Saturday, September 28, 2024

Cisco ISE 3.4 – Right here and Now!

When you have been at Cisco Reside US in June—and even should you 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 features of the newest model of Cisco ISE generally is a little bit of a tease—we all know that you simply need to get your palms on it and see the way it’s going to strengthen your community. At this time 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.

When you haven’t heard about what’s accessible within the newest iteration of Cisco ISE 3.4, let this be your primer. The most important takeaway is Frequent Coverage which includes 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 complete community. This resolution allows directors to seamlessly apply constant entry and segmentation controls to all units, customers, and purposes. 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 trade hub, the answer integrates community and safety domains, normalizes contextual data, and facilitates safe communication between completely different elements. This revolutionary method enhances zero-trust safety throughout numerous entry patterns and places by simplifying the administration of advanced community environments. Presently in beta, Frequent Coverage is anticipated for common launch this fall.

As a part of the Frequent Coverage resolution, we re-wrote our integration with Utility 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—instantly 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.

Energetic Listing most popular 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 Energetic Listing failure, Cisco ISE will robotically change to the subsequent DC on the record, guaranteeing that customers can nonetheless entry assets. As soon as the popular DC is accessible 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 lowered 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 carry forth a number of key enhancements:

  • Sync now: In situations the place vital adjustments happen inside the CMDB, directors will now 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 protracted database: Clients will now have the flexibleness to instantly push a JSON file containing endpoint knowledge into Cisco ISE’s persistent database. This opens new potentialities for these with no CMDB, as they’ll nonetheless leverage pxGrid Direct by conveniently pushing knowledge into Cisco ISE. Not like the interior endpoint database, this database will likely 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, could be reset upon leaving the web page. With Cisco ISE 3.4, the popular desk settings will likely 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 instantly from an area ISO file saved on the ISE server, considerably decreasing the set up time from the normal 5-7 hours to simply 1-2 hours. This streamlined course of is especially useful in situations the place a reinstall is important, corresponding 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 helpful 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 situations with geo-distributed or cloud deployments, the place the identical Totally Certified Area Identify (FQDN) may resolve to completely different IP addresses relying on the DNS server. This will make it tough to constantly 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, guaranteeing that every 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 information, decreasing overhead and streamlining the method. Pac-less communication requires Cisco IOS-XE 17.5.1 or later, on community units, however no configuration adjustments 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

We’ve got heard from you that troubleshooting Cisco ISE beneath a heavy load generally is a problem, particularly when log information replenish quickly and important 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 dimension and the variety of log information 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 strong new characteristic for superior customers: Lua scripting for RADIUS attribute manipulation. With this enhancement, prospects can now execute Lua scripts instantly 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 instances 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 possibly can inform there’s lots packed into the newest 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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