We compared Cisco ACI and Cisco Secure Workload based on our users' reviews in six categories. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below:
Comparison Results: Cisco ACI is known for its complex setup but offers easier configuration and management once deployed. Users appreciate its simplicity, automation features, and scalability. However, concerns were raised about the GUI, pricing, integration with other systems, and technical support. On the other hand, Cisco Secure Workload has a moderate setup process and a user-friendly interface. However, there are areas for improvement in terms of integration and dashboard usability, and controversies surrounding data retention. In summary, Cisco ACI primarily focuses on network infrastructure management, while Cisco Secure Workload emphasizes security scoring and vulnerability identification.
"Cisco ACI is scalable and easy to expand."
"All the features provided by Cisco ACI including orchestration to layer seven, service training, load enhancements and firewalls."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the Call Manager."
"Virtualization and integration with VMware is the most valuable feature."
"We are doing automation from ACI and we have integration with Azure. With the Azure stack integration we can have total automation. We can configure the EPGs from there, and we can configure load balancing functionalities from there as well. The most useful feature is that you don't need to configure anything on ACI itself. You can configure on Azure and it will provision your application."
"The security component is its most valuable feature."
"This solution is easy to configure, and it is done in an object-oriented manner."
"Cisco ACI's best features include its network-centric approach and micro-segmentation."
"The solution offers 100% telemetry coverage. The telemetry you collect is not sampled, it's not intermittent. It's complete. You see everything in it, including full visibility of all activities on your endpoints and in your network."
"The product offers great visibility into the network so we can enforce security measures."
"Secure Workload's best feature is that it's an end-to-end offering from Cisco."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that we don't have to do packet captures on the network."
"A complete and powerful micro-segmentation solution."
"By using Tetration insight, we are able to get the latency on our level accounts and we can determine whatever the issue is with the application latency itself."
"It's stable."
"Generally speaking, Cisco support is considered one of the best in the networking products and stack."
"It needs to be able to function on the cloud."
"Deploying Cisco ACI was a little complex because we needed to add a lot to the fabric. You need to configure some servers, connect everything, make templates, and deploy switches. It takes five people to deploy and maintain."
"Cisco ACI is a highly complex solution. The initial deployment is just a few clicks, but understanding how an ACI works and interacts with routing, switching, and virtualization takes a lot of knowledge. The interface isn't necessarily hard to use, but the technology is complicated. If you want to understand how it works and how to configure it, you should study hard."
"So far we've had very few issues, a couple of routing things that were glitches within ACI."
"There should be an alternative "ACI Light" solution for smaller-sized enterprises."
"I would like to see the data center unification of Cisco ACI with Cisco DNA into a single platform to deliver the data center and campus sides."
"Better troubleshooting features would be helpful. In ACI, it can be a big mess, a real headache to troubleshoot a single issue... The troubleshooting part, and the information that ACI gives you, sometimes don't give you a proper, inside picture of what's going on within the fabric."
"Cisco ACI would be improved by providing a cloud offering; otherwise, it risks becoming a niche product."
"I'd like to see better documentation for advanced features. The documentation is fairly basic. I would also like to see better integration with other applications."
"It has an uninviting interface."
"Secure Workload is a little complicated to use, and the dashboard isn't intuitive, so it takes a while to learn how to use it."
"The multi-tenancy, redundancy, backup and restore functionalities, as well as the monitoring aspects of the solution, need improvement. The solution offers virtually no enterprise-grade possibility for monitoring."
"The interface is really helpful for technical people, but it is not user-friendly."
"They should scale down the hardware a bit. The initial hardware investment is two million dollars so it's a price point problem. The issue with the price comes from the fact that you have to have it with enormous storage and enormous computes."
"The integration could be better, especially with different types of solutions."
"There was a controversy when Cisco reduced the amount of data they kept, and the solution became quite cost-intensive, which made its adoption challenging….Although they have modified it now, I preferred the previous version, and I wish all the functionality were back under the same product."
Cisco ACI is ranked 3rd in Cloud and Data Center Security with 97 reviews while Cisco Secure Workload is ranked 9th in Cloud and Data Center Security with 13 reviews. Cisco ACI is rated 8.0, while Cisco Secure Workload is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Cisco ACI writes "Stable, easy to extend, scalable, and has a host-based routing feature". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Cisco Secure Workload writes "A solution that provides good technical support but its high cost makes it challenging for users to adopt it". Cisco ACI is most compared with VMware NSX, Akamai Guardicore Segmentation, Nuage Networks, Juniper Contrail Networking and HPE SDN, whereas Cisco Secure Workload is most compared with Akamai Guardicore Segmentation, Illumio, VMware NSX, Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks and Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine). See our Cisco ACI vs. Cisco Secure Workload report.
See our list of best Cloud and Data Center Security vendors.
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