Updated: Nov 27, 2025
Indian enterprises are adding more users, more devices, and more access paths than ever. The mix now includes employee laptops, contractor endpoints, smart cameras, sensors, and a steady rise in unmanaged devices. What once felt like a predictable edge has become a shifting set of identities that appear and disappear across wired and wireless networks.
Wireless density is growing across campuses, and contractor access has become a daily operational reality. OT devices often sit on the same edge as corporate laptops, and authentication behaviour varies across device classes. Large parts of the installed base still run VLAN layouts designed for an earlier era, and those designs struggle under today’s load.
Cisco ISE is the identity and network access control platform in a Zero Trust architecture. It verifies who or what is connecting, evaluates posture and context, and enforces policy across wired, wireless, and remote access.
Zero Trust architecture depends on identity-based access, device profiling, and consistent policy enforcement. ISE provides these capabilities through a unified policy engine that applies identity and context to every session. Under these conditions, Zero Trust is not a slogan. It is an operating model. And Cisco ISE sits at the centre of any design that tries to enforce identity, context, and access in a consistent way.
Zero Trust is often misunderstood in India. Some teams treat it as a firewall upgrade or an SD-WAN configuration exercise. Others see it as a compliance requirement and attempt to bolt it on to existing networks. None of this works. The path that does work starts with one principle: identity must become the anchor of the network. Without it, segmentation breaks, wireless onboarding becomes unpredictable, and access rules drift.
Most Indian networks evolved in phases. Mergers, expansions, floor revamps, and new branches created layers of VLANs with little relation to current traffic flows. Contractors and vendors use shared credentials. Guest networks often feed into legacy infrastructure. OT devices are added without profiling. New access points introduce more device types and authentication behaviour.
In such an environment, the network has no reliable sense of who or what is connecting. Policy enforcement becomes guesswork. Attempts at micro-segmentation fail because the underlying identity fabric is weak. This is where Cisco ISE makes a real difference.
ISE delivers four capabilities that make Zero Trust possible.
Instead of relying on VLANs to represent trust, ISE uses identity and security groups. These groups follow users and devices across wired, wireless, and remote access. As a result, the network can enforce who can reach what, rather than which subnet can reach which subnet.
When combined with telemetry and modern switching platforms, this approach turns a fragmented network into a controlled environment where exceptions stand out more clearly.
A workable Zero Trust architecture does not begin with micro-segmentation. It begins with clarity. Architects start by establishing ISE as the primary identity authority. Directory sources are cleaned up. Authentication flows are defined for employees, contractors, guests, and devices. Profiling is enabled so the network can recognise device categories without depending on manual data entry.
Once identity is stable, access policies are defined at a coarse level. These policies are not meant to solve everything on day one. They serve as a foundation for future segmentation.
From here, policy groups are built. Switches and wireless controllers enforce these groups on every session. Traffic patterns are observed. Gaps and exceptions are identified. Only then does true segmentation begin.
This staged approach is what prevents outages and configuration sprawl. It also turns Zero Trust from an abstract idea into an operational reality.
Some enterprises rush to enforce complex policies before identity and profiling are stable. Others rely on outdated switching platforms that cannot apply group-based policies at scale. In some cases, teams underestimate the operational changes required. Zero Trust is not only a technical model. It changes how onboarding, access control, and troubleshooting work across the organisation.
The most common failure point remains weak identity sources. If directories are inconsistent, if device attributes are missing, or if guest flows are poorly defined, access decisions lose accuracy. The network then falls back to coarse VLANs, and the project stalls.
Enterprises that succeed follow a steady path. They begin by stabilising identity, profiling, and authentication. They build a clean group-based policy model. They enforce this model across access switches, wireless controllers, and VPN edges. And they refine the policy as the organisation changes.
The result is a network that does not trust by default. It grants access based on identity and context at the moment of connection. Movement across the network becomes observable. Devices that behave out of pattern stand out. And access control becomes simpler to manage in the long run.
The shift toward Zero Trust in India is picking up pace, driven by hybrid work, compliance demands, and the growth of unmanaged devices. Cisco ISE offers a path that works across these pressures, provided the rollout follows a clear, staged plan.
Proactive helps enterprises design these architectures with a focus on stability, identity clarity, and operational impact. If you want a structured way to move from VLAN sprawl to a clean Zero Trust model, our team can guide you through each step.
