Hi everyone. I’ve been reading posts here for a while, but this is my first time posting. I’ve been tasked with researching a cloud security platform for our company, and after weeks of reading whitepapers and watching demos, I’ve narrowed it down to two finalists: Cisco Umbrella and Netskope. I was hoping to get some real-world perspective from people who might have been in a similar spot.
We’re a retail chain with about 200 users spread across headquarters and a couple dozen store locations. Our primary needs are securing web traffic, especially from point-of-sale systems and inventory management software that are increasingly cloud-based, and protecting data that our merchandising team uploads to cloud storage. Shadow IT is a bit of a concern, as various teams sign up for different collaboration tools. I’m particularly interested in how the user experience is for non-technical staff, and how seamless the approval workflows are for security policy exceptions.
From my research, Umbrella seems strong on DNS-layer security and is often described as “simple” to deploy. Netskope, on the other hand, seems to go much deeper with inline CASB and DLP for SaaS applications, which feels like it might address our data leakage concerns more directly. However, I worry that Netskope’s depth might come with a steeper learning curve for our small IT team.
My specific questions are:
- For a distributed retail environment with relatively basic IT resources, which platform proved more manageable on a day-to-day basis?
- How effective are the data loss prevention features in real use? We need to be able to create policies that block certain types of customer data from being uploaded to unsanctioned cloud apps without making it impossible for people to do their jobs.
- Does the Netskope NewEdge infrastructure make a noticeable difference in latency for users in remote retail locations compared to a DNS-based approach?
Any insights on implementation pitfalls, or things you wish you’d known before choosing, would be incredibly helpful. I have a tendency to over-research, so hearing from people with hands-on experience would be a great reality check.
Jenny | content first