Cisco IOS Security Reviews

Some of our uses for this product are on-premise-based and then some are cloud-based. Mostly, we are cloud-based right now because we are getting away from physical architecture moving forward into the cloud as is Cisco. It allows going from considering CapEx (Capital Expenditure) to OpEx (Operating Expense, Operating Expenditure). That is one of the important things that it allows us to do. It is easier to have solutions cloud-based when it makes sense. All the updates and maintenance get taken care of on their side which is a benefit.  

On the cloud, we have both public and private services. It depends on what we are doing. If we have a client that is a hospital, they have got to be HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) compliant. We also recommend private cloud services for some huge retailers that have to be PCI (Payment Card Industry) compliant.  

We use it mostly just for prevention. Basically to prevent unauthorized use of network resources. They use it for routing capabilities, threat mitigation, worms, and viruses. A lot of times, it is used for the network application layer threat.  

The solution does not do anything for us directly as we use it with other clients. We are a large IT company. We hear from clients who tell us what they want. We just find solutions for what they tell us they need. Everyone has a different flavor of what they are looking for and what they are looking to fix.  

The Cisco IOS (Internetwork Operating System) firewalls are mostly set up for branch offices in small to medium business environments or for managed services. Those are the clients we usually use this solution for. It is usually only used for a specific thing to fill a specific need. It might be NAT (Network Address Translation), it might be a guideline or restrictions, it might be that they can have the option to make a solution work on cloud or on-premises. It could be deployed so they have the option to either use CapEx or OpEx. It helps to create options for those types of things.  

I would say that the most valuable thing is probably the Application Visibility and Control which is how it controls the application traffic on the network. I like the IPS (Intrusion Prevention System), the IOS content filtering, and the NAT network translation. I like the way it completely integrates branch offices in our perimeter security.  

A few things have room for improvement in your opinion. That would start with cost. Cisco products are more expensive than the competition, but the additional cost usually gets absorbed by the name recognition. Most people have Cisco or have familiarity with it, so they go with it. If they want the top quality product, they immediately feel comfortable with the Cisco name brand. That is where we come in as consultants. We bend over backward to make product comparisons and framing for solving the needs posed by an organization. I see something is a better fit for them that they could use. It would reduce their CapEx, their expenses, and it would fit them better all at the same time. The client may still want Cisco despite the recommendation that we make. But usually, that is what it is. Cisco fits, and if they want to spend the money, we make sure that it is within their budget. They feel more comfortable with Cisco, and they have had Cisco in the past, so we go with Cisco then.  

Cisco is great. A lot of the tech companies are doing really well. But Cisco is still in the forefront. They are on top of this category of products. I can not think of anything else they could do because they cover pretty much everything that you would need a firewall for. Then you get Cisco's support behind the products.  

I would think it would be a lot better for us and we could make more money if we try to recommend that clients put drop-in boxes at every location. But we do not choose to do that unless there is a purpose for it. In most cases, we would prefer clients to go the OpEx route. It takes a lot to offset the cost of Cisco so if they are going to do a cloud solution, their costs are metered per month by whatever solution they have. That is a lot better for projecting costs, and then there is the benefit of everything being upgraded in the cloud for them. They do not have to worry about anything. It just works.  

We have been using Cisco for as long as Cisco has been around. It is hard to answer the question of when, exactly, we started using this product because they have been upgrading or changing the product as it evolved over the years. It is basically the same foundation and they build upon that over time. I can just say that we have been either using this product or something very similar for a long time.  

Cisco IOS Security is stable, very stable.  

The capabilities for scalability with this product are huge. It is very scalable.  

A lot of our clients have a small main office with accounting and human resources that are headquarter-based. Most of them have other remote sites and branch offices. Whether it is a bank or a finance company, it is easy for employees in those particular roles to be able to pull applications down. It takes a lot of stuff off what would have to be handled by the network firewall. They do not have to worry about so many threats when they are bringing up applications to use and if there are compliance or regulating issues that they have to be aligned with. But that is the type of environment where this product can be used to scale effectively.  

Cisco's technical support is very good. There are a couple of competing products that I know do not have support that is as good. Palo Alto does not have particularly good technical support, for example, but most of the rest of them do. Even so, Cisco is head-and-shoulders above all of them.  

For tech support, independent of the cost of the product, I would definitely give Cisco a ten-out-of-ten.  

We just had a client go with Cisco Meraki and we put a couple of those in. Then we had a Cisco Nexus installation and they topped that by integrating it with perimeter firewalls for their remote locations or branches.  

We currently use really any brand of product in consideration for our consultations. There is not any particular brand we are married to, and we have used them all, pretty much. We do not use all the solutions ourselves. We get feedback from our clients and the companies we do work for. All the clients that we get give us pretty good feedback on the recommendations and the products that they end up using. Otherwise, they would be angry with us. What we recommend has to fit their particular niche and that is what we have to be good at identifying.  

For instance, if a client comes to me and describes how their organization is set up, we react to that. If they say they are a finance company and they have accounting and finance concerns, there are some pain points that they are going to have solved. One of those is application-specific. Then you have to layer that with your regulatory concerns. HIPAA compliance is something I encounter with finance companies, banks, and medical facilities. Those types of companies do very well with CloudGenix because CloudGenix is application-specific. If you put their firewalls in place, those would be a good fit for that type of client. For everything else — manufacturing and all the others and things like that — Cisco would be number one. They outweigh the competition in terms of different companies that they fit niches for better because of the range and flexibility of the solutions.  

If the client's needs are application-based, then we start looking at another way with another solution. But Cisco does great with being PCI and HIPAA compliant and all that, but if you only consider Cisco for every installation, that means you are pulling everything from one pool. You are not looking closely at the specifics.  

I think that the initial setup is very straightforward. Most of the firewalls are straightforward and not too complex. When you are setting up a network with something like Merakis, or if you are looking at working with CloudGenix, then that is where you start to get a separation of difficulty in installation and will notice that it becomes a little bit harder to set up.  

My advice to people and companies considering this solution is to just do the research. Do compatibility research to compare with the other solutions that are out there. Definitely make sure that the firewall you choose is designed for your network architecture, application-layer attacks, and virus and worm protection. If that coverage is what you are looking for and you have an analog phone system. You might not be ready to go to VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) yet because you do not want to lose the phones that you have got. Some people add to that base as they scale. We can use something called SIPs (Session Initiation Protocol), for connecting all those analog phones to the VoIP. That is a good indicator that a Cisco firewall will be a good solution for you because it protects the unified communication and guards the SIPs, endpoints, and call-control resources.  

On a scale from one to ten (where one is the worst and ten is the best), I would rate this product overall as a ten, for sure, if you consider its advantages over the competition. If you add in pricing, I would have to lower that to a nine-out-of-ten. Price is the only place that I figure Cisco could do something. Or if they could offset the cost of their boxes using a cloud solution. We had a client do that. They had boxes, but they were trying to figure a better way to scale. I suggested to them that they just move the areas that they were scaling to the cloud. They did it with the new branches they have added, and now they are waiting to phase out their boxes. They will eventually move over to a complete cloud-based firewall solution.  

The product is quite mature. Cisco is well known within the industry.

The solution's most valuable aspect is that it is extremely integrated. The product basically comes with the firewall features including IPS, URL filtering, malware, et cetera. The integrated features are great.

The functionalities of the product are pretty good.

Cisco has always been a premium product. There's a lot of other entry-level solutions. This is more robust.

The solution offers a good mix of features. You can always add more modules as you need to if you need even more features.

The pricing of the solution can be improved. It's not cheap. It's quite expensive.

The company needs to make its solution more affordable to make it more accessible to larger markets. Otherwise, it's seen as an enterprise-level solution that small or medium-sized organizations can't afford and therefore they won't even look at it.

I've been using the solution for quite a long time. It's been ten or 15 years. I have well over a decade of experience under my belt.

The solution is stable. We find Cisco to be very reliable. It doesn't crash or freeze. There aren't bugs or glitches that disrupt its performance. It's good. There's never been an issue.

The solution can scale. It's designed more as an enterprise-level solution, so it's good for larger companies.

The customer support is great. We're quite satisfied with the level of service Cisco provides. They're knowledgeable and responsive.

Overall, we find that they have the best technical support in the business. Their support is quite competent in terms of their technical skills, more so than other competitors. If you face any issues, you can call them at any time and get the answers you need to resolve whatever is going on.

I've used a variety of other solutions. I've used Check Point, Palo Alto, and Juniper as well.

We primarily like Cisco due to the fact that their technical support is great. By far, it's the best I've ever seen.

The solution's initial setup is very straightforward. It's not complex at all.

The solution's costs are quite high. It's a turn-off in terms of actually using it. It's more of an enterprise-level solution. It's not ideal for smaller organizations as the cost to run it would be out of their budgeting capabilities.

We use a few different Cisco solutions. 

We're a Cisco partner. We have a business relationship with the company.

We're dealing with the latest version of this particular solution.

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten. 

The value for money it should be there. Which means good features, good functioning things are there, but they need to make it more affordable for big market. If they were able to price the solution to make it more affordable for more clients that may not be enterprise-level, they've have a bigger footprint.

Cisco IOS Security has many good features, but compared to other solutions, it has a more user-friendly interface with steps to apply and manage rules. Another good part of the solution is that it's more straightforward.

An area for improvement in Cisco IOS Security is the performance because it's not as stable sometimes. There's also some latency in the solution, which could be improved. Cisco IOS Security integrates with other solutions, but you'll encounter many errors after integration, so this is another area for improvement.

I'd like to see enhanced performance and a simplified setup in the next version of Cisco IOS Security.

I've been working with Cisco IOS Security for more than five years.

Cisco IOS Security isn't as stable.

Cisco IOS Security isn't as scalable, but it's okay. It's suitable for enterprise companies.

The technical support for Cisco IOS Security is very good. The support team responds every time.

Setting up Cisco IOS Security wasn't very easy because it's not a standalone solution. The setup requires merging rules and integration with other solutions, which could take some time.

The pricing for Cisco IOS Security is reasonable compared to other Cisco products.

I'm working with Cisco products such as firewalls, ISE, routers, data centers, FTD, and most of the Cisco technologies. I have experience with Cisco IOS Security as well.

My company is a partner and reseller of Cisco products.

My customers, particularly enterprise customers, use Cisco IOS Security.

My advice to others looking into implementing Cisco IOS Security is to do a POC first. It would help to be careful about performance, latency, and management issues with Cisco IOS Security.

I'd rate Cisco IOS Security as seven out of ten.

The most valuable features of Cisco IOS Security are the plenty of functionality it provides, many people are IT certified the usage, and the user interface is good.

Cisco IOS Security could improve its security features. There are competitors that have some additional security features, such as Fortinet FortiGate. Additionally, there should be better synchronization with Cisco IOS Security and other vendors, and improved AI features would be beneficial.

I have been using Cisco IOS Security for over 20 years.

Cisco IOS Security is stable.

The scalability of Cisco IOS Security is good.

The technical support from Cisco IOS Security is of an average level. They had some difficulties.

I rate the support from Cisco IOS Security a four out of five.

Cisco IOS Security price could be reduced, it is more expensive than many of the other solutions, such as Sophos and Fortinet FortiGate.

This solution has some advantages over competitors, but it has weaknesses too.

I rate Cisco IOS Security an eight out of ten.

The solution is used for enterprise and NAC connectivity.

This kind of technology has the advantage of being very flexible to any size organization. It is a cornerstone as a part of the basic network infrastructure.

It can be used as a simple switch to connect your network devices with security features embedded - such as port security, for example. This allows companies to limit to a fixed address per port, avoiding external or malicious assets for accessing the network.

For example, if you have a retail business, and you have a lot of small stores spread nationwide, you just need to connect some cameras and sales points to the network. iOS security solutions allow you to have a secure LAN and you could add a secure WAN connection through your Internet provider with LTE links as backups. You can set up on-demand VPN connections from store to store for voice/video calls, or do inventory queries direct to the HQ database.

As a Cisco partner/reseller, security has been a concern for many years. Cisco has a security concept that begins right when you try to connect to the network. Security is a complete system and is not just put on security devices at the perimeter or between tiers inside a data center.

iOS on routers is a mature solution, allowing easy setup of a traditional ISAKMP V1 or V2 VPN, and a very mature proprietary VPN flavor called DMVPN. DMVPN allows on-demand VPN establishment with minimal setup configuration and creates a pseudo full mesh avoiding bottlenecks. 

Cisco Technical Assistance Center works on a follow-the-sun concept and gives real 24x7 customer support, which is a great advantage when you have a service contract with them.

The best features include the Auto Secure script, port security, spanning-tree root and loop guard, 802.1x, DMVPN, GET VPN, SD-Access, and Secure SD-WAN.

The software offers plenty of security solutions that can work in the most sophisticated enterprise but also works well for small/mid-range enterprises.

A simple switch is able to run basic security as port security, limiting the MAC addresses allowed on a port, or by running a script you can set up ACL and some control plane policies to protect control and management planes and basic DoS protection.

The same software is able to work with sophisticated security options going from the basic 802.1x to MACSEC, NAC, and trustsec, and can be integrated with automation tools in order to do auto onboarding tasks (for wired devices), profiling, and more interesting security tasks.

It allows for easy traditional ISAKMP V1 or V2 VPN setups and has a very mature proprietary VPN flavor called DMVPN. DMVPN allows on-demand VPN establishment with minimal setup configuration involved and creates a pseudo full mesh (avoiding bottlenecks as a hub-spoke topology does). Dynamic VPN establishment allows spoke-to-spoke traffic flow on-demand, optimizing VoIP/SIP calls setting up direct tunnels among spokes, reducing latency compared with a hub/spoke topology.

Switch and router iOS can be automated and orchestrated with secure SD-WAN and SD-Access Cisco solutions. Having the iOS software is relevant for small and large enterprises; it works fine for all size networks.

There are the usual bugs that are inherent to some software upgrades. Sometimes this provides some unexpected issues, however, it happens with all brands all the time.

Some additional features could be improved. For example, the licensing for DNA environments could be better. In some countries, the end-user does not want to go to orchestration/automation environments. They just want to have a small network for their small budget and they never will go to these environments. They consider it unfair that they have to pay for a license/subscription that will never be used.

I've used the solution for ten or more years.

It is very stable.

The product is very scalable.

Technical support is great.

Positive

My customers have used other brands that just gave connectivity and did not offer security over LAN switches. The VPN scheme was limited to site-to-site over hub-and-spoke topologies.

The initial setup is straightforward.

We are the vendor team that handles implementations.

Cisco is not a cost-effective brand, however, in the end, you get what you pay for. Regarding licensing, some customers will not use automation/orchestration environments and do not like to pay a subscription for something they will never use.

We primarily use the product as a security solution within our company.

Overall, the devices are very good and reliable.

The product is easy to use.

It's quite a stable solution.

The installation process is easy.

Technical support has always been very good.

It's a good device yet it's not a market leader. There are better options for customers to choose from.

There could be a bit more functions on offer that could make it easier to use.

We have used the solution for four years. It's been a while. We have a bit of experience with it at this point. 

The stability is great and the performance is good. It's reliable. There are no bugs or glitches. it doesn't crash or freeze. 

We have about 2,000 users on the product currently.

Cisco technical support is the best in the world. They are very helpful and responsive and we are always satisfied with the amount of assistance we get.

Previous to this solution, we did not use anything else.

It's straightforward to set up. The product isn't too complex in terms of implementation. It takes about two days to deploy everything. 

You only need two people for installation. We have two technicians for the installation of the product and two engineers for managing the product.

We handle the implementation ourselves in-house. We don't need outside consultants or integrators. 

We pay a yearly subscription for signatures and stuff for the filtering, debugging inspection.

We did not evaluate anything before we started using Cisco. We didn't evaluate other options.

We always use two versions behind the latest version. We do not use the latest version typically.

I'd rate the solution at a six out of ten.

I wouldn't recommend the solution to other users or organizations at this time.

We are using Cisco IOS Security for endpoint security. For example, spyware, firewall, database and application protection.

I have been using the solution for approximately 10 years.

The solution is stable.

We have found the solution to be scalable.

We have approximately 20 customers using this solution.

The technical is excellent.

The installation is straightforward.

We have two engineers that do the implementation and maintenance of the solution.

The price of the solution should be cheaper, and the license is purchase annually.

I recommend this solution to others and advise them to use the latest version.

I rate Cisco IOS Security an eight out of ten.

One of the main features is that the hardware is extremely reliable.

I think they should bring back remote VPN for users. However, I understand the attempt is to have these functions inside the firewalls and not the routers or the IOS devices.

The stability of the solution is great. I feel very confident working with them because I have a customer that has a router running for almost 10 years and in other cases more than 10 years.

The technical support has been impressive. I know there are no other brands that have the same good service.

I have been working with Palo Alto Networks and Fortinet in the past but they do not have technical assistance centers around the globe as this solution does. However, Palo Alto solutions are more intuitive, the graphic user interface is better, and has higher performance. Cisco is catching up and closing the gap with new releases.

Palo Alto networks are more expensive than this solution and this is why you will see more products like this one in Mexico.

I have been working with the next-generation firewalls by Palo Alto and the license tends to be better. For example, Palo Alto Wildfire, the licensing is more dynamic than Cisco products.

I rate Cisco IOS Security an eight out of ten.