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Andraz Piletic - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Solutions Architect at Flint
Video Review
Real User
Is user friendly and easy to deploy, and provides single-pane-of-glass management
Pros and Cons
  • "One valuable feature is definitely its simplicity in terms of deployment. It is very easy to integrate it into the environment without any heavy lifting. Users didn't notice that we implemented it. You can start with a very low monitoring mode and start observing what Cisco Umbrella sees."
  • "I'd like to see this solution more closely integrate with other products Cisco has in its portfolio."

What is our primary use case?

As a Cisco partner, try to test things on our own before we position the product to our customers or educate partners on it. So, the primary use case was to test things out and to be our own first customer. We started using it internally for our own purposes to secure our access to the internet with Umbrella.

We use Cisco Umbrella to secure internet connectivity and especially to focus on the threats introduced through web browsing. This is because most of the applications the workers use are browser-based.

The traffic, by default, is typically encrypted with HPS, and we use Cisco Umbrella to get more insight into that traffic. The classical security appliances have very low visibility into them. This is where we see Cisco Umbrella have the most traction.

How has it helped my organization?

In general, it increases the security level. It helps us prevent threats from being accessed. Also, the visibility into internet bounce traffic is increased. So, in general, it increases the overall internet security of the organization.

What is most valuable?

One valuable feature is definitely its simplicity in terms of deployment. It is very easy to integrate it into the environment without any heavy lifting. Users didn't notice that we implemented it. You can start with a very low monitoring mode and start observing what Cisco Umbrella sees.

In terms of helping workers feel safe, secure, supported, and included, the solution is pretty transparent to the end user in most cases. They don't necessarily get any confidence from it, but it's supposed to be that way. It's supposed to be as transparent as possible. However, when the end-user accesses a site that is blacklisted or treated as potentially suspicious, he or she will see a warning displayed. This gives them additional confidence that somebody else is taking care of the details and that they can confidently browse around. If they come across a suspicious site, they know that they will get a warning or advice on how to proceed.

Cisco Umbrella supporting hybrid work environments is important. Within our organization, even before COVID, a lot of us worked remotely from time to time. For companies that we work with, it has become a reality with COVID. Before, everybody was working on site, and now, that's no longer the case. It is important to have flexibility and know that even if we work from home or from another place we're still secure.

For all Umbrella-related things, it does provide single-pane-of-glass management, but it's one component. If I look at the typical employee, he is only one piece of the puzzle. Other solutions, like, for example, AnyConnect for remote access, are managed separately. For Umbrella-specific items, it's a single interface for management. For monitoring, policies, and troubleshooting a specific case, everything is in one place. I don't need to go through the logs to know where to look.

My organization is not very large, and I'd say my colleagues are pretty proficient. So, it's not a high priority to have single-pane-of-glass management, but it's always good if solutions are capable of integrating together. If by enabling single-pane-of-glass management the workflow is simplified and the day-to-day operations are a little easier, then that's something we definitely want to benefit from.

The administrator user experience is definitely optimized by single-pane-of-glass management, especially if the personnel are busy. Then, it helps if all the relevant details are in one place.

In terms of maintaining network connectivity, Umbrella on its own is pretty user-friendly. It is easy to set up and maintain. It's one of its strong suits.

For the branch and campus, it's very simple to apply and maintain network connectivity. For the home environments, there are options to integrate it into the employee's PC as well. Cisco Umbrella supports different methods for different environments so that you can achieve the level of implementation that you need. It's where it should be.

It's very efficient in securing the infrastructure from end to end so that we can detect and remediate threats. You can simply adopt it right into the environment, and you don't need to build the rule sets on your own. It utilizes best practices, and it's very easy to set up policies such as potential malicious categories on the internet, what you want to block, what you want to filter out, etc. It's very easy to implement those.

When you go through the reports, you can see what kind of threats were blocked. Luckily, we haven't had an incident where something got through and caused a security incident.

In terms of metrics on how Cisco Umbrella has been able to remediate threats, the numbers look pretty impressive. However, it's hard to assess how serious that potential threat really was. It's hard to put actual weight on the numbers to determine how meaningful those numbers are.

The value that resilience helps offer in cyber security is pretty high. Cyber security resilience is a high priority in our organization. It's important to our customers that we handle what we do for them in a secure manner.

What needs improvement?

I'd like to see this solution more closely integrate with other products Cisco has in its portfolio.

I would also like to be able to manage the identities, for example. If you define them in ISE, it would be good to be able to use the same identities also within Umbrella. It would simplify the use of multiple products within the organization from the same vendor.

Buyer's Guide
Cisco Umbrella
August 2025
Learn what your peers think about Cisco Umbrella. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: August 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using it for about three years now.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Stability-wise, Cisco Umbrella is pretty robust. The uptime statistics are very high. There are, generally, no issues with stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Our organization isn't very large, but it's pretty scalable for larger organizations. At the moment, it's not a limiting factor.

How are customer service and support?

Technical support is one of Cisco's strong suits. In my experience, the Umbrella team has been very quick to turn around requests. It's even been above average by Cisco's standard compared to the turnaround time for other Cisco solutions and products.

I would give Cisco's support a rating of nine on a scale from one to ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

We deployed it by configuring local devices to redirect the DNS request to the SAS service Umbrella provides.

The solution is cloud-based. You just send your DNS request or your traffic to it. You can start with a monitoring-only mode. So for example, you can redirect the DNS request and start observing what Umbrella recognizes. Later, you can start defining the policies, setting up the enforcements, etc. You can very quickly get to the first results.

What was our ROI?

Actual ROI numbers are really hard to measure and determine. Generally, we see that customers who implement Cisco Umbrella and start using it tend to renew their licenses. They adopt the product, and they recognize the value it brings. I think this shows that there was a return of investment for them and that it achieved the desired level.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Licensing with Cisco can be a little complex, but I think it's comparable with that of other similar products. It's always hard to put a price on security, but the price is fair for the value it provides.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We're a Cisco partner, and we work with a lot of Cisco solutions. So, it was pretty easy for us to decide what we wanted to try and test. We didn't really do competitive selection and assessment, and it was pretty straightforward for us to go with Umbrella.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate Cisco Umbrella at nine on a scale from one to ten.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
PeerSpot user
Network Administrator
Video Review
Real User
Saves us a lot of time and a lot of effort in isolating the actual issue
Pros and Cons
  • "A single pane of glass saves time... This does have a lot of options available for us to see who's doing what, what trends, what errors. We can set up our alerting through it as well. It is definitely a great dashboard."
  • "Something on our end that might make it better is alerting going to our ticketing system. It's not something that we have discussed, but that would be a proactive option for us to provide a learning experience for the staff."

What is our primary use case?

We use Umbrella to monitor user activity and make sure that our staff isn't clicking on malicious links. We also use it to protect us by being more proactive on links that are already known to cause harm or potential hacks. Overall, it's keeping everything in a safe box.

How has it helped my organization?

We had a lot of challenges with staff clicking on ad links, random Google search links. Most staff want to shop during the day or in their downtime and were clicking on random links and then causing potential network issues, bugs, and causing network downs. Umbrella has helped us limit that.

It has provided our organization with more stability. Even though staff would like to shop using certain links, it gives us the option to educate them: "Hey, some of these links, just don't click on those." We are pretty lenient. We understand people want to shop and do other things at work. We try to keep it work-related, but safe.

Everyone really just wants to be able to click and do what they do, just like at home. But for the IT side of it, it does benefit us by limiting all of the extra activity. It does give us some comfortability that we aren't going to wake up, or even come in in the afternoon, and the whole network is down because someone went to buy some shoes or they clicked on a malicious email and caused a chain reaction.

It's very important for our organization to support the hybrid workers because we're a health clinic. A lot of staff are going to be away, but with the COVID numbers still out there, we want to be able to provide the same support that we did before COVID. We want to give the same flexibility, the same availability to our patients, that we had in the past. Being remote or having hybrid, it does give us a different range of opportunities to implement different workflows. They can reach out with more telecommunication, more video conferencing, rather than having a patient drive out to a site to seek support. We can do remote assistance and, with Umbrella, it still gives us the opportunity to be secure through those communication links.

We don't really have metrics at this particular time for it, but just [anecdotally] from past troubleshooting, having to diagnose maybe five different areas, this saves us a lot of time and a lot of effort in isolating the actual issue. We can just open up Umbrella, go to the specific area that we feel is impacted, or just look at one of the key dashboards that are on the portal and identify the issue.

It's very easy to maintain network connectivity with Umbrella. Before, we were having a lot of issues, but since Umbrella has been implemented, we really haven't had to touch it. It's kind of self-sufficient.

The solution is a lot more proactive. It does have its own features where it constantly uploads known threats and blocks those. It takes a lot of the guesswork out of our environment, but it also gives us an opportunity, if there are some questionable links, to diagnose those without it impacting the environment.

What is most valuable?

The best feature is the visibility. We're able to see the specific user names of whoever clicked on a certain link. It also gives us a threat detection level. It allows us to maintain more [awareness of] who's doing what they shouldn't be doing. The most valuable asset of it is giving us the ability to categorize who should have access to what type of sites.

This solution does give us a single-pane-of-glass for this particular instance. We do have several products implemented that we manage, which this hasn't integrated with yet, but we have just been made aware of the SecureX implementation and we are looking into implementing that and bringing that into another single-pane-of-glass, but with more options available.

A single pane of glass saves time. It saves effort and the headache of having to open up multiple links and go to different dashboards for troubleshooting different areas. This does have a lot of options available for us to see who's doing what, what trends, what errors. We can set up our alerting through it as well. It is definitely a great dashboard.

The dashboard, the single pane, is very helpful, it's very visual. Everything is straightforward there; it's definitely important for management. Even when we bring it to upper management and explain why this product is beneficial for us, this gives us a good breakdown and makes a lot of details available for us.

What needs improvement?

So far, I haven't seen any areas that need improvement. As far as what we need it to do, it's doing just that. It's comfortable for us. It's working beyond our expectations. Something on our end that might make it better is alerting going to our ticketing system. It's not something that we have discussed, but that would be a proactive option for us to provide a learning experience for the staff.

For how long have I used the solution?

We've had Umbrella implemented for about two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is very great. Once it's deployed and you do your due diligence to make sure that everything is communicating and in sync, we've hardly had to touch it.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

For our environment, it doesn't seem to have any issues with the amount of users and staff. We have been constantly growing since we deployed it without any impact. No negative impact is forecasted.

How are customer service and support?

The support has been really good. I have only had to utilize support about three times. It's been more of a training area: "How do I get to this area?" and "What does this actually do? How can this benefit me?" From there, it still has been stable and smooth and doing everything that we expected it to do.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We had a different overall firewall solution, which was a Sophos firewall. But since we migrated away from that, we implemented the Firepower firewall and, in addition to that, added in Umbrella.

The reliability wasn't really there, with Sophos always having issues, even from the endpoint perspective. We had issues across the board and it was management's decision to look into a new solution.

How was the initial setup?

We just did one deployment through a virtual machine and that manages all of our routers and all of our users. We haven't had to do multi-site configurations or deployments. It goes towards the organization, uploads all of our users, and all of our statistics, and maintains things from there.

What was our ROI?

I'm not sure of the actual cost that went into it, but it's definitely a productive product for us.

What other advice do I have?

The solution doesn't require almost any maintenance, unless you're doing triple checks, upgrades, or just being proactive in different areas. But for the most part, once it's deployed, you just give it about a week or two to check your levels and make sure everything is the way that you intend the product to work.

As far as the IT infrastructure team goes, we're all happy with the product. It definitely takes a lot of load off of our plate. We don't have to deal with certain sites being blocked. We have been able to set expectations, where these particular users have access to these types of sites, and certain sites are just blocked. That's just the company standard. From the staff perspective, they want to be able to browse freely, but we were able to set those expectations and guidelines and that we're working in the best interests of the site.

I'll rate it a 10 out of 10. It's been functioning very efficiently and effectively, and it's doing everything we need it to do. It takes a lot of load off of our team.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Cisco Umbrella
August 2025
Learn what your peers think about Cisco Umbrella. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: August 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Francisco Cano - PeerSpot reviewer
Engineer at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Gives us control and visibility of our network
Pros and Cons
  • "It has excellent resilience in cybersecurity. Cybersecurity for my organization is very important because we are a banking organization. We need this security to protect the personal information of our clients. This is very important for our security."
  • "I feel that the application needs other characteristics that are available with other applications in the market."

What is our primary use case?

The solution is for filtering web content. We can control user access to applications as well as have visibility into Internet usage.

We are using it on approximately 300 servers. The solution is deployed across three departments. There are about 8,000 users.

How has it helped my organization?

Umbrella gives us control and visibility of our network using administration tools. This is helpful for us. 

The solution is very good for helping workers feel safe, secured, supported, and included.

Employees have accepted the solution. The solution is very good for them and their morale.

It has excellent resilience in cybersecurity. Cybersecurity for my organization is very important because we are a banking organization. We need this security to protect the personal information of our clients. This is very important for our security.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature is its web content filtering.

It is very important for our organization that the solution offers single-pane-of-glass management.

It is very easy to maintain network connectivity. 

The customer experience has been very good.

What needs improvement?

I feel that the application needs other characteristics that are available with other applications in the market.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using it for three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It works very well across platforms with other providers.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is very easy to scale.

How are customer service and support?

I have never needed to use their technical support.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We have just used this solution.

How was the initial setup?

Our initial setup was very easy.

What about the implementation team?

We used an internal consultant.

What other advice do I have?

Our leaders say that cybersecurity and resilience for our services is very important. They say technology is necessary for developing business with our clients. 

I would rate the solution as nine out of 10. The solution is very good, easy to implement, and manage. The visibility is very user-friendly. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1895550 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Network Engineer at a educational organization with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
We feel more confident knowing that we can block phishing attempts or any type of malware that is DNS-related
Pros and Cons
  • "It has improved our organization from a security posture perspective. We feel more confident now knowing that we can block phishing attempts or any type of malware that is DNS-related. This is a very nice feature that provides peace of mind."
  • "We would like them to add more features to Cisco Umbrella."

What is our primary use case?

We use Cisco Umbrella for DNS security. We also have the roaming clients deployed on user laptops.

We use it for roaming clients. We also push all our DNS traffic to Umbrella. We do not allow any other DNS traffic. That is kind of how we have fully implemented Umbrella.

We were looking to bridge the gap for DNS security, especially for mobile clients. We wanted to be able to put that roaming client on their PCs and kind of bring that together.

How has it helped my organization?

It has improved our organization from a security posture perspective. We feel more confident now knowing that we can block phishing attempts or any type of malware that is DNS-related. This is a very nice feature that provides peace of mind.

Umbrella has absolutely helped us remediate threats more quickly. In fact, it has blocked a lot of threats that may have been able to go through in some instances. Knowing that they are blocking it and being able to find the PC that potentially has the threat on it, that has been very beneficial.

Umbrella has been very good for employee morale. It makes our job a little bit easier.

Cybersecurity resilience is very important for our organization right now. Umbrella does a good job of blocking ransomware, malware, bad threat actors, and phishing attempts.

What is most valuable?

Being able to control policy sets has been a very nice feature. Being able to have appliances that are separate, where we can send DNS traffic, has been very beneficial as well.

It is a good product for helping workers feel safe, secure, supported, and included. Having the roaming client is probably one of the key factors in being able to do that.

Cisco Umbrella provides single-pane-of-glass management, which is pretty important for my organization. We have a lot of products, including security products, that we manage. Being able to see a lot of those data sets in a single pane of glass is very beneficial for my team. We enjoy having it. It is very easy to use.

It is not very difficult to maintain network connectivity. 

What needs improvement?

We would like them to add more features to Cisco Umbrella.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using Umbrella for about four years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Stability has been great. Obviously, there have been some hiccups here and there on the connectivity side. That is out of our control, but it is understandable, as things are in the cloud. I have had more issues with Amazon than I have had issues with Umbrella, where I have had a very good experience.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is very scalable. If I had more sites, all I would have to do is deploy more VMs and point traffic that way, which is very nice.

We are using roaming clients. We are also using the DNS appliances that we have deployed. I have over 15,000 users and 10 locations. We have deployed each appliance at every location, and then point traffic to that. There are 20 different servers that we are using for Umbrella.

How are customer service and support?

The technical support has been very good. I have not had to open many tickets. I have only opened two in the five years that we have had it. Those two times, the support was very nice and supportive. I would rate them as 10 out of 10.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We have actually been using Umbrella since it came out. Previously, we just ran our own DNS. From a security product perspective, Umbrella has been the only DNS solution that we've used.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is very straightforward. There is a lot of documentation available.

What about the implementation team?

It was deployed in-house.

What was our ROI?

We have seen ROI. We can show our leadership that we are blocking and preventing things from coming into our network. Not only that, but from a threat perspective, if any of those things were able to infiltrate, then possibly the remediation damages would be way more than the cost that I am paying for Umbrella today.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

As an educational partner, we get better licensing structures. We are very happy with that. It has been very nice that Cisco has partnered with the educational sector to bring that. 

What other advice do I have?

Look for all the gaps that you have in your network, then try to find a product that is more rounded to essentially fill those gaps.

I would rate Umbrella as 10 out of 10.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Jessica Boutin - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Network Engineer at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
Real User
Blocks a lot of threats and that means we don't have to remediate them
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable features for us include tenant lock, content filtering, and DLP solutions, looking for PII and information being exfiltrated."
  • "There are a couple of different pieces that have different portals. I know they're working on getting them all into one portal, but that's probably the biggest thing that needs improvement right now. It's not a single pane of glass yet."

What is our primary use case?

We were looking to solve multiple challenges, from DLP all the way through to regular content filtering offsite for our hybrid and remote employees.

How has it helped my organization?

Using Cisco Umbrella has brought us into compliance with our customers on a number of points.

Also, it's very important that the solution helps support hybrid work. That was one of the main reasons we got it. About 45 to 50 percent of our employees are either fully remote or hybrid. We needed a solution that would follow them home.

In addition, it's very helpful for securing infrastructure from end to end and detecting threats. It's blocking a lot of stuff, so we don't even have to remediate. It's blocking things before they get to us.

Resilience in cyber security is very helpful and this product has increased our security posture quite a bit.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features for us include

  • Tenant lock
  • Content filtering 
  • DLP solutions, looking for PII and information being exfiltrated.

Also, the policies are applied wherever you go, and that's good.

What needs improvement?

There are a couple of different pieces that have different portals. I know they're working on getting them all into one portal, but that's probably the biggest thing that needs improvement right now. It's not a single pane of glass yet.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using Cisco Umbrella for about a year.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We haven't had any issues with the stability of the product.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is very good and that's another one of the reasons that we chose this product. You can slowly ramp up the policies. You don't have to build it all at once. We started small and have been deploying more and more of the features of the full SIG Essentials package that we have. We can add more users when need be. It scales on a policy and a user and a deployment basis.

We have about 400 end-users and five sites. We use the AnyConnect module on the local workstations.

How are customer service and support?

The solution's technical support has been very good. I haven't had to call them very much, but the technical support has been good when I have needed it.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Previously, our users were only in-house and we had internal firewalls that were doing a lot of this work. But now that they're hybrid, we had to come up with a new solution.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We evaluated Prisma because we have Palo Alto firewalls, but it was more expensive and more difficult to set up.

What other advice do I have?

I don't think our workers like it all that much. It has actually made employee morale worse because we block a lot of stuff. But that's not really the product's fault. It's our policy. It makes things a little bit more cumbersome for them, but it definitely makes us feel safer.

I would tell leaders who want to build more resilience within their workplaces to do it. It's important because one hack and your business is done. Your reputation is everything in this day and age. Being resilient and being able to recover from that type of stuff before you're actually exfiltrated is a big deal.

Overall, Cisco Umbrella is pretty easy to use, pretty easy to deploy, and it does what we want it to do.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Michael Abadeer - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Security Operations Manager at BeyondTrust
Real User
Securing DNS, specifically for the remote workforce we have today, fills a big gap
Pros and Cons
  • "It enables us to go granular in the customization of blocking some categories on the DNS."
  • "Having ready-to-go templates with best practices is definitely something that would be an improvement. Deployment, from day one, is something that definitely needs to be improved for Cisco customers."

What is our primary use case?

We use it for DNS filtration across all data centers, offices, and remote users.

How has it helped my organization?

The blocking of all the non-malicious traffic from DNS request queries has been huge. DNS is very important from a security perspective. Securing this layer, specifically for the remote users and the remote workforce that we're seeing today, is definitely a big gap that needed to be filled.

The DNS Umbrella agent is already installed on the core machine. So from day one, when our CEO sent all employees to work remotely, all we had to do was flip a switch to have a DNS filter on all core machines.

The visibility that Umbrella gives us into what a user is doing, versus what we want to block, is huge. It's not that we're policing things. It's just a matter of watching and having visibility. We're definitely not going to block every domain, but having visibility is very big.

What is most valuable?

It enables us to go granular in the customization of blocking some categories on the DNS. 

Also managing all the DNS aspects from one portal is definitely great from a security perspective. Sometimes we get a malicious URL in a phishing campaign on the email side. Blocking a domain across the whole company in one minute is definitely great. To block a DNS request very quickly you just add the domain to the Global Block List and in one second it's blocked.

Another feature that is good in Umbrella is applying and maintaining network connectivity consistently across all workplaces. You can go through the categories and do templates based on the sites, such as a data center or a branch and apply policies based on that.

What needs improvement?

Having ready-to-go templates with best practices is definitely something that would be an improvement. Deployment, from day one, is something that definitely needs to be improved for Cisco customers.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Cisco Umbrella for four years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is a 10 out of 10.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is also a 10 out of 10. We use it across all the company's offices and data centers. We have 1,500 users.

How are customer service and support?

The Umbrella service itself is great. Sometimes, with technical support, we go through "tag" problems, but otherwise, it's pretty smooth.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We did not have a previous solution. We used to use CWS, which was Umbrella before it was named Umbrella.

What was our ROI?

The ROI is visible in the portal through the executive reports. They show how many times we block malicious sites. Management definitely gets a view of the fact that we're blocking a lot of malicious domains with Umbrella.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

We have a security Enterprise Agreement with Cisco, so the pricing is good. We take many security products in one agreement, so we have no complaints about the price.

What other advice do I have?

From a DNS perspective, Cisco Umbrella is the number-one technology now.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
IT Consultant with 501-1,000 employees
Consultant
With the reduction in risk, we spend less time on end-user support
Pros and Cons
  • "The Global Block List is one of the most valuable features because it's really easy to block domain names as well as URLs. Sometimes you don't want to block the whole site, you just want to block one URL. The Global Block and Allow Lists are the best features for us."
  • "There are some situations where we would like to block things for specific user groups. I know that Umbrella does that, but it's not that easy.... when you want a specific task for specific rules and policies for user groups, you have to go three levels down in the menu, and it's hard to find where you do that task."

What is our primary use case?

One of our purposes for acquiring Umbrella was to block phishing links that we get in emails and to manage risky websites. We're using it for our internal network and the roaming client for external users.

Blocking malicious websites and preventing users from going into them, as well as the phishing attacks that usually come with malicious links, were the challenges. With Umbrella we can block them.

We use it in our Active Directory domain and for about 175 users. We use it on desktop computers and on laptops for external users. It's all on-premises, protecting servers and workstations.

How has it helped my organization?

It has improved our company a lot because we now see where the users are going and prevent them from going to malicious websites. It has reduced, by a lot, the chances of hackers getting into our organization.

With Umbrella, it's our IT staff who we feel secure. Sometimes the end-users, our clients, don't fully understand the purpose of the tools when we install them, such as the roaming client. And sometimes they get false positives and they don't fully understand why. But for us, as IT admins, we feel a lot more comfortable with the tool in place, because we know that it's unlikely our users will go to a malicious website. Umbrella is protecting us.

Umbrella has also helped us remediate threats more quickly. It's really good for securing our infrastructure from end to end. Umbrella's footprint is really small. If you want to secure infrastructure, such as servers, you don't have to install an agent. You just have to use DNS forwarders and point them to the umbrella servers. That's easier. It helps us protect our infrastructure for sure.

What is most valuable?

The Global Block List is one of the most valuable features because it's really easy to block domain names as well as URLs. Sometimes you don't want to block the whole site, you just want to block one URL. The Global Block and Allow Lists are the best features for us.

Cisco Umbrella also provides a single pane of glass for management. It's really helpful and it's important for us because we have multiple locations. Without a single pane of glass, if you want to block websites you have to go to every location, in each firewall, one by one. But when you have a single management portal, it's a lot easier.

The user experience is good because, as IT and admins, it's easy to use. But that's not only for admins, it's also true for the clients because they know the reason a website is blocked. The user experience is pretty smooth because they can report a false positive or a malicious website that has not been blocked in Umbrella. We are happy with the user experience.

And when it comes to applying and maintaining network connectivity consistently across all workplaces, Umbrella is excellent. We can track, among the different locations that we have, where the users are trying to get to. That means the risk of disruption is reduced by using Umbrella. And in that way, Umbrella contributes to maintaining network connectivity.

The user interface is pretty nice. Once you know how to do tasks, it's easy.

What needs improvement?

There are some situations where we would like to block things for specific user groups. I know that Umbrella does that, but it's not that easy. When you go to the Global Allow and Block Lists, that's the easy part. But when you want a specific task for specific rules and policies for user groups, you have to go three levels down in the menu, and it's hard to find where you do that task.

Also, the policies are not that easy to manage.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Cisco Umbrella for around a year and a half.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is really good. They have about 99.99 percent uptime. I can't think of a significant disruption in the service.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We are a small organization, but from what I have seen, it is very scalable.

How are customer service and support?

We have never requested support.

How was the initial setup?

The initial deployment was straightforward.

The solution is on-premises but the management is cloud-based.

What about the implementation team?

We did it all by ourselves.

What was our ROI?

We have seen return on investment by reducing the risk we had in the past. That has saved us from having to invest a lot of time in support, which is something we had to do when a user didn't know what they were doing and got infected. We now spend less time on end-user support.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The pricing is pretty fair. It's good.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

In my former company, we used Area 1 for DNS protection, not Umbrella. I knew OpenDNS before it became Umbrella. In fact, I used OpenDNS for my personal accounts. In my current company we evaluated Area 1, but in the end, we loved Cisco's support and that is one of the reasons we went with Umbrella. But, obviously, the features in Umbrella are pretty good.

What other advice do I have?

Once our end-users understood why we use Umbrella, that it was for improving our organization's security, it improved their morale. Nowadays, they are aware of cyber threats and they know that Umbrella is one of the tools that we use to prevent a breach. They feel more secure now.

Resilience helps a lot in cyber security. One of the things that makes Umbrella great is that you don't have to detect threats by yourself. Wherever in the world a new threat is detected, it's in the Global Block List of Umbrella and we don't have to manage those threats one by one.

That kind of resilience is more and more important for our organization every day. Fortunately, our C-level now understands the risks and what the organization could lose. They understand the impact. With the support of management, cyber security is really important for our organization.

I would tell the leaders of other organizations who want to build more resilience that cyber security is more important now because we are serving our internal and external customers. The problem with a cyber security risk, a threat or a disruption in IT services, is that it will probably cause us to stop producing what we produce. Our customers will have a bad experience, and that means it is not only a financial issue but one of reputation. I would tell such leaders to always keep cyber security in mind because it's not just about your IT guys, it's for the whole organization.

It's an excellent product. It has worked really well. The only reason I don't give it a 10 out of 10 is, as I mentioned, that there are some tasks that could be done more easily.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Walter Poole - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at Infinite Energy Center
Real User
Allows us to see threats in real time and be more proactive
Pros and Cons
  • "If it didn't have a single pane of glass, we would not be using it. The single pane of glass gives you a one-stop shop. It's like going to Home Depot. You find all your stuff there. You can see all your threats and your endpoints. It's a very important feature and makes things very simple."

    What is our primary use case?

    In general, we use it for the security of our network.

    How has it helped my organization?

    We wanted to get an idea of what's happening outside of our network and what's coming to our network. We had no way to know before and we were just sitting there waiting for something to happen. At least now we can be proactive.

    It has helped us to be more secure. Cisco Umbrella allows us to see threats in real time. We can also see if there are any bad actors inside of our network who are trying to do malicious things. It gives us a quick glance at the situation, at where we are and how vulnerable we are.

    Another definite benefit is that it has helped us to remediate threats more quickly.

    What is most valuable?

    It's very important that the solution helps support hybrid work. In the past, we might have had one or two people who were working from home because of illness or pregnancy. Now, with 60 percent of our people working from home, Cisco Umbrella has really helped us out with threats that they might not even know exist on their side. We can monitor them and be proactive about them.

    Also, if it didn't have a single pane of glass, we would not be using it. The single pane of glass gives you a one-stop shop. It's like going to Home Depot. You find all your stuff there. You can see all your threats and your endpoints. It's a very important feature and makes things very simple.

    Another point is that it's very easy to maintain network connectivity.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I have been using Cisco Umbrella for about eight years.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    The stability of Cisco Umbrella is very good.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    I haven't had to scale it, but I would assume the scalability would be good.

    How are customer service and support?

    We haven't contacted them from the time we were up and running.

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    We did not have a previous solution.

    How was the initial setup?

    The deployment was straightforward.

    What about the implementation team?

    I used an integrator, Harness LLC, and the experience with them was all good.

    What was our ROI?

    Our ROI is due to the level of threats that we don't have to deal with, threats that are being blocked by Cisco Umbrella.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    There is room for improvement when it comes to the cost.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    We looked at Trend Micro, but that was several years ago.

    What other advice do I have?

    Look for programs that have a track record and that are proven. No matter what any individual might say, that person can't do it by themselves. They have to have support, and Cisco Umbrella is a good support.

    Resilience in cyber security is like raising kids. You really can't stop. You have to be resilient continually. Every day is a different challenge. Just because you're good on Tuesday doesn't mean you're going to be good on Wednesday.
    Cyber security resilience has been key for us, with people going home to work or to other places to do their jobs. That resilience keeps them working and keeps our network safe.

    I love it. It's almost like trying to look at WiFi. You can't see the WiFi signal with your naked eye. It's the same with threats. You can't see them by just walking around the building. With a tool like Cisco Umbrella, you can see what you have and how to fix it.

    For our employees, it means that their systems are working. They have no idea what we're doing behind the scenes to keep their systems working, unfortunately. I wish I could say, "Hey, guys, today Cisco Umbrella stopped 84 threats."

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    Private Cloud
    Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
    PeerSpot user
    Buyer's Guide
    Download our free Cisco Umbrella Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
    Updated: August 2025
    Buyer's Guide
    Download our free Cisco Umbrella Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.