Cisco released its latest version of its Access Control and Identity Management software known as Identity Services Engine (ISE) 2.1 , Release Notes can be found here.
I’ll just post high level information about some of the additional features of ISE 2.1 as its a beefy version & lot of exciting new features to get you started with. Without further ado, lets dive into the features list.
Customizable Dashboard
You can create a new dashboard and add any of the dashlets that you need to the dashboard.
You can customize the tabs, dashlets, and layout. You can drag and drop dashlets, export data from a dashboard as an Excel or PDF file, and provide role-based access control for the dashlets. There are number of different dashboards i.e .Summary Dashboard , Endpoints and Users Dashboard , Guests Dashboard , Vulnerability Dashboard , Threats Dashboard.
You can also create Custom Dashboard & Dashlets as shown below :
Context Visibility
The Context menus display graphical information about endpoints based on a variety of configurable attributes. Endpoint data can be segmented by features, applications, BYOD, and other categories, depending on your license. The Context menus use a central database, gathers information from database tables, caches, and buffers, which makes updates to context dashlets and list content very fast. You can use controls on context visibility pages to filter the data that is displayed, and by applying multiple filters, progressively narrow the displayed data for particular endpoints.
Easy Connect
Easy Connect enables you to easily connect users from a Windows based endpoint to a network in a secured manner and monitor those users by authenticating them through an Active Directory (AD) Domain Controller (DC) and not by Cisco ISE. With Easy Connect, Cisco ISE collects user authentication information from the Active Directory (AD) Domain Controller. With Easy Connect, Cisco ISE issues a CoA (change of authorization) to the network access device (NAD) after the user is authenticated by Active Directory. Authenticated users are then shown in the Cisco ISE live sessions view, and can be queried from the session directory.
TrustSec Work Center enhancements
TrustSec Work Center allows for change management and configuration rollback as well as gradual deployment of new policies to different parts of the network that allow simplified integration of TrustSec into current IT system
Guest Access Enhancements
The Guest experience has a lot of enhancements including Support for SMS Proxy , From First Logon ,New SAML Server support , Single portal for credentialed and SAML SSO login , Sponsor Approval Filtering , Workcenter menu , Shorter default username and password
ISE Visibility Setup Wizard
Visibility wizard is a good tool to quickly capture your network & monitor activity.
Expanded WorkCenters
ISE continues the theme of task-oriented work centers started in ISE 2.0 adding guest, BYOD, posture, profiling, and CA to the existing Trustsec and device administration. Work-centers ease day-to-day configuration and management burden centralizing work associated with a given task in one area called a work-center.
& much more.
It’s a full-blown release, will keep posting update & more content later. Refer to Cisco ISE2.1 Release Notes for detailed updates.