Frost and Sullivan recently announced Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) won their 2018 NAC Market Leadership Award. The importance of Network Access Control (NAC) is actually growing, with a compound annual growth rate of 23.7 percent, according to Frost and Sullivan. We at Cisco certainly see this. Demand for network access security has never been higher. And it makes sense; security is critical for the billions of potentially vulnerable IoT devices coming online each year. Couple this with the compliance requirements from regulations like HIPAA and GDPR, and organizations are hard pressed to take secure access seriously. Nevertheless, enabling contextual awareness and micro segmentation, for example, in today's complex networks has never been more challenging. Enter Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE), the leader in connecting trusted users and devices to trusted services.

Solving the Tough Problems

The Frost and Sullivan award is a fantastic recognition that outlines what we're doing to solve some of the most challenging access problems. Here's a quick outline of what Cisco ISE excels in:

1. Enabling secure, ubiquitous access
2. Maximizing security and containing breaches
3. Streamlining network management

Let's talk about a few innovations in these areas that our customers are using today.

Secure Access Innovation Enabled for IoT

Cisco has integrated its Industrial Network Director (IND) and Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) platforms using the pxGrid to secure the industrial network. IND is an industrial network management system built to meet the needs of operational technology (OT) personnel managing the industrial process network. By integrating IND with ISE, IT is able to manage the security infrastructure and define security policies on the industrial network, while OT is in control of granting visibility to industrial assets.

ISE is at the foundation of your integrated network security architecture

A couple of weeks ago we announced over 20 new pxGrid integrations as part of the CSTA launch announcement with partners using PxGrid 2.0 context-In feature for IoT Visibility. With this launch, ISE ecosystem integrations have crossed100integrations. Cisco advanced threat solutions and 3^rdparty solutions seamlessly integrate to share security information between multiple products, which, combined with contextual information obtained from ISE, allows you to find answers faster without having to conduct lengthy and time-consuming investigations.

Upon detecting a threat on an endpoint, ISE automatically works to contain the threat using the network, moving the infected endpoint to a sandbox environment for further observation, removing it completely, or moving it to a remediation domain where it can be repaired before reconnecting to the network.

Intent-based network for secure access

Built on the principles of Cisco's ISE and Digital Network Architecture (Cisco DNA), Cisco announced its Software Defined-Access (SD-Access) solution to provide automated end-to-end intent-based networking to separate user, device, and application traffic without redesigning the network. SD-Access utilizes Cisco ISE to automate user access policy so organizations can make sure the right policies are established for any user or device with any application across the network. This is accomplished with a single network fabric across LAN and WLAN. Pairing the two creates a consistent user experience anywhere without compromising on security.

Learn more about the NAC Award or what's happening with ISE at cisco.com/go/ise