Network security professionals today clearly understand that there is no longer just one perimeter surrounding the enterprise. Rather, security and network management now extend across multiple, overlapping perimeters, each of which usually has its own firewall and related network equipment.
For security teams and network admins, this translates into the need to oversee and coordinate policy on a potentially large number of separate devices. Cisco Defense Orchestratoris a cloud-based application that enables admins to consistently manage and harmonize policies across a variety of Cisco security products as well as cloud-native tools such as AWS Security Groups.
Users of Cisco Defense Orchestrator shared their experiences with the product on IT Central Station. Their reviews reveal a solution that is appreciated for its simplicity and efficiency. Users also noted that Cisco Defense Orchestrator makes their teams more productive, particularly when managing policies across Cisco ASA, FTD and Meraki MX devices.
Cisco Defense Orchestrator is known for enabling streamlined security policy management across an extended network. As Jairo M., Network and Security Specialist at a small tech services company, explained, "The initial setup was really straightforward. If the person setting this up has knowledge of firewalls and switches, it's pretty simple. It took about two hours for us to deploy."
Todd E., CTO at a small tech services company, similarly noted, "In terms of visibility and getting everybody involved, it was simple, scalable, and saved them tons of time, which in turn saved them money. Its effect on firewall builds and daily management of firewalls is that it's super-simple on new deployments."
IT Central Station members remarked that Cisco Defense Orchestrator has made their teams more efficient. According to Mohamed N., an I.T. Manager at a consumer goods company with over 5,000 employees, "This efficient, time-saving, centralized device manager is easy to deploy and requires minimal administrative IT resources." Todd E. spoke to this point as well, noting, "The simplicity, efficiency, and effectiveness of it are valuable. It's efficient, simple, and there's the visibility on the security side. Deployment is fast. As a security person, I love the visibility and the ease of use when doing my upgrades."
Network managers and security teams want to manage security policies across multiple Cisco products, including ASA, FTD and Meraki MX devices. The outcome is consistent security across the network. Isiac S., Network Administrator at a manufacturing company with over 200 employees, praised Cisco Defense Orchestrator in this context. He said, "Its support for ASA, FTD, and Meraki MX helps maintain consistent security."
Todd E. addressed the team productivity aspects of this capability. He said, "When it comes to making bulk changes across common tasks, like policy management and image upgrades, one of the biggest complaints that I had from a lot of network engineers, was that everything was GUI, that Cisco had gone to GUI. But they can do bulk changes on the CLI. That was a big win for them, being able to do that across all the ASAs without having to log into every single ASA and make changes. They can do a lot of bulk changes on the fly. It's a huge time-saver."
Other notable comments on this issue included:
To read more Cisco Defense Orchestrator reviews, visit IT Central Station.