Cisco ISE Training

Lesson 1 • ISE Installation and Initial Setup

Walks through hardware and virtual appliance installation, initial CLI configuration, and GUI access. Prepares students to operate a functional ISE lab environment.

Lesson 2 • Cisco ISE Architecture Overview

Introduces ISE personas, nodes, and deployment models. Connects component roles to the NAC concepts introduced in the previous section.

Lesson 3 • ISE Dashboard and Navigation

Orients students to the ISE admin portal, dashboards, and menu structure. Efficient navigation is prerequisite to all subsequent configuration tasks.

Lesson 1 • Active Directory Integration

Configures ISE join points, machine and user authentication, and AD group retrieval. AD is the most common enterprise identity source for ISE deployments.

Lesson 2 • Certificate-Based Authentication

Configures ISE as a certificate authority and sets up EAP-TLS authentication. Certificates are essential for machine and BYOD authentication scenarios.

Lesson 3 • Internal Identity Database

Covers ISE's built-in user and endpoint identity stores. Provides a baseline before introducing external directory dependencies.

Lesson 4 • Identity Source Sequences and Fallback

Defines ordered identity source sequences and fallback behaviour for failed lookups. Ensures resilient authentication when primary sources are unavailable.

Lesson 1 • Policy Set Architecture

Explains the three-tier policy model: policy sets, authentication rules, and authorization rules. Understanding this hierarchy is required for all policy configuration tasks.

Lesson 2 • Wired and Wireless Policy Scenarios

Applies policy sets to real wired 802.1X and wireless WPA2-Enterprise scenarios. Bridges abstract policy concepts to practical network deployments.

Lesson 3 • Policy Troubleshooting and Optimisation

Uses ISE diagnostic tools to identify and fix policy mismatches and authentication failures. Optimisation techniques reduce rule complexity and improve evaluation speed.

Lesson 4 • Authorization Profiles and Results

Creates authorization profiles that return VLAN, dACL, SGT, and URL-redirect results. Profiles define what access a matched endpoint or user receives.

Lesson 1 • TACACS+ Authentication and Authorization

Builds device admin policy sets with shell profiles and command sets. Enforces least-privilege access for network engineers and operators.

Lesson 2 • Network Device Groups and Profiles

Organises managed devices into groups and creates device profiles for vendor-specific attributes. Grouping enables scalable, role-based policy application.

Lesson 3 • TACACS+ Protocol and ISE Device Admin

Contrasts TACACS+ with RADIUS and explains ISE's device administration persona. Establishes protocol fundamentals before configuration begins.

Lesson 1 • Endpoint Identity Groups and Policy

Maps profiled endpoints to identity groups and applies differentiated authorization policies. Connects profiling output to actionable access control decisions.

Lesson 2 • Built-In and Custom Endpoint Profiles

Reviews Cisco-supplied profiling policies and creates custom profiles for proprietary devices. Custom profiles extend ISE classification to non-standard endpoints.

Lesson 3 • Profiling Architecture and Probes

Explains how ISE collects endpoint attributes via probes and feeds them to the profiling engine. Probe selection directly affects classification accuracy.

Lesson 1 • Central Web Authentication Flow

Implements CWA redirect using ISE authorization profiles and WLC or switch integration. CWA is the most common web authentication method for guest and BYOD.

Lesson 2 • Guest Reporting and Compliance

Generates guest access reports and configures acceptable-use policy enforcement. Reporting supports audit requirements for visitor network access.

Lesson 3 • Guest Access Design and Portals

Introduces guest access use cases and the ISE portal framework. Portal type selection determines the guest onboarding workflow and security posture.

Lesson 1 • Posture Conditions and Requirements

Creates posture conditions for OS patches, antivirus, firewall, and file checks. Conditions combine into requirements that define a compliant endpoint state.

Lesson 2 • Posture Architecture and Agents

Explains the posture assessment flow, agent types, and ISE posture service components. Agent selection determines what compliance checks are available.

Lesson 3 • Remediation and Reporting

Configures automatic remediation actions and generates compliance reports for auditors. Remediation reduces helpdesk burden by guiding users to self-correct.

Lesson 1 • TrustSec Architecture and SGT Concepts

Introduces TrustSec components, SGT assignment methods, and the security group matrix. Understanding the architecture is required before configuring any TrustSec policy.

Lesson 2 • SXP and Non-TrustSec Device Support

Deploys SXP to propagate IP-to-SGT mappings to devices that lack inline tagging support. SXP extends TrustSec policy to legacy infrastructure.

Lesson 3 • TrustSec Monitoring and Troubleshooting

Uses ISE reports and network device commands to verify and debug TrustSec policy. Monitoring ensures segmentation policy is enforced as designed.

Lesson 4 • SGT Assignment in ISE

Configures static and dynamic SGT assignment via authorization profiles and profiling. Accurate assignment is the foundation of effective segmentation policy.