Item: Cisco AnyConnect
Rating: 9
Author: Rahul Chhabra

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use it for Remote Access - VPN, Posture as well as network Visibility. Never gave an issue. Easy to implement and troubleshoot. Best VPN agent in the market. Also, offers endpoint compliance as well as Remote protection with Umbrella for remote users. Using tit with ASA 55XX for remote access is mandatory nowadays due to the Pandemic.

Pros and Cons

Remote Access VPN
Posture
Roaming Security

FTD should support more features on Annyconnect
UI is a bit old
Sometimes requires uninstallation for fixing issues, should have a complete remote method of fixing it

Return on Investment

ROI is immediate as it helps people to work remotely and saves the organization on Office Infrastructure costs
Great Cisco Support means lower downtime
Roaming Security means less Management burden

Usability

Easy to use, A bit old UI but it does the job. Cisco has been adding a lot of features to it. And enabling their cloud service that is Umbrella was a great solution. It provides DNS security as well. Integrates with FTD (Firepower Threat Defense) and ASA as well.

Support Rating

Cisco has been a market leader for some time in the Networking space, and the main reason has been their Support. Cisco TAC provides the best support in the industry. They can be easily involved in Priority 1 and 2 cases and help customers to resolve the issues quickly. Cisco TAC has some great engineers which understand the problem and customer situation well.

Alternatives Considered

Pulse Secure Unified Client, Palo Alto Networks GlobalProtect Mobile Security Manager and Zscaler Cloud Protection

AnyConnect is easy to use. Moreover, our organization has Cisco ISE, router, and switches, using Viptela SDWAN as well as ASA and Firepower Threat Defense. AnyConnect works well with Cisco ISE for 802.1x and Posture. Moreover can be used via ISR and ASA. We also use Umbrella for remote users for DNS level security. All these features can be supported by one client.

Key Insights

Do you think Cisco AnyConnect delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Cisco AnyConnect's feature set?

Yes

Did Cisco AnyConnect live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Cisco AnyConnect go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Cisco AnyConnect again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Cisco Webex Room Series, Webex Calling, Webex Meetings, Microsoft Teams

Likelihood to Recommend

AnyConnect is suited for every organization. As everyone takes Remote Working seriously. Customers looking for their workforce to work remotely require VPN as a most basic service to secure their information. And AnyConnect does this job very well. On the top, it provides features such as Posture, Roaming Security - Umbrella (for organizations looking to migrate to Cloud security)

Likelihood to Renew

Cisco AnyConnect has been working fine for us for some time now. Pandemic has tested almost every IT consultant and forced to make choices about which they were not thinking previously. No one expected this high levels of remote work which we are experiencing now and AnyConnect has made it possible for us. Morover, we are using DNS security from Cisco which is also utilizing AnyConnect.

Implementation Rating

We are quite satisfied with the deployment. We might extend our deployment. My suggestion to everyone will be utilizing Cisco cloud infra as well. As it will give you some nice features like cloud based firewall, DNS Security and threat intelligence. Threat intelligence was a key decision maker for us and people should not ignore it.

Reliability and Availability

Availability has not been an issue with us till now. It has been there when we need it. There is a website from Cisco which we utilize to check outages etc. Moreover, Cisco TAC is the market leader in terms of support and they have been able to resolve our issues when we have faced any.

Ease of Integration

We have not integrated AnyConnect with any third party. We are utilizing its integrated modules scanning, Roaming Security, and posture. These modules are working fine. We are using Integrated Service Engine (ISE) for access control and integrated it with AnyConnect for posture. Both being Cisco products, implementation was quite seamless.

Innovative Uses

Posturing
Roaming Security
Hostscan

Plethora of Features with Advance security in AnyConnect

Overall Satisfaction with Cisco AnyConnect