Cisco Secure Access

Every day, in order to connect to the company's domain from remote locations across the country (with some inernational use)

The moment the covid quarantine lockdowns took effect. My company was able to adapt very quickly with the frequently-changing work conditions

Cisco Secure Access and private access

Cisco Secure Access is great and easy to configure. Geographically dispersed offices and resources cause issues with latency versus SD-WAN setups.

We are using Cisco Secure Access in our organization to provide our employees secure access to SaaS applications and the internet. It is a cloud-based security platform that offer us many features like a Secure Web Gateway, Zero Trust Network Access, Firewall as a service, VPN as a service, etc. in one solution.

It is well-suited for organizations with hybrid work models and widely using cloud-based applications. It will help their employees to securely access cloud applications without compromising security. It will protect their users from external cyber threats by safeguarding their connections while accessing cloud applications and the internet. It will also help them to prevent data breaches.

It's part of the proof of concept. We will use it as the network access control in our branches, campus networks and integrated with Catalyst Center.

I think it's a good product for companies that has a lot of branches, not for small companies. I would say medium to large companies that need to have a good visibility. What do they have in the network and somehow interconnected with the security department that will also review the logs from ISE and make conclusions about what do they have in the network.

To protect work force accessing corporate applications

It's easier to integrate and roll to users

Cisco Secure Access RSA VPN. Client partners to government services.
For employees to access companies network remotely. Policing remote clients.

RSA VPN OK for companies +50 employees
RSA VPN not OK for companies -40 employees

We’re starting to use Cisco Secure Access primarily to provide secure web gateway and remote access services. We’re also taking advantage of the DNS layer security and are looking to deploy some of the CASB capability in the future.

As we’re almost 100% cloud with our employees almost entirely hybrid-workers, we were looking for a solution that supported our working model. Cisco Secure Access was an obvious choice, particularly as our Umbrella subscription was coming to an end.

Cisco Secure Access seems well suited to larger organisations with multiple sites and hybrid work-force.
Not so well suited to organisations that have a small number of sites where the majority of users are on-premises and key applications are delivered locally (i.e., not cloud)

A negative point to note is that the data center resources are hosted via AWS. There can be performance problems. A lot of work is currently being done in Cisco Secure Access, so problems and bugs can often occur. Otherwise, the solution is ingenious, simple implementation, and a good concept.

Simple administration and integration into the existing solution (client VPN), Meraki SD WAN, cloud services. The solution offers centralized management via the cloud, the interaction of the MX is good and the implementation saves time.

We use this as the primary SWG. This provides for DNS Category blocks, Application Control Blocks, and more granular web blocking. We also use this for DLP, and we can use user groups to allow or block access to the relevant items that we require.

Cisco Secure Access has allowed us to monitor and adjust access to web-based resources. We have been able to manage and provide granular rules to allow access to required resources. We are now transitioning to a more zero-trust approach, and so far, the product has demonstrated its capabilities, allowing us to move forward with this approach.