How Does Ivanti Policy Secure Stack Up to Portnox Cloud?

How well does Ivanti Policy Secure work in diverse infrastructure environments?

It supports multi-vendor environments—if you’re willing to work for it. Ivanti Policy Secure can integrate with a wide range of switches, firewalls, and wireless infrastructure using standard protocols (RADIUS, SNMP, 802.1X). However, many of its advanced features require detailed, time-consuming configuration, and full policy enforcement capabilities often vary based on the underlying vendor and firmware version. Real-world deployments usually demand extensive customization, XML configuration, and scripting to get consistent outcomes.

Portnox delivers out-of-the-box interoperability across all major network vendors. Whether you’re using Cisco, Aruba, Meraki, Juniper, or Ubiquiti, Portnox applies consistent policies using RADIUS and CoA, with zero scripting or deep config work. It treats vendor diversity as the norm—not an edge case—and enforces policy uniformly across heterogeneous environments.

Infrastructure Compatibility & Enforcement

Is Ivanti Policy Secure truly cloud-native or cloud-managed?

No. It is entirely on-premises. Ivanti Policy Secure runs as a physical or virtual appliance within your environment. Customers are responsible for all patching, updates, backups, scalability planning, and high availability. While Ivanti offers integrations with cloud identity providers (like Azure AD or Okta), the access control engine is entirely customer-hosted and managed. There is no native cloud management layer and no SaaS offering for NAC.

Portnox is a cloud-native NAC-as-a-Service solution. There are no VMs, no appliances, no infrastructure to maintain. The entire platform—from the RADIUS engine to the policy logic—is delivered and managed from the cloud. It’s always up to date, elastic, and fault-tolerant by default. Portnox customers gain the full power of NAC without the burden of infrastructure.

Deployment & Maintenance

How well does Ivanti scale across multiple sites, branches, and remote users?

Scaling requires architectural complexity. Ivanti’s model relies on distributed enforcement points and Policy Secure gateways to handle authentication, posture checks, and enforcement at each location. This requires customers to deploy appliances or VMs in each branch, configure replication, ensure HA, and often layer on additional VPN concentrators for remote users. Managing all this adds significant operational overhead and introduces latency in policy application.

Portnox is cloud-native and location-agnostic. There is no infrastructure to deploy at branch offices—no local appliances, no VPN dependencies, no policy sync delays. Whether users are at HQ, at home, or in a satellite office, Portnox enforces policies in real time. Remote users can be onboarded agentlessly or with a lightweight agent, and posture-aware policies follow them wherever they connect.

Scalability & Hybrid Workforce Readiness

Does Ivanti offer real-time posture assessment and dynamic access control?

Yes, but at the cost of complexity. Ivanti supports detailed posture assessment (e.g., antivirus, OS patch status, firewall, encryption), but it requires dedicated agents (Ivanti Secure Access Client), and configuration can be intricate. Policies often need to be mapped across multiple engines: host checker policies, authentication realms, role-mapping rules, and enforcement mechanisms. Changes in posture aren’t always enforced dynamically—requiring session termination or re-authentication.

Portnox offers real-time posture checks with dynamic enforcement. Whether via agentless or agent-based deployment, Portnox continuously evaluates device posture and can trigger enforcement actions like VLAN changes, deauthentication, or device quarantine the moment a device becomes non-compliant. The experience is seamless for users and easy to manage for IT teams. You don’t need to stitch together five different policy modules to get it working.

Posture & Policy Control