Vendor Review

Cisco

Secure Access + Catalyst SD-WAN

8.4/ 10 avg

8 min readUpdated Feb 2025

Cisco's SASE story is fundamentally an SSE-first narrative built on the evolution from Umbrella to Secure Access. The platform consolidates Secure Web Gateway (SWG), Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB), Data Loss Prevention (DLP), Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA), and Remote Browser Isolation (RBI) into a single cloud-delivered service backed by Talos, the largest commercial threat intelligence operation in the industry. Talos processes over 600 billion DNS requests daily, giving Cisco a telemetry advantage that no other SASE vendor can match. The Umbrella-to-Secure-Access migration has been rocky for some customers — policy migration tooling improved significantly in late 2024, but organizations with complex Umbrella configurations should budget 60-90 days for cutover.

The SD-WAN side runs on Catalyst SD-WAN (formerly Viptela), which remains a separate product with its own management plane. This is the honest truth about Cisco SASE: you are operating two products, not one. Catalyst SD-WAN uses vManage for orchestration while Secure Access uses Security Cloud Control. Cisco has committed to converging these consoles, and the roadmap shows unified policy management arriving in phases through 2025-2026, but today you are managing two dashboards. For organizations that need both SSE and SD-WAN from day one, this dual-product reality adds operational overhead compared to truly converged alternatives.

Where Cisco genuinely excels is the broader ecosystem integration. Identity-aware policies leverage ISE (Identity Services Engine) for granular user and device posture checks. Meraki MX appliances can serve as thin-branch SD-WAN endpoints with zero-touch provisioning. Catalyst 8000 series routers provide high-performance branch connectivity with AppQoE optimization. ThousandEyes integration delivers best-in-class digital experience monitoring, though it requires a separate SKU and license — it is not included in base SASE bundles. For managed service providers, Security Cloud Control provides genuine multi-tenant management with tenant isolation, delegated administration, and per-tenant policy templates that make Cisco the strongest MSP play among the four vendors reviewed here.

Cloud-native8/10

Secure Access runs as a true cloud-native microservices architecture with auto-scaling PoPs. The SSE side earns high marks, but the SD-WAN control plane (vManage) can still be deployed on-prem or in IaaS, which introduces architectural inconsistency. The ongoing migration from Umbrella's monolithic backend to Secure Access's cloud-native stack is largely complete but not fully finished for all feature sets.

SSE depth9/10

Among the strongest SSE stacks in the market. SWG inspection leverages Talos signatures and Snort 3.0 IPS rules with sub-second threat verdict times. CASB covers 40,000+ SaaS apps with inline and API-based modes. DLP includes exact data matching, OCR for images, and EDM fingerprinting. ZTNA provides clientless and client-based access with VPN fallback for legacy apps — a pragmatic touch that pure ZTNA vendors lack. RBI rounds out the stack for uncategorized or risky web content.

SD-WAN9/10

Catalyst SD-WAN (Viptela heritage) is a top-tier SD-WAN platform with application-aware routing, sub-second failover, and AppQoE for TCP optimization and packet duplication. Supports up to 8 transport links per site with granular SLA policies. The platform handles complex topologies including full-mesh, hub-and-spoke, and regional hub designs. Loses one point versus Fortinet because the SD-WAN and SSE remain separate management planes today.

MSP ready8/10

Security Cloud Control provides purpose-built multi-tenant management with RBAC, tenant isolation, and bulk policy deployment. MSPs can onboard new tenants with templated configurations in under 30 minutes. API coverage for automation is extensive through SecureX and the Security Cloud API. The main gap is unified billing integration — MSPs still manage separate licensing SKUs for SSE and SD-WAN components, adding back-office complexity.

PoP coverage8/10

Cisco operates 30+ global PoP locations with presence in North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America. The Secure Access PoPs leverage Equinix and other premium colocation facilities with direct peering to major cloud providers. Coverage is solid for most enterprise deployments but lags behind Zscaler's 150+ edge locations. Latency-sensitive deployments in Africa, the Middle East, or secondary Asian markets may find coverage gaps.

Strengths

+Talos — largest commercial threat telemetry with 600B+ daily DNS signals

+Unified ZTNA + VPN fallback client for legacy application compatibility

+Multi-tenant MSP management via Security Cloud Control with tenant isolation

+Deep ISE, Meraki, Catalyst 8000 ecosystem integration

+Snort 3.0 IPS and advanced malware protection inline in SSE

+ThousandEyes DEM integration for end-to-end path visibility

Watch out

−SSE and SD-WAN remain separate products with different management consoles

−Umbrella-to-Secure-Access migration creates transition pain for existing customers

−Complex tiered licensing with separate SKUs for SSE, SD-WAN, and DEM

−DEM requires ThousandEyes add-on at additional cost — not bundled

−Feature parity gaps between Umbrella and Secure Access during migration period

Verdict

Cisco delivers the strongest SSE-first SASE story in the market, backed by threat intelligence depth that no competitor can replicate. Talos is not marketing — it is 600 billion daily DNS requests, millions of malware samples, and the Snort open-source community feeding real-time intelligence into every policy decision. When a zero-day breaks, Cisco customers typically see protective signatures within hours, not days. This matters more than any analyst quadrant placement.

The honest trade-off is architectural. You are buying two products — Secure Access for SSE and Catalyst SD-WAN for networking — and managing them through two consoles. Cisco's roadmap shows convergence coming, and Security Cloud Control is the intended single pane, but today the operational reality is dual-dashboard management. For organizations that are SSE-first and plan to layer SD-WAN later, this is less of an issue. For those needing day-one converged SASE, budget additional integration effort.

The MSP story is genuinely differentiated. Security Cloud Control's multi-tenant architecture, combined with API-driven automation and templated onboarding, makes Cisco the strongest choice for managed service providers building SASE practices. Add ThousandEyes for customer-facing DEM dashboards and you have a compelling managed SASE offering — just budget for the separate ThousandEyes licensing.

When to pick Cisco

Choose Cisco when SSE is the primary driver and SD-WAN is secondary or future-phase. This is the right pick for organizations already invested in the Cisco ecosystem — ISE for identity, Meraki for branch networking, or Catalyst for WAN — because the integration depth is unmatched. MSPs building multi-tenant SASE practices should evaluate Cisco first due to Security Cloud Control's mature tenant management. Organizations that prioritize threat intelligence depth over architectural elegance will appreciate the Talos advantage. Avoid if you need a single-console converged SASE experience today, or if budget constraints make the separate ThousandEyes DEM licensing prohibitive.

Compare all vendors

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