In the event you had been at Cisco Stay US in June—and even if you happen to weren’t—you heard the excellent news: the launch announcement of Cisco Identification Companies Community (ISE) 3.4.
For lots of community and safety directors, listening to concerning the new capabilities of the most recent model of Cisco ISE could be a little bit of a tease—we all know that you simply wish to get your palms on it and see the way it’s going to strengthen your community. Immediately is the conclusion of these lengthy weeks of ready as Cisco ISE 3.4 is prepared so that you can obtain and deploy in your community.
In the event you haven’t heard about what’s obtainable within the newest iteration of Cisco ISE 3.4, let this be your primer. The most important takeaway is Frequent Coverage which entails fixing one among our prospects’ largest issues: fragmented and inconsistent insurance policies throughout disparate domains.
Frequent Coverage is designed to streamline and unify safety coverage enforcement throughout a corporation’s total community. This answer permits directors to seamlessly apply constant entry and segmentation controls to all units, customers, and functions. These segmentation and entry insurance policies are constructed based mostly on the exchanged data garnered from these finish units.
Utilizing Cisco ISE as a central alternate hub, the answer integrates community and safety domains, normalizes contextual data, and facilitates safe communication between totally different elements. This progressive method enhances zero-trust safety throughout numerous entry patterns and areas by simplifying the administration of advanced community environments. At present in beta, Frequent Coverage is anticipated for normal launch this fall.
As a part of the Frequent Coverage answer, we re-wrote our integration with Software Centric Infrastructure (ACIs), permitting the customers to arrange a bi-directional connection to a number of APIC Knowledge Facilities—together with single pod and multi-pod materials—immediately from Cisco ISE and begin exchanging SGT/EPG/ESG context.
Along with Frequent Coverage, the Cisco ISE 3.4 launch is jam-packed with many different options too.
Lively Listing most well-liked DC choice
Beginning with Cisco ISE 3.4, directors can now manually prioritize Area Controllers (DC), giving them extra management over which DC is used for authentication and authorization. Within the occasion of an Lively Listing failure, Cisco ISE will robotically swap to the subsequent DC on the checklist, making certain that customers can nonetheless entry assets. As soon as the popular DC is offered once more, Cisco ISE will seamlessly failback, restoring the unique precedence order.
Nice information for many who hate ready! With the discharge of Cisco ISE 3.4, system restart instances have been dramatically decreased to mere minutes, various barely relying on the precise function of every node. No extra lengthy espresso breaks between reboots.
Constructing on the pxGrid Direct framework launched in Cisco ISE 3.2, which simplified integration with Configuration Administration Database (CMDB) servers missing native pxGrid assist, Cisco ISE 3.4 will convey forth a number of key enhancements:
- Sync now: In eventualities the place vital modifications happen throughout the CMDB, directors will not want to attend for scheduled updates. Cisco ISE 3.4 will empower admins to provoke on-demand synchronization, guaranteeing Cisco ISE entry to probably the most up-to-date endpoint data.
- URL pusher and chronic database: Clients will now have the pliability to immediately push a JSON file containing endpoint knowledge into Cisco ISE’s persistent database. This opens new potentialities for these and not using a CMDB, as they’ll nonetheless leverage pxGrid Direct by conveniently pushing knowledge into Cisco ISE. Not like the interior endpoint database, this database shall be persistent and received’t be purged.
Retention of use settings
In earlier variations of Cisco ISE, any customizations to desk shows, like column choice, order, or width, can be reset upon leaving the web page. With Cisco ISE 3.4, the popular desk settings shall be saved and retained, even when switching browsers or units. No extra repetitive changes – the personalised view is right here to remain.
Localized ISE Set up
This enhancement permits directors to reinstall ISE immediately from a neighborhood ISO file saved on the ISE server, considerably lowering the set up time from the standard 5-7 hours to simply 1-2 hours. This streamlined course of is especially helpful in eventualities the place a reinstall is important, comparable to system restoration or upgrades. By minimizing downtime and accelerating the set up course of, the Localized ISE Set up characteristic enhances operational effectivity, ensures faster restoration instances, and finally saves worthwhile time for IT groups. This enchancment underscores Cisco’s dedication to offering strong, user-friendly options that optimize the efficiency and reliability of the community safety infrastructure.
FQDN to SGT Mapping
In Cisco ISE 3.4, we’ve tackled the challenges confronted by TrustSec directors in eventualities with geo-distributed or cloud deployments, the place the identical Totally Certified Area Title (FQDN) may resolve to totally different IP addresses relying on the DNS server. This could make it tough to persistently apply the identical SGT to all situations of the FQDN.
Cisco ISE 3.4 introduces an enhanced FQDN-to-SGT mapping characteristic. Directors can now choose a number of nodes to resolve the FQDN, making certain that each one ensuing IP addresses are precisely related to the corresponding SGT. This new functionality streamlines coverage enforcement throughout numerous community environments, no matter variations in DNS decision.
Pac-less Communication between Cisco ISE and TrustSec NADs
Cisco ISE 3.4 introduces Pac-less Communication, a simplified method to communication between Cisco ISE and TrustSec community units. This innovation eliminates the necessity for directors to handle PAC recordsdata, lowering overhead and streamlining the method. Pac-less communication requires Cisco IOS-XE 17.5.1 or later, on community units, however no configuration modifications are wanted on the Cisco ISE facet. The community units themselves will inform Cisco ISE of their supported capabilities, additional simplifying deployment and administration.
Log file administration
Now we have heard from you that troubleshooting Cisco ISE underneath a heavy load could be a problem, particularly when log recordsdata refill quickly and significant data may get buried. Cisco ISE 3.4 addresses this with enhanced log administration capabilities. Now, directors have granular management, permitting them to set each most file measurement and the variety of log recordsdata to maintain per element. This implies no extra worries about lacking essential particulars throughout peak instances.
Lua scripting
Recognizing the necessity for larger customization, Cisco ISE 3.4 introduces a robust new characteristic for superior customers: Lua scripting for RADIUS attribute manipulation. With this enhancement, prospects can now execute Lua scripts immediately after processing authorization profiles, permitting them to change or add RADIUS attributes as wanted. This flexibility empowers Cisco ISE Admins to tailor Cisco ISE to their distinctive use circumstances and necessities, going past the capabilities of the usual coverage engine. The Lua script gives entry to all RADIUS attributes, granting full management over the authorization course of.
As you may inform there’s so much packed into the most recent model of Cisco ISE that’s going to make your job simpler. Click on right here for extra data on Cisco ISE.
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