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's technical support team is very good."
"You can integrate Cisco ACI well with VMware."
"Cisco ACI's best features include its network-centric approach and micro-segmentation."
"It provides flexibility, so you can install it everywhere."
"We will improve our organization using the automation."
"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."
"The initial setup was pretty straightforward. We just moved from one platform to another."
"The most valuable features include microsegmentation, L3 Out features, and the common tenant and tenancy model."
"The product offers great visibility into the network so we can enforce security measures."
"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."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is security."
"A complete and powerful micro-segmentation solution."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is micro-segmentation, which is the most important with respect to visibility."
"Generally speaking, Cisco support is considered one of the best in the networking products and stack."
"Figuring out how to implement the product for clients is the area we struggle with the most every day. Perhaps an enhancement would be artificially intelligent solutions, but that would be further down the road."
"Because this is new technology, which requires a different way of thinking, it can be hard to understand. Therefore, I would like more documentation or education."
"The firewall has room for improvement because there is no central inspection yet on Cisco ACI."
"Cisco ACI would be improved by providing a cloud offering; otherwise, it risks becoming a niche product."
"In the new version of 4.0, the management groups for updating the software is not the best way to do it. It was better in 3.2."
"I would like them to simplify the way you configure the Fabric. The process is quite complex. This can be a barrier to entry. For anything, where it should take two or three steps, you have ten steps"
"The ACI setup is in its initial phases is difficult. The learning curve at the beginning is higher than a normal setup."
"So far we've had very few issues, a couple of routing things that were glitches within ACI."
"The integration could be better, especially with different types of solutions."
"It has an uninviting interface."
"It is not so easy to use and configure. It needs a bunch of further resources to work, which is mainly the biggest downside of it. The deployment is huge."
"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 emailed notifications are either hard to find or they are not available. Search capabilities can be improved."
"The product must be integrated with the cloud."
"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."
Cisco ACI is ranked 2nd in Cloud and Data Center Security with 96 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, Nuage Networks, Akamai Guardicore Segmentation, Juniper Contrail Networking and HPE SDN, whereas Cisco Secure Workload is most compared with Illumio, Akamai Guardicore Segmentation, VMware NSX, Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks and Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine). See our Cisco ACI vs. Cisco Secure Workload report.
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