My main use cases for Cisco Duo are authentication to different services.
What I like the most about Cisco Duo is that whenever I get a new phone, all of it transfers to the new phone, while Microsoft Authenticator does not; I have to do each one one by one.
An example of how these features benefit my organization is that we do it for anybody that needs to access the VPN, including student logins at some different schools, so it just makes authentication more secure.
To become more resistant to phishing attacks, we use Cisco Duo as part of our network access control so that anytime students need to access certain things or teachers' VPN connections, the same for businesses, we secure the VPN that way. We know who's logging in, and we put an extra layer of authentication behind it.
Cisco Duo fits into my broader security environment as a kind of first layer, mainly for VPNs. As I said, it adds that extra layer of authentication after someone authenticates.
Cisco Duo's visibility into identity-based risk has improved my ability to manage the security of both human and non-human users' identities across my environment because we see log in attempts, so we can see who's logging into the network through the VPN at certain times, giving us another layer of visibility on who's on the network.
The way Cisco Duo can be improved, including features that should be included in the next release, is something I don't know off the top of my head; I would need to go back and look at our customers' wants and what they would like to see implemented.
I have probably been using Cisco Duo the entire time.
I assess the stability and reliability of Cisco Duo by noting that the only time we experienced an issue was when doing RADIUS authentication, and we had to tweak the timer to allow time for Cisco Duo authentication to take place before the RADIUS request was denied.
Cisco Duo scales well with the growing needs of my organization, being easy to manage as long as we have the Cisco Duo licenses to support the growing user count, and it's as simple as just provisioning them a Cisco Duo license.
I have expanded usage, and the process of expansion was fairly simple.
On a scale from one being the worst to ten being the best, I would rate my customer service and technical support experience as a seven.
I would give them a seven because they are readily available; we haven't had to reach out to support a whole lot, but I would say maybe just more on the technical side, getting those initial passes through the tiers to the tier that we need to support us.
Prior to adopting Cisco Duo, I was using Microsoft Authenticator in many environments and some other authenticator platforms.
What considered the change to Cisco Duo was cost for some and then just overall compatibility with the equipment they had.
My experience with the deployment was easy with no real issues.
Before selecting Cisco Duo, the other solutions I considered were mostly Microsoft Authenticator if their capability to support it was available.
What stood out in the evaluation process, both positive and negative, when comparing options was integration ability and ease of use.
When evaluating my identity strategy, I was looking for a comprehensive identity security platform rather than a standalone MFA tool, since I am an MSP servicing multiple clients, and I prefer a solution that integrates with many different technologies as most clients have a hodgepodge of equipment.
Cisco Duo's broader IAM capabilities meet those needs by just adding that extra layer of security, which is always important.
I am using it as an added security layer that integrates with other security products and tools that I may have in my stack.
The key capabilities beyond the MFA that led me to choose Cisco Duo as my primary identity security partner included MFA as the main one.
Cisco Duo has improved my operational efficiency to reduce costs in areas like authentication, IT support, and security operations by just securing the environment. It's that extra layer; after putting MFA behind it with Cisco Duo, there's now that extra layer we can fall back on.
Those threats have evolved in ways that I don't even know how to start narrowing it down; they evolve every day, and so it's just trying to keep the network as secure with multiple layers of authentication on it as much as we can put it on.
Looking back, Cisco Duo helps me evolve my IAM strategy from simple authentication to a more comprehensive identity security platform by providing another level of security. It puts another layer on everybody's accounts, so if an account is compromised, there's still that extra layer of authentication needed to get through.
If Cisco Duo was removed, the impact on my ability to manage and secure access across my entire identity ecosystem would mean that, for some of the school systems that we support, we would need to find a different solution, probably Microsoft Authenticator if they have the infrastructure for it, but we would probably be scrambling to get some different authentication sources in.
My advice to another organization considering using Cisco Duo is to take into account the licensing, ensuring that your environment supports it, and looking at making sure it can integrate with the different equipment you have in your environment. I would rate this product an eight overall.