What is our primary use case?
My main use cases for Cisco Umbrella are mostly for DNS security, ensuring we have policies in place to block anyone going to bad sites, as well as anything that comes up that we're not always watching to make sure they get blocked.
What is most valuable?
My favorite feature of Cisco Umbrella is probably just the DNS and the fact that when a security threat happens, all of that gets logged in their Umbrella portal, and it's very easy to find who's been accessing the site and how many people have accessed it, so that we can go to them and make sure they're not compromised.
The features of Cisco Umbrella benefit my company by providing less time to search for things through logs, to look for what we need. It's just one place to go, and we just search for it, and we find it really fast. The fact that there's a virtual database that has all that information is great on our portal.
What needs improvement?
I think Cisco Umbrella can be improved a lot. We've noticed some issues with the SWG where, when I'm connected, it thinks I'm in Miami, Florida instead of Savannah, Georgia. So when I go to weather.com or something else, it shows up for Miami, which is not where I'm at. That's one thing I think we could find ways to treat that traffic so that the person experiencing it is shown where they really are and not somewhere else.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using Cisco Umbrella for probably seven years now.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability and reliability of the Cisco Umbrella platform have been great. I have open cases with support, and they've been very supportive and helpful, allowing us to send information out there and get issues resolved, which is great.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Cisco Umbrella scales really well with the growing needs of my company, bringing the ability to ensure that people are safe and connected. I'm hoping that at some point we could get Cisco Umbrella on people's phones, so when they search on their mobile phones, they're protected. That's probably the only downside—there's not a product out there for mobile devices yet.
How are customer service and support?
Their customer service and technical support have been great. When we open up tickets and get that in place, they are very responsive and come up with solutions that work for us.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We didn't consider other solutions before choosing Cisco Umbrella because it's really the only one that we know works for us. There are other solutions, but as a smaller company, we find Cisco Umbrella tailored towards small businesses, allowing us to get specific features DNS and SWG without having to buy a huge product that we may not use.
How was the initial setup?
I would describe my experience with the deployment of Cisco Umbrella as very straightforward. It's easy to launch; the policies are really easy to set up. You just go to one dashboard, set everything up, and it's done with one click.
What was our ROI?
The biggest return on investment when using Cisco Umbrella for me is the ease of use of the fact that we've deployed this with our Cisco VPN Secure Client, so every computer has the Umbrella module in it. Each of our devices has that module in it that makes it connect automatically, and we're really happy with how easy it is to deploy and send it out to our firm.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
My experience with the pricing, setup costs, and licensing of the Cisco Umbrella solution has been great. We use the Cisco Security EA, so everything's through the Enterprise Agreement, and that's been great to sign up for. We've bundled that with our firewall stuff and our VPN, which brings the price down and adds the ability to grow. As we add more people, it automatically adds the necessary licenses for us, so we don't have to keep coming back and saying we need more.
What other advice do I have?
The features of Cisco Umbrella benefit my company by providing less time to search for things through logs, to look for what we need. It's just one place to go, and we just search for it, and we find it really fast.
My impression of Cisco Umbrella's Secure Internet Gateway is that it's great because we use that a lot in our really small branch offices, which means we don't have to deploy firewalls to those locations. They can connect using SWG to get internet access, but they're also protected without having a physical firewall in each location.
I assess the Cisco Secure Access solution as probably good to integrate, but we haven't really gone that far yet, so I'm hoping at some point we will. I'm hoping that once we get there, it'll be a lot easier to manage.
Cisco Talos threat intelligence influences my company's ability to act against emerging threats by being more of someone else watching it, and we're not having to pay attention to things, allowing us to concentrate on other stuff within the company. We're not having to micromanage our security, Talos takes care of that, and sends out updates to us, which is great.
I think it's just such an easy device to use, making my job easier by allowing me not to worry about threats coming in, and the fact that we can just easily block or accept things.
On a scale of 1-10, I rate Cisco Umbrella a 10.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud