There is no better commercial NAC product than Cisco ISE
November 10, 2021

There is no better commercial NAC product than Cisco ISE

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)

Secures access to the network at its edge, leveraging 802.1x protocol and MAB. Provides Web Authentication to wireless Guest network. Two nodes, all-in-one, multi-site deployment. Two node deployment provides us required redundancy in case of failure and maintenance, e.g., ISE software updates. ISE allows to prevent unauthorized endpoint access to corporate resources, provides visibility and insight on network access. Support for TACACS+ protocol allows us to control who can have access to network devices and what level of access is granted too.
  • Authentication and authorisation network access.
  • Simplicity with policy creation.
  • Aiding troubleshooting network access.
  • Authentication and authorisation access to network devices.
  • Built-in guest portal web design.
  • View of the raw Radius attributes.
  • Network access security.
  • Single pane of glass monitoring of network and device access.
  • Scalability.
  • Protection of corporate network from unauthorised access and associated threats
  • Provision of branded Guest Portal
  • Increased security of internal resources
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 scalability is far greater than ClearPass or others. Cisco support is second to none which guarantees appropriate support in case of a failure or a bug.

Do you think Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)'s feature set?

Yes

Did Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) again?

Yes

Cisco ISE is an amazing Network Access Control system. Network access authentication and authorization policies are made easy to create and maintain. ISE spreads its wings when combined with Cisco's networking hardware - switches, wireless LAN controllers, firewalls, etc. However, leveraging ISE services when other vendor networking hardware is deployed isn't impossible nor difficult - it is simple, effective, and pleasant to configure and manage too, but a few fairly advanced features might not be available. With the recent version available for the public cloud, there is no scenario where using ISE might be less appropriate than other vendors' NAC products.