeing that users are adapting to it fast. The fact that we have tools to assist the users with their day-to-day access helps, as we can hand it off to the helpdesk without any escalations to the Network team. It is a work in progress for our agency, but we are seeing the benefits from the solution.
There's no substitute for properly developed applications that delegate authentication to an external system like Active Directory or a cloud identity provider. That way, the issues with screen scraping and constantly-breaking integration are solved permanently.
ZPA is where the bulk of zero-trust access is found. While the functionality for ZIA is excellent, the policy we implement for internet access is more focused on threat prevention and not narrowly scoped access.
We spent a lot of time implementing it on different applications. However, because it uses screen scraping, every time our apps upgraded, it broke the integration with ESSO, so we had to keep fixing the integration. After a few years, we have stopped integrating new apps with it due to this headache.
We used to get anywhere from 30 to 50 tickets surrounding our previous VPN solution every month. We now average 3-5 tickets regarding remote connectivity, and of those, only 1 or 2 are actual issues with ZPA.
Using ZPA Access Policies, we can now block endpoints that have outdated security software from ever connecting to our environment. This was simply not possible with our previous solution.
Some of our employee base skews older and had a harder time understanding the change from VPN to Zscaler.
There is significantly less downtime with ZPA when compared to other VPN solutions.
