Duo Security Review: Telecommunications Engineer on Ease of Use and Remote Access
In this practitioner review, Tim Lawton, a telecommunications engineer at an education institution with about 6,000 users, shares his experience using Duo Security for secure remote access and multi-factor authentication.
Duo Security is used as part of the organization’s VPN access process, enabling a second layer of verification through mobile push authentication. According to Tim, the biggest advantage of the platform is its ease of use. Once configured, the login workflow is simple: sign in through single sign-on, approve a push notification on a mobile device, and access systems remotely within seconds.
The solution became particularly important during the shift to remote work, when the institution implemented multi-factor authentication to support secure access for employees working from home. Duo Security enabled staff to transition from fully on-premise operations to remote and hybrid work while maintaining secure system access.
This review reflects the perspective of a real enterprise technology practitioner describing how the solution performs in daily operational use.
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Full Transcript
My name is Tim Lawton. I work in education at an institution with about 6,000 people. I’m a telecommunications engineer, and I’ve been in my current position working with Duo Security for about two and a half years.
I use Duo Security as my access point when working remotely. Because I’m a telecommunications engineer, I need remote access to my systems, and our VPN client requires a second level of verification, which is where Duo Security comes in.
For me, the best part is the ease of use. Once everything has been set up and Duo can communicate with my mobile device, it’s very simple. I log in with single sign-on, receive a Duo push notification on my phone, accept it, and I’m done. It’s a very straightforward process.
The benefit of Duo Security is that it allows very easy remote access. I don’t have to go through repeated steps every time I log in. The process is consistent, fast, and simple.
I know that Duo Security also provides detailed reports that allow administrators to track who is using the system and when, although that is not the side of the product that I work with directly. As a user, the main benefit for me is simply the ease of use.
Originally, we didn’t have multi-factor verification on our VPN login. During COVID, it became necessary to implement it, and that was when Duo Security was introduced. I understand that the system was implemented in less than seven days.
Regarding pricing, working in education means any product needs to demonstrate value. My assumption is that Duo Security provides strong value for the cost.
From a return-on-investment perspective, the results have been significant. Our organization moved from fully on-premise work to fully remote work for several months, and now many employees operate on a hybrid schedule. Duo Security makes that possible.
Our deployment is currently on-premises rather than cloud-based.
In my role as a call manager engineer working with telecommunications, I interact with Cisco technical support fairly often. Overall, Cisco support is very good. Sometimes escalation is necessary, but once the issue is escalated, I know the team will work with me to resolve it.
I would rate Cisco technical support generally in the nine range, though it has never dropped below about a 7.5 in my experience. I think Cisco works hard to satisfy customers.
One area that could improve is opening a technical assistance request. Sometimes the website requires entering contract numbers or other information before accessing support. A more streamlined login process would be helpful.
In terms of stability, Duo Security has been very reliable in our environment. In the last two and a half years, I recall it failing only once or twice, usually due to internal server or connectivity issues that were resolved by rebooting a server.
Most users in our environment access Duo Security through a laptop and mobile phone using mobile push authentication. I believe we also support PIN authentication, though mobile push is the most common method.
If someone asked me whether to use Duo Security, my advice would be simple: it works.
I haven’t used other security platforms for comparison, but I’m happy with how Duo works and it makes my job easier. If I were to give it a rating, I would say 9.25 out of 10. I don’t usually give perfect scores, but it performs very well.