Item: Cisco Secure Network Analytics
Rating: 9
Author: Antonio Macia Riquelme

Overall Satisfaction with Cisco Secure Network Analytics

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

In our organization, we use Cisco Secure Network Analytics so We have visibility on the application and users traffic that otherwise we cannot know.

Pros and Cons

Pros

flow search
custom security events

Cons

I think there is room for improvement in Cisco Secure Network Analytics with Network maps
I think there is room for improvement in Cisco Secure Network Analytics to Reduce false positives

Return on Investment

Fundamental to apply our Zero Trust implementation

If asked, I think I am likely to recommend Cisco Secure Network Analytics to a colleague because, in my experience, Cisco Secure Network Analytics gives you full visibily on your network traffic and helps you understand what's going on inside your network.

Resilience and Reliability

Resilience

Resilience plays a critical role in modern cyber security because it shifts the focus from simply preventing attacks to ensuring that systems can withstand, adapt to, and recover from incidents. In today’s threat landscape—where attacks are frequent, sophisticated, and often unavoidable—resilience becomes a key measure of an organization’s overall security maturity.

Leadership in Resilience

Leaders play a crucial role in strengthening cyber security resilience because resilience is not only a technical issue—it is also an organizational, cultural, and strategic responsibility. Effective leadership ensures that cyber security becomes embedded across the organization rather than remaining solely an IT function. Promote a Cyber Security Culture, invest in Cyber Security Capabilities, develop Incident Response and Recovery Plans, etc-

Likelihood to Renew

I would rate my likelihood of renewing Cisco Secure Network Analytics as 8 out of 10. The platform provides strong visibility into network traffic and enables organizations to detect anomalies, suspicious behaviors, and potential threats across both on-premises and cloud environments. Its behavioral analytics, machine learning capabilities, and integration with other Cisco security tools make it valuable for improving threat detection and incident response

Implementation Rating

I would rate my satisfaction with the implementation of the product as 7 out of 10. The implementation process was generally effective and the platform provided strong network visibility and security analytics once deployed. The setup enabled monitoring of network traffic and helped improve threat detection capabilities within the environment.
However, the implementation required careful configuration and technical expertise, particularly when integrating with existing network infrastructure and tuning the analytics to reduce false positives. This added some complexity and extended the initial deployment time.

Reliability and Availability

I would rate Cisco Secure Network Analytics’ availability as 8 out of 10. The platform is highly stable and reliable, with users reporting minimal downtime and consistent performance once the system is properly deployed and configured.

Ease of Integration

I would rate Cisco Secure Network Analytics for ease of integration as 8 out of 10. The product supports integration with a variety of other security tools, specially with ISE, XDR and FTD, which helps enhance visibility and correlation across the security stack. These integrations enable richer threat context and more effective incident detection and response.

Innovative Uses

Identify risky traffic that otherwise would have gone unnoticed
As the only tool to analyze traffic patterns
To discover anomalous endpoint behaviour

Using Cisco Secure Network Analytics

Users and Roles

20 - They are personnel from the Security Operactions Center, network opertations and security operations team.

Support Headcount Required

1 - We have one person who is mantaining Cisco SNA. This person has SNA administrative knowledge for liasing with issues and the TAC. Creating diagnostics packs, upgrading procedures as well as management knowledge in terms of understanding the creation of custom security events, alerts and fine tunning alarms to avoid false positives.

Business Processes Supported

Fine tune firewall rules
Alert against unexpected traffic
Alert everytime a risky traffic identified by a CSE takes place

Future Planned Uses

Integration with XDR

Evaluating Cisco Secure Network Analytics and Competitors

Products Replaced

Key Differentiators

Integration with Other Systems
Ease of Use

To enrich our threat identification and response thanks to the integratoin with Cisco ISE and the ANC policies to automatically quarantine a device.

Evaluation Lessons Learned

Nowdays, I would compare with other solutions that I was not aware of like Darktrace or any other solution that can more easily avoid false positives and facilitates the reduces the noise.

Comments

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Cisco Secure Network Analytics