Cisco IOS Security Reviews

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.

The primary use of the solution is used for testing the core banking customer function.

One of the valuable features of the solution is its flexibility and it performs great.

The configuration should be easier in the solution.

I have used the solution for approximately five years. 

I have not had issues with the solution stability.

I have approximately 450 customers database at this moment using this solution.

There is technical support for the solution but it is not localized. It would be beneficial if there would be localized technical support in India.

The installation of the solution is difficult because it requires trained CCNA engineers. 

The solutions deployment required a three-person technical team.

It is necessary to pay for a license in order to use the solution. It is on a yearly basis and the price is high. 

I will continue using the solution because our customers demand it.

I would recommend the solution to other users. 

I rate Cisco IOS Security a nine out of ten. 

We primarily use the solution as a VPN concentrator. It's the main VPN concentrator for all remote connections.

The compatibility is high with many open protocols. We use it for Radiant. We use it for any kind of network access protocols as well. 

The solution is very user-friendly and easy to deal with. We find working with both the Command-Line and the Viewer very, very straightforward.

It's quite stable. We find it more stable than other options.

It would be ideal if the solution had more capacity. Right now, we are almost hitting the maximum capacity of the product. If they could provide more capacity for the same product, that would be great.

I've been using the solution for over ten years. At more than a decade, it's been a long time.

The solution is extremely stable. We find it much more stable than other options. It doesn't crash or freeze. There aren't issues with glitches. It is completely reliable.

Currently, we have over 7,000 users that utilize this solution.

We do plan to increase usage in the future.

Technical support is very, very good under Cisco. It's one of the other advantages of using their product. They are very helpful, responsive, and knowledgeable. We've very satisfied with the level of service they provide to us.

We previously used Juniper. Juniper has improved a lot over the last little while, however, we still prefer Cisco.

I was not part of the installation process. That was handled by another team entirely. That said, they didn't take a lot of time to get everything up and running. It was, if I recall correctly, less than one week to put it up and test it and make all the configuration adjustments. Deployment was fast and it's my understanding that the whole process from beginning to end was straightforward.

We only needed two people and they were able to handle both deployment and maintenance. They are engineers.

I don't know the exact licensing costs. It's not something I deal with directly, and therefore I don't have any access to the information in regards to pricing and payments.

We're just a customer and end-user. We don't have a business relationship with Cisco.

We're using the latest version of the solution in our organization right now.

We use both cloud and on-premises deployments, however, currently, we tend to use more on-premises deployments.

I would recommend the solution. Overall, I would rate it at an eight out of ten.

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.  

We basically use it for security. It can be used as the internet as well as the data center security firewall.

The hardware is pretty stable. It's also a very good product performance-wise. 

Initially, it wasn't mature like a firewall and there were other leaders, but now they have included almost all the features of next-generation security. Basically, it's a good product to work with. 

I would love it if it has a link-by-link feature, integration with Unified Threat Management (UTM), and load balancers.

They haven't got any link-by-link feature right now, which can be a very attractive option. This link-by-link feature can also be made available for Cisco's UTM firewalls. The link-by-link feature is available in some of the other firewalls. 

Currently, integration with UTM is missing. Cisco IOS Security also doesn't have the load balancers and a few things that need to be done to get a good UTM firewall. Normally, other firewalls have UTM. As a next-generation firewall, it's good, but as a UTM, it has to do some work.

We have been working with this solution for around 15 years now.

Cisco IOS Security is very stable.

It's pretty scalable. The hardware is good, and it's scalable.

The main reason for going with Cisco is their support. They have very skilled people and a very good support structure as compared to many other companies. They invest heavily in support maintenance. 

We are pretty comfortable with Cisco technical support, but with the new acquisitions, they also need to ramp up their support. For the older Cisco IOS and other stuff, they have very mature teams, but with the new acquisitions, sometimes it takes time to do the transition up to that level. For example, when Cisco acquired Sourcefire for the firewall, it took some time for Sourcefire to act like Cisco's other products. So, support is good, but still, there is a learning curve involved with new acquisitions and their support.

The initial setup was complex when we compare it with some other vendors.

The setup is easy if you have good knowledge. As compared to the earlier types, it is very easy now, and the major stuff is graphical. It's pretty easy, and we don't need a lot of people, at least one to two people for backup are good enough to manage the firewalls.

Cisco IOS Security is for medium and large enterprises. When we talk about the price as well, it's more suitable for medium and large enterprises, but recently they included a few good SMB options. They have introduced a cheaper version of it in the last year with SMB option, which can be looked into for small enterprises, but it's more suited towards the large enterprises and medium enterprises.

We prefer selling Cisco firewalls. We also sell Fortinet. Because Cisco's presence in our country is very good as compared to Fortinet and Palo Alto, the local customers seem comfortable with Cisco.

When we talk about Cisco, definitely the hardware is more reliable and scalable as compared to others. The support is also pretty good. These are the two good things. Definitely, Cisco Firewall is all around pretty good as compared to Fortinet.

We work with Cisco, and we top-rate Cisco firewalls to be sold and deployed. This is because they have good trading and expertise available. Cisco IOS Security is pretty reliable, and it also has really good documentation.

It sometimes requires a slightly higher technical expertise to implement all the features as compared to other firewalls. Therefore, users definitely have to be trained first to get proper knowledge. Definitely, IOS security is well-documented, and it's pretty reliable. I'd advise just to make sure that they have adequate knowledge. 

The learning curve is slightly longer because it's a slightly complex product as compared to Fortinet, but feature-wise, it's very good.

I would rate Cisco IOS Security a seven out of ten. It is a good product with scope for features such as link-by-link, integration with UTM, and load balancers.

This has improved the way our organization operates very well.

The most valuable feature is the support that we get.

In the next release of this solution, we would like to see support for the 100BT and 7000 models.

We have experienced bugs in the solution.

This solution is stable.

I would rate the scalability of this solution at about eighty percent.

Technical support for this solution is very good.

The initial setup of this solution is straightforward.

We deployed this solution ourselves.

There is a return on investment with this solution. 

The licenses for this solution are expensive.

This is a good solution, and one that I recommend, but sometimes we have bugs.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

Our primary use case for this solution is internet security at the edge.

Cisco IOS Security gives us a level of trust at the edge as far as being the first line of defense for anything that's trying to get into our network.

The feature I find most valuable is that the solution doesn't really change from year to year. The basics are there and I have so much experience with it that it's easy to use. I also like the security this solution offers.

External threats are changing every day, so there are new features coming in. We're more into the command line interface rather.

The stability of this solution is excellent. 

We are very satisfied with the scalability of this solution.

The technical support is excellent. We've contacted the tech team a few times and the turnaround time was always almost immediately.

We've always been using this solution and we haven't seen a need to change from it so we haven't looked at other vendors in quite a while because we are totally satisfied with what we have.

The initial setup was straightforward and we did the deployment ourselves. We could go on the internet for any reference that we needed.

We have to renew our license every three years.

My rating for this solution is a ten out of ten because it does everything I need and it is easy enough to use. My advice to others is to definitely have it on their list of vendors to take a look at. I really recommend this solution.

We use this solution to connect branch offices and keep the security on each one.

Cisco IOS allows us to keep the same security features as our principal offices.

We can access control lists and VPN tunneling.

It gives us better efficiency.

I think setup could be one area for improvement.

I would also like to see them add integration with cloud solutions like Umbrella, as well as some monitoring improvements. This would let us connect a new platform and cloud solution for a site.

Cisco's high stability is a well known feature.

It is scalable. We can go to another platform and keep the same functionality.

I think we have great support from Cisco for this. I haven't used it personally, but I have heard good things.

I think we used Firepower. We work specifically with Cisco.

I think the initial setup was simple. We have a lot of documentation and a guide that we can follow.

Thinking about the ease of managing these platforms and the technical support that we have, we can avoid extra costs and investments. We've saved time allowing our staff to work on other things that have saved money overall.

My advice is that this is a very secure option for platforms and gateways using the Cisco IOS security feature.

I would rate Cisco IOS as ten out of ten.

We use Cisco IOS for security prevention. It enables us to check the network.

I didn't think that they would put servers in the DMZ. It also protects us from hackers; we haven't had any issues with them.

I've found their network routing to be very good.

It is also stable, has good scalability and is easy to use. 

I wish it would be more like the next generation firewall technology. There should be more selection between the application and filtering.

I would appreciate updates to reporting, in terms of data entry.

We don't have any issues with stability. Cisco is always stable.

Scalability is easy.

We have a contract with the representative of DEO support, not just Cisco. So we have local support. If we have any issue, they respond to us directly by phone.

The initial setup was easy. There are step-by-step instructions, like many of their other products.

The solution is definitely valuable for us.

The licensing is on a subscription basis, and it is fairly costly. I would prefer a one-time payment.

My advice is to take this firewall. It is really good. I would rate Cisco IOS as eight out of ten.

The next-generation firewalls, like UTM, have paper-thin single boxes. They should follow the same projects, like the next-generation firewall. They have everything like 40GBs in a single box, along with filtering applications, like VPN and SSN. They also have reporting features.

Since we do system integration, we have a lot of clients we deploy. There is not really a single case to point to because we have multiple clients. It depends and can vary from customer to customer.

Defending the business processes.

If they could increase the performance a little better because the device sometimes gets slow. If they could increase the performance it would be great.

The solution's stability is quite good. We have about six hundred users.

The scalability is quite good. You can scale it when you need to. As you go, you can scale it. It's quite scalable. It's quite good.

I haven't used technical support yet.

We have been using this solution for six or seven years; we didn't use another solution before.

The initial setup was very straightforward. It only took a couple of hours, it doesn't take long.

In terms of advice, I would suggest others should use it. It is quite a good product, it is one of the market leaders. I believe it could be as good as other solutions. There are two things you require: one is support and the other one is credibility. Both are there with this product.

I would rate this solution eight out of ten.