Wired client authentication | Radius server or ISE?

[UncleJP]

I recently ran across a practice test question that went along the lines of:

"When a wired client connects to an edge node in an SDA fabric, what decides if the client has access to the network?"

The choices included ISE and a radius server. Wouldn't they both be correct answers?

Any input is appreciated. 

[Damien Miller · Accepted solution]

Yes, it's a poor question if asked that way since both are technically correct. ISE is of course a radius server, and you can leverage a third party radius server + ISE for SDA. If they had used creative wording then maybe they were trying to trick you, you can't run SDA with only a third party radius server, you still need ISE.

ex. https://community.cisco.com/t5/networking-documents/how-to-use-group-based-policies-with-3rd-party-radius-using/ta-p/3930041