Brocade Switches, ISE compatibility

descalante2007 · ‎03-31-2015

I have a customer with ISE just updated to 1.3.0 version. Reading the Network Component Compatibilty notes we found some kind of compatibility with Brocade switches is indicated, basically AAA (802.1X, MAB, VLAN assignment, dACL), and some limited profiling support.

I wonder if a more detailed document from Cisco (or Brocade) may exist. My customer has a release higher that the one indicated in the document, but another platform. So, we like to know some tips in order to run tests and define what can be expected.

Can we request support from TAC or SACISE?

Regards.

Charlie Moreton · ‎03-31-2015

If the Brocade switches support 802.1X or MAC Filtering today, TAC and SAC should support basic troubleshooting based on what can be accomplished from ISE perspective. Of course, this will not be a substitute for Brocade support.

Having Brocade switches does not determine whether TAC will accept calls or not on RADIUS/802.1X issues. As noted, we already support standard RADIUS/802.1X operations. Functions like 802.1X, MAB, VLAN assignment, and dACL were tested and work or brocade switches running software that support these features.

Features that require support for CoA, URL redirect, sessionization, etc, such as CWA, Posture, or MDM integration would not be expected to work. No matter which model or software version is running on Brocade, these specific feature would not work with ISE 1.3.

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Charles Moreton

nspasov · ‎03-31-2015

I have done one ISE deployment where Brocade switches were involved and only basic 802.1x and MAB based authentications were working. The biggest problem / setback was the fact that Brocade did not support CoA. As Charles mentioned CoA drives most of the cool features behind ISE.

Now this was almost two years ago so things seem to have changed. Doing a basic Google search for Brocade and CoA took me to the following link that would suggest that this feature is now supported:

http://www.brocade.com/downloads/documents/html_product_manuals/FI_08020_CMDREF/GUID-55FA138E-52C0-41A0-B83C-F39F128D347E.html

With that being said, you should confirm this with Brocade. More specifically, I would ask them exactly which Brocade platforms support CoA and if they have any Whitepapers/technical docs for the integration with ISE.

I hope this helps!

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