We compared Cisco ACI and Illumio Zero Trust Segmentation based on our users' reviews in six categories. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below:
Comparison Results: Cisco ACI has a more intricate initial setup, but once deployed, it excels in configuration and management. It adopts a network-centric approach, offers micro-segmentation, and integrates well with VMware. However, users have reported issues with the GUI, high pricing, and a need for improved integration. On the other hand, Illumio Zero Trust Segmentation boasts a relatively simple setup and receives praise for its monitoring and visibility features. However, it lacks support for certain operating systems and proves less effective in OT environments. Users have also mentioned its high cost and have provided mixed feedback on customer service and support.
"Automation is its most valuable feature."
"Micro-segmentation is the solution’s most valuable feature."
"The best part of ACI is that it can integrate with a lot of virtual environments like VMware, Hyper-V, and KVM."
"The most useful feature in the ACI is a feature called Service Graph."
"It is very easy to do the configuration after you know how to work with the product. It is global, so you change one interface, and changes are reflected on every switch."
"This product improved the way our company functions by enabling us to establish our goal of moving to a zero-trust model. That's how Cisco ACI helps us the most."
"The basic functionality that is the most useful is creating a virtual network on a physical device."
"It has the fastest automation. You can move and deploy services in just a couple of minutes."
"The features that I have found most useful is the ability to centralize all the rules and then distribute them across various locations. However, I've encountered challenges related to tagging policies, which can be complex to devise. It's a matter that requires careful consideration and stakeholder involvement before implementing such policies."
"The solution helps to maintain logs and monitor activities. It also helps us with access management. The tool helps us to secure organizational data that include files."
"The flexibility of the solution is its most valuable feature."
"It has helped us to understand internal network visibility and firewall policy implementation. We use the product to simplify firewall policy implementation."
"The product provides visibility into how the applications communicate and how the network protocols are being used."
"The most valuable feature of Illumio Adaptive Security Platform is monitoring. When I have no requirement from the other application, I can use the web block traffic to build."
"The Explorer allows you to know the traffic between source and destination."
"The solution is easy to use."
"Before version 5, you could manage your firewall or load balancer from the AP. It was very basic and now they removed the whole features in the new version, so you cannot manage your load balance or firewall from your AP on L2, L4, and L7 services."
"An area for improvement in Cisco ACI is security, which Cisco needs to enhance in the solution. Though Cisco ACI uses a whitelist model, you must purchase an external product, such as a security firewall solution, to make whitelisting work, which the customer could find expensive. For example, you're a customer who has Cisco ACI, and the solution doesn't have IP-based filtering, so as a customer, you've purchased Cisco ACI. However, you still need to buy another product for security, and some customers wouldn't like that. However, some customers prefer to go with Cisco ACI because of its scalability and flexibility versus other solutions such as Juniper and Aruba. Technical support for Cisco ACI also needs improvement, particularly in product knowledge."
"Our company had a lot of issues with the starter kit."
"Where there is room for improvement from ACI is for Layer 2 and Layer 7 packages. Normally, when you're updating your ACI fabric or you're introducing new Layer 4 to Layer 7 devices, there are some constraints, there are some limitations... When you are doing device packages you will not have the functionality of ASM. It's like WAF, web application firewalls. So you need to configure it manually."
"Compared to VMware, it needs more virtualization technologies."
"Customer support for ACI needs improvement. Many customers prefer HPE because their internal support is different and easier to integrate with existing networks. This lack of awareness of ACI's capabilities makes customers stick to traditional networking."
"We had issues in the first deployment when we tried to finish the migration from traditional networking to Cisco ACI."
"It is more about resolving bugs early on in the code. Otherwise, as the product gets more mature and those bugs get discovered sometimes by the customer, then Cisco will resolve them."
"I would like to see better data security in the product."
"The interaction we've had with the support team hasn't been ideal. Technical support should be improved."
"Some of the features that can be improved is offer additional guidance on creating an effective and risk-free tagging policy would be highly beneficial."
"The customer service is lagging a bit. It could be better."
"The product’s agents don't work very well in OT environments."
"Illumio Adaptive Security Platform could improve by supporting more operating systems. For example, Cisco and Apache appliances."
"It requires a low-level re-architecting of the product."
"The solution is very basic and doesn't do anything other than the orchestration of layer four endpoint firewall rules."
Cisco ACI is ranked 3rd in Cloud and Data Center Security with 97 reviews while Illumio is ranked 4th in Cloud and Data Center Security with 8 reviews. Cisco ACI is rated 8.0, while Illumio is rated 8.0. 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 Illumio writes "Pprevents attackers or threats from spreading or moving laterally". Cisco ACI is most compared with VMware NSX, Cisco Secure Workload, Akamai Guardicore Segmentation, Nuage Networks and Aviatrix, whereas Illumio is most compared with Akamai Guardicore Segmentation, VMware NSX, Cisco Secure Workload, Zscaler Internet Access and Zero Networks Microsegmentation. See our Cisco ACI vs. Illumio report.
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