Cisco Secure Access Reviews

I evaluate Cisco Secure Access's AI Access feature for providing deep visibility and control over AI applications as something we have just started using, with not much experience yet. The Canva features are in beta mode at the moment, so we are in the early stages.

Our customers use VPN as a Service (VPNasS) in Cisco Secure Access, as we are providing POC and offering that solution to some customers. It is new for them, particularly in India, where they are launching and promoting it now. We are trying to explain and educate customers on the differences between traditional VPN and Secure Access, and what the advantages are. We are doing all these initiatives while completing the POC as well.

The features mostly used in Cisco Secure Access by our customers include roaming clients, which is the major aspect because the clients are roaming around and accessing from anywhere. They need secure access to their private applications as well as public applications. Some applications are hosted in their own on-premises data center, others in their private cloud, and some in the public cloud. Therefore, they need to access all parts of their portfolio securely, and this is the main use case we propose.

I describe the performance and security levels provided by the Hybrid Private Access feature as solid; we are using a cloud firewall for security. The cloud firewall includes application filtering, DNS filtering, and everything is managed in the cloud, so we apply these conditions to ensure access to either public or private cloud.

Our customers use VPN as a Service (VPNasS) in Cisco Secure Access, as we are providing POC and offering that solution to some customers. It is new for them, particularly in India, where they are launching and promoting it now. We are trying to explain and educate customers on the differences between traditional VPN and Secure Access, and what the advantages are. We are doing all these initiatives while completing the POC as well.

In my opinion, Cisco Secure Access can be improved by further integrating different platforms into a single solution. They are slowly integrating all components into one solution, such as Secure Access, firewall, and Catalyst Center for switch management. The current challenge lies in managing multiple consoles, which adds complexity to the management of these platforms.

For future releases, I would like to see improvements in IDP integration, particularly regarding local user integration. There are some limitations because it is a cloud-based platform, and we need enhancements in the area of on-premises user integration.

I rate the technical support based on the individuals who connect; some provide correct solutions while others may take a lot of time.

On average, I would rate the technical service around seven, or perhaps seven point five out of ten.

There is indeed room for improvement regarding first-level support; they need to ensure that knowledgeable people are available.

Cisco Secure Access's initial setup is straightforward; it is a GUI-based cloud-managed deployment. If everything is configured correctly, we can complete the deployment within an hour, having all IPs and other elements ready.

Regarding affordability, I find the product to be reasonably priced, as we have access to a partner portal where we, as Cisco partners, can view GLP prices. From this portal, we can assess costing and budgetary considerations.

I am using Cisco Secure Access's Hybrid Private Access feature for varying the enforcement location for ZTNA private traffic.

I have integrated Cisco Identity Intelligence with Cisco Secure Access, where the IDP-related functionalities play a role. ISE is for centralized policy management, and within that context, it is not a major component; however, IDP integration is a significant part of Secure Access specifically for roaming clients.

The policy verification in Cisco Secure Access is very effective; since Secure Access is a cloud platform, we configure policies based on requirements and deploy them accordingly.

I would like to add that while the integration into one platform is important, security-wise, Cisco Secure Access is a good product. The complexity I see primarily relates to management, and they are gradually integrating towards a single platform, which is the only concern I have.

I believe Cisco Secure Access is the best option on the market at the moment; it is the right and recommended choice. I would rate this solution an eight out of ten overall.

My team's use case for Cisco Secure Access is that we currently have, or just had, a system with VDI connections, and it was quite difficult to handle because this VDI session is not optimized for video and telephony, especially Webex meetings.

We are now glad to have the opportunity to move to the SSE environment.

The feature of Cisco Secure Access that I appreciate the most is the ability to use Webex directly with the cloud.

We do not have to go through our on-premise system as we did before.

We can go directly from the home office workplaces to the cloud and we do not have to go through the on-premise infrastructure.

The benefit is that I can specify which traffic goes to the on-premise site and which traffic goes to the cloud.

Cisco Secure Access benefits my company considerably from my perspective, because we had some problems with integrating with the VDI infrastructure. In the end, it worked, mostly because of the thin client architecture we used. However, we were looking for something more powerful, better, and optimized for our environment, so we chose the SSE.

The deployment of Cisco Secure Access has impacted help desk ticket volume and the end-user experience. With the new SSE, we are rolling out new hardware. This is impacting the way our colleagues work with their electronic devices, and it is getting better now.

I am not using the AI assistant feature of Cisco Secure Access at this time.

I am not sure about using the VPNaaS in Cisco Secure Access, as in SSE, I am functioning as an end-user and I assist the guys who are implementing it. My part was mostly determining what ports are needed and what servers connect to on-premise and need to work with them. The implementation of this solution was quite easy.

I do not use ZTNA in Cisco Secure Access.

I have not used the Experience Insights feature of Cisco Secure Access, as I am not involved with it. It is just the underlying platform. I am implementing the voice features on it. I can speak from my opinions and insights on what I observed when implementing UC above the platform. It was quite good and acceptable.

I have not used the multi-organization management capability of Cisco Secure Access, so I cannot describe its usability and efficiency.

I come from a user perspective and user experience, because I am responsible for the UC clients which are working with the platform. From that, I can say it was quite easy to implement it and to bring the systems to work with SSE. However, I am not deeply involved in the capabilities of SSE.

I have been using Cisco Secure Access for about two to three weeks for my daily work, and I have to admit that I am using it part-time because our colleagues have not fully migrated to Cisco Secure Client.

We are in the process of transitioning from one system with VDI to the SASE and SSE.

I have not had any interaction with the customer service or technical support of Cisco regarding Cisco Secure Access, as I support other things, and we did not have a problem with UC communication. It was no problem to implement it.

Negative

Before choosing Cisco Secure Access, I was using the VDI infrastructure I already discussed, which included thin clients at home and now includes laptops at home. From my perspective, it will be easier in the future.

My experience with the pricing, the setup costs, and the licensing of Cisco Secure Access is that from my perspective, we made quite a good deal with Cisco.

We were in the process of supporting the older hardware of our VDI infrastructure again and again, year after year. For us, it was more economical to move to SSE than to continue supporting the VDI infrastructure, so that was a good point for us to transition from VDI infrastructure to the SSE platform.

From my perspective, it was the right decision to move to that platform, as I expect the product to be ideal for having secure access to your network system, especially as we will see a transition from mostly on-premise to mostly cloud.

My relationship with Cisco is that my company is a long-time user of Cisco software and hardware. I have been working with Cisco since about 2003, and I am quite satisfied with dealing with Cisco.

There are many advantages. We have documentation, we have events such as this one, and we have partners in Germany that we can work with.

My advice to any companies considering Cisco Secure Access is to plan it. Talk to your Cisco partners and your Cisco representatives; I think it is worth it.

I rate this product overall as a 10.

We operate in the financial industry, specifically banking, where security is a primary concern when it comes to financial transactions. Our use case always prioritizes security requirements specific to the financial industry.

Cisco Secure Access offers exceptional ease of use as its most valuable feature. The single pane dashboard gives my team the ability to perform tasks on one dashboard and execute changes with a shorter duration. This is particularly beneficial because we have multiple layers of security when it comes to the data center, which helps us capture requirements in a single go.

Our security posture has improved significantly with Cisco Secure Access. Being in the financial industry, we undergo multiple audits from various regulatory bodies and government agencies. Cisco Secure Access helps us answer their questions and meet their requirements.

From a licensing perspective, there could be some enhancement. What I have observed from Cisco regarding licensing and pricing is that there are multiple license tiers, whether Essential, Advanced, or multiple layers of licenses. This creates confusion about which license type we need and which type this product requires. Some clarity or enhancement in this area could provide greater visibility and peace of mind.

I have been using Cisco Secure Access for around five years.

Cisco Secure Access is reliable and helps us execute policies during runtime without any downtime.

Cisco Secure Access is scalable.

I did not evaluate any other solutions because we run most of our products from Cisco, which helps us achieve quick adoption.

I would not characterize Cisco Secure Access as easy or difficult to deploy. When it comes to security, you need to understand the application requirement, the flow, the requirement from the user's perspective, and how the data will flow. This understanding helps us gain visibility so we can deploy exact rules.

I do not currently use it as a VPN as a service. I plan to use it for the hybrid private access feature, but it has not been adopted yet.

We have started a proof of concept for using ZTNA because we were using other products from the Zero Trust perspective, but we are currently in the phase of running a proof of concept to roll out this functionality as well.

I would rate this product an overall score of eight out of ten.

Hybrid Cloud

Other

All types of companies are a good fit for Cisco Secure Access, including manufacturing, education, finance, and all different types of customers we are having.

The majority of cases come on the regular switching and routing for Cisco Secure Access, and some cases do come on security aspects also when the network gets added features of security.

Some of our customers use VPN in Cisco Secure Access, VPN as a Service.

They are looking forward, definitely, in their transition from VPN to ZTNA.

Our customers have integrated Cisco Identity Intelligence with Cisco Secure Access.

The AI Access feature is quite important for providing deep visibility and control over AI applications, particularly considering these days AI is supporting the technologies. I feel it is important.

Identity management plays an important role wherever we are going for implementation of security measures influenced by this integration.

That should be very important for evaluation of the effectiveness of AI supply chain risk management.

Regarding the Experience Insights feature of Cisco Secure Access, I won't be able to tell you exactly because that is what my team usually handles.

There is nothing that I can exactly tell you for improvement for Cisco Secure Access.

Right now, I won't be able to really suggest additional features because that is something our implementation team will be able to tell better.

Improvement on the pricing will help in expanding the market for Cisco Secure Access and then it can be affordable to much more number of companies than what it is right now.

That is good. We have always valued Cisco for its good support.

That is good, definitely good when it comes to response time and first level support quality.

My team is there. They are doing it.

It has definitely made life easier, but again, security is something which is never close-ended. It has always evolved, and we have to keep evolving when we are considering security. What is security posture today which is okay, another year on, maybe that posture is not enough. And we have to be more reactive.

The pricing also always helps because the market is very competitive here, and it always plays a very major role. And quite often to remain competitive, we have to go into very deep discount mode, and then we can at least be in consideration. So price is always a consideration that way.

Improvement on the pricing will help in expanding the market for Cisco Secure Access and then it can be affordable to much more number of companies than what it is right now.

It is definitely one of the best options in the market for Cisco Secure Access, but there are competitions, definitely.

Cisco is very well poised and it helps us to build up cases with Cisco that way, because having its brand strength and its facilities and all, they could learn a lot from their competitors.

Our team has had some experience with Cisco Secure Access.

We are using it in our company and we recommend it to our customers.

We are offering that to our customers.

From that point of view, our guys are okay with deployments of Cisco Secure Access.

I will rate Cisco Secure Access at nine, definitely. I will keep some room to keep a challenge for oneself.

The awareness of Cisco Secure Access should be slightly more because Cisco is a default standard in the top-level companies or even banks and all. Cisco is the first choice. You can lower down, the presence is less because of the pricing factor and things like that.

Mostly through distribution, our customers buy Cisco Secure Access. We have got a good distribution channel here and we work quite closely that way.

I will give nine to Cisco Secure Access from my perspective.

They already are a market leader when it comes to the functionalities and the interface.

My overall review rating for Cisco Secure Access is nine out of ten.

My adventure with Cisco Secure Access started when I began my work, and my main use cases are focused on ensuring secure connectivity and protecting sensitive data.

My favorite feature of Cisco Secure Access is incredibly beneficial for a company, as it enhances security and user experience significantly.

Using ZTNA in Cisco Secure Access has positively affected my transition and my clients' transition to Zero Trust and least privilege principles, reinforcing the security posture.

The impact of Cisco Secure Access deployment on help desk ticket volume and the end-user experience has been remarkable, and I am using the AI assistant feature, which streamlines support. Cisco Secure Access has helped in preventing users from uploading sensitive and proprietary information to LLMs effectively, and I have heard from my clients regarding how they see it. They find that it works well and meets their security requirements.

In terms of usability and efficiency, the multi-organization management capability of Cisco Secure is robust. I believe Cisco Secure Access can be improved by changing some features, enhancing the user interface, and streamlining reporting.

I used VPNaaS in Cisco Secure Access, and it has greatly influenced my transition from VPN to ZTNA by simplifying secure access for users.

I evaluate the customer service and technical support of Cisco as consistently reliable.

Positive

I would describe the deployment experience of Cisco Secure Access as straightforward, without major challenges.

From my point of view, the biggest return on investment when using Cisco Secure Access is the significant reduction in security risks and improved operational efficiency.

My experience with the pricing, setup costs, and licensing of Cisco Secure Access has been favorable.

I have worked with other tools that do similar things to Cisco Secure Access.

My advice to other companies thinking of deploying or getting Cisco Secure Access is to thoroughly assess their needs and goals, as it is crucial for maximizing the benefits. I gave this review a rating of 9.

I use Cisco Secure Access for VPN resources in my day-to-day work to implement the VPN tunnel to the data center.

The best features Cisco Secure Access offers include stability. With 4,000 people using it and not many tickets, Cisco Secure Access has positively impacted my organization by providing stable VPN access to the data center.

This stability has led to measurable outcomes, as we have fewer tickets.

Cisco Secure Access is good, and I feel nothing more is needed for improvement. I chose a rating of nine out of ten because of the zero downtime, but that is nearly not possible, and I cannot tell you what to do better.

I have been using Cisco Secure Access for eight years.

Cisco Secure Access is good, and I feel nothing more is needed for improvement.

With 4,000 people using it and not many tickets, Cisco Secure Access has positively impacted my organization by providing stable VPN access to the data center.

I will contact our partner manager if the vendor has any questions or comments about my review.

Neutral

We do use VPNs in Cisco Secure Access, and we already have Zero Trust, which has influenced our transition.

Cisco Secure Access is deployed in our own on-premise data center.

We are a partner of this vendor, which represents our business relationship beyond being just a customer.

The stability has led to measurable outcomes, as we have fewer tickets.

We do use VPNs in Cisco Secure Access, and we already have Zero Trust, which has influenced our transition.

We do use VPNs in Cisco Secure Access, and we already have Zero Trust, which has influenced our transition.

I would evaluate the AI access feature of Cisco Secure Access for providing deep visibility and control over AI applications, tools, and large language models by saying we will keep an eye on it and talk to our partner manager about the use cases of the AI implementation. My advice to others looking into using Cisco Secure Access is that it is a good solution. I gave this review a rating of nine out of ten.

On-premises

Other

Cisco Secure Access has many features, and I want to clarify whether the discussion pertains to Cisco ISE or the Cisco client, as the new product name created some confusion with other Cisco products. The solution allows users to connect with our organization's assets from anywhere in a secure manner by providing controls, including firewalls and URL filtering, to deliver comprehensive security for our users and protect them from advanced malware and harmful websites. Overall, its purpose is to safeguard our users during access to our infrastructure on the cloud.

The no-cost migration tools from Umbrella have assisted in streamlining our security policy migration. We also have the cloud to manage all of these products, which works very well for us. We have comprehensive rules from Umbrella, acting as our main firewall. We also implement controls on application control, URL filtering, allow lists, and destination lists to permit or block specific access, including our domain. Therefore, this is very helpful to streamline the implementation for Cisco Secure Access.

Regarding the AI Access feature, I used to use OpenAI, but I will try Cisco's AI tools next time to search for logs. I have tried one, and I think it is very good at allocating logs and knows exactly where the product is and where the issue is. I find it very helpful for us.

I have not yet used the Experience Insight feature, powered by ThousandEyes, but I will do so next time.

I have used the AI assistant feature in Cisco Secure Access. I find it very helpful for viewing logs, analyzing logs, and assisting with issue resolution whenever I am searching for issues. The replies I receive are very quick, professional, and helpful for us.

I am using the Hybrid Private Access feature for varying the enforcement location for ZTNA private traffic. We provide access for our users while enforcing security using these features. It is very good technology overall, and Cisco simplifies it for us and for their customers.

I have tried integrating Cisco Secure Access with Identity Intelligence; we have a trial license for it, and we have gained insights from this license. It is very good and helps us to identify and protect our digital assets. We are considering a decision to purchase this after trying it for the first time.

I have used the policy verification feature to help reduce policy misconfigurations. It acts as a health check for policy configurations and is a powerful tool that recommends settings and configurations for policies.

The effectiveness of AI supply chain risk management is currently under testing. One of my team members is configuring this or working on it, but it is still under evaluation.

What I like the most about Cisco Secure Access is that it has continuous updates for signatures for advanced ransomware; for example, Cisco Umbrella also does this. We can implement controls to prevent access to newly observed domains, with Cisco providing signatures and this information as quickly as possible compared to other vendors. This means if a new website can be malicious and contain ransomware, Cisco ensures that we have immediate information about it. It is fast to gather more information about ransomware and malware, including newly observed domains. Thus, we can say that Cisco provides updated signatures rapidly.

While it is not technically a downside, I think Cisco Secure Access needs more marketing, and the licensing cost should be bundled with other products. This approach would enhance marketing effectiveness, but technically, I do not believe the solution is missing anything.

I have been working with Cisco Secure Access for more than six months.

I have not experienced any lagging, crashing, or downtime; we have gone more than six months without any issues. It is very good.

It is not practical for me to comment on scalability; we have just our one-year product. However, according to the licensing model, I believe it provides scalability.

I have contacted their technical support before, and I consider Cisco TAC to be very professional and very good.

Positive

The initial deployment of Cisco Secure Access is easy, and as it is very common from Cisco, they have a very professional team.

Cisco TAC is very helpful and professional. I reached out to them one day, not during the implementation but after we implemented this product along with other Cisco products. They are a very professional and supportive team.

Cisco Secure Access always requires monitoring for updates and signatures, similar to a health check, but not intensive maintenance. It is very good and very stable. I provide this product with an overall rating of ten out of ten.

Hybrid Cloud

Other

My main use case for Cisco Secure Access is to secure our network. A specific example of how I'm using Cisco Secure Access to secure my network is that we use it for our customers as an internet service provider to ensure everything is safe.

In my experience so far, I haven't noticed any best features that stand out with Cisco Secure Access. One feature that does sound useful to me is Zero Touch.

The Zero Trust feature in Cisco Secure Access works very well, but I have no idea about its specifics. Some common positive impacts I mention include faster troubleshooting, which I have noticed since using Cisco Secure Access.

Cisco Secure Access has helped with faster troubleshooting because when we were troubleshooting a loop in a network of our customers, with just a few clicks, I found where it came from and where it was going, so I closed this interface and everything is good.

I am using the AI Assistant feature in Cisco Secure Access, and it has helped in improving my security administrative tasks by summarizing pages or outputs of troubleshooting, which is helping so much. The most helpful thing the AI assistant has done for me is making recommendations for solutions during troubleshooting, which helps me focus on what to think about.

I think Cisco Secure Access can be improved, but as I said, I'm still new in this field, so I can't say something now. I plan to improve my skills more and gain more experience, and maybe I can send them an improvement by mail or something similar. I do not have more to add about the needed improvements.

I have been using Cisco Secure Access for approximately two months.

In my experience, Cisco Secure Access is very stable, and I do not have issues with downtime or reliability.

Cisco Secure Access' scalability seems to keep up with my needs as my organization grows.

My experience with customer support for Cisco Secure Access has been okay, but it is not very fast.

Negative

I did not previously use a different solution before Cisco Secure Access, so I'm not sure about that.

Cisco Secure Access is deployed in my organization on-premises. I'm not sure if we use VPNaaS in Cisco Secure Access. I haven't used the Experience Insights feature powered by ThousandEyes yet; I know about ThousandEyes, but we do not use it yet.

I'm not sure if I have integrated Cisco Identity Intelligence with Cisco Secure Access. I haven't used policy verification in Cisco Secure Access as I am still new and do not configure any policies. I help mostly with troubleshooting something that's already running, just looking for anything wrong here and there.

I do not have anything unique to add about how I or my customers are using Cisco Secure Access.

Since using Cisco Secure Access, I haven't seen a return on investment and I do not have this information regarding saved time, money, or fewer employees.

Before choosing Cisco Secure Access, we evaluated a few solutions such as Cisco Meraki, Cisco ISE, and Catalyst Center.

Since I started using Cisco Secure Access, I have noticed positive impacts on my organization. My advice for others looking into using Cisco Secure Access would be to try it; it is very nice to have in a good environment, such as service providers. I would give this product a rating of 8 out of 10.

On-premises