Introduction Upgrading Cisco ISE in production environments can be a daunting task. ISE is central to authentication, authorization, and endpoint profiling for wired, wireless, and VPN networks, meaning that any downtime can directly impact users and services. The key to a successful upgrade lies in […]
Introduction Performance is at the heart of a robust Identity Services Engine (ISE) deployment. As organizations scale, ensuring that ISE can handle thousands of authentication requests per second, complex policy evaluations, and high endpoint diversity becomes critical. Performance Benchmarking at Scale allows network engineers to […]
Introduction In modern enterprise networks, security no longer ends at the perimeter. As organizations adopt cloud-based NAC, BYOD, and multi-vendor wireless solutions, a challenge arises: how do you centralize authentication, authorization, and auditing without duplicating identity stores or exposing internal RADIUS infrastructure directly to the […]
Introduction When Cisco ISE is the policy brain for 802.1X/MAB, VPN, and wireless access, a misstep in backups or a slow, incorrect restore means no logins, no network. Disaster Recovery (DR) in ISE isn’t just “take a backup.” It’s: Your objective today: build a production-grade, […]
![[Day 103] Cisco ISE Mastery Training: High Availability & Failover Testing](https://networkjourney.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Day-103-–-Cisco-ISE-Mastery-Training-High-Availability-Failover-Testing.png)
Introduction In enterprise networks, downtime is unacceptable. Whether you are protecting a hospital’s patient data, a bank’s financial records, or a defense network’s classified systems, Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine) must be available 24×7 with zero disruption. A single node failure in an ISE cluster […]
Introduction In enterprise security, it’s not a question of if a disaster will happen — but when. Power outages, hardware failures, corrupted databases, or even cyber-attacks can bring down critical infrastructure. When Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine) is at the center of your network access […]
![Network Design: High Availability vs Load Balancing – Know When to Choose What? [CCNP Enterprise]](https://networkjourney.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Network-Design_High-Availability-vs-Load-Balancing-–-Know-When-to-Choose-What_networkjourney.png)
I want to simplify one of the most misunderstood concepts in enterprise networking—High Availability (HA) versus Load Balancing. Over the years of designing, training, and troubleshooting production networks, I’ve seen engineers confuse these two techniques or treat them as interchangeable. Trust me, understanding their unique […]
![Redundancy Unleashed: Keeping Enterprise Networks Always-On [CCNP Enterprise]](https://networkjourney.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Redundancy-Unleashed_-Keeping-Enterprise-Networks-Always-On_networkjourney.png)
I’ve seen too many organizations suffer massive outages due to a single point of failure—sometimes because of a downed switch, a failed uplink, or even a misconfigured router. In this post, I’ll walk you through the core theory, practical CLI, real-world use cases, and a […]
