Looking at the Objectives and the Exam topics, I found something that I was not entirely familiar and decided to take a look at it. At this point, I’m not sure if Cisco Security Manager is still something that is worth taking a look at or a product that is widely used by Security professionals in the field.
I asked around with a few colleagues and all of them agreed that CSM was already faced out by other tools, like Cisco Firepower Management Console and even other third-party integrations out there.
As CSM is part of the Blue Print of the exam (300-206), I wanted to create a quick post to share my findings.
What is Cisco Security Manager
On the Cisco’s page for CSM, I found this description
“Cisco Security Manager helps to enable consistent policy enforcement and rapid troubleshooting of security events, offering summarized reports across the security deployment. Using its centralized interface, organizations can scale efficiently and manage a wide range of Cisco security devices with improved visibility.”
To read more on this page –> Cisco Security Manager
As of this post, CSM is in version 4.15 Being the last upgrade back to last month. You can find more information on the Support page for CSM 4.15
Another thing to mention is that is an application that runs on Windows Server, and version 2016 is supported, so seems like the development of this tools is still in the works, at least until now.
What devices are supported by CSM?
There is a list that I was able to find with all the supported devices by the application –> Supported Devices by CSM –> if you are feeling lazy, here is a quick chart
Want to see CSM in action?
From the Cisco’s website, please take a look at this video: CSM Product Demonstration
Also if you want to install it and play with it: Installing Cisco Security Manager 4.12
My Opinion
Seems like a very handy tool, and I will install it in my lab, hopefully, it comes with a Trial Period to be able to play with it for a few. Even though I think that the tool is a lot of help to manage Security devices, honestly I have not seen it out there in the wild; and I think that at some point it will be out of the market. I see lots of clients moving to the Firepower Solutions and migrating also to FTD, also as per my findings, I don’t see support for IOS-XE devices, which are a great bulk of Upgrades and refreshes that are currently happening globally for clients.
What to look forward to?
I plan on making a quick review and video on Cisco Prime to take a look at features and capabilities, which is not new for me, but I still want to familiarize better with the product
About the Author:
Andres Sarmiento, CCIE # 53520 (Collaboration)
With more than 13 years of experience, Andres is specialized in the Unified Communications and Collaboration technologies. Consulted for several companies in South Florida, also Financial Institutions on behalf of Cisco Systems. Andres has been involved in high-profile implementations including Cisco technologies; such as Data Center, UC & Collaboration, Contact Center Express, Routing & Switching, Security and Hosted IPT Service provider infrastructures.