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.
"The initial setup was pretty straightforward. We just moved from one platform to another."
"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 efficiency in terms of the data center latency has been reduced by around 20-30%. Our applications function a lot better. We get a lot of intuitive data to know how our application stack is performing."
"With Cisco ACI, I can deploy things with a script, then run it in five minutes."
"Now, our customers have tiers of management that have meetings with about the simplest tasks because it has to be approved from upper management and senior management and by the time it gets to the engineer that's going to deploy it, it takes way too long. With the solution, they can delegate a person who would be in charge of running the ACI as a whole, and it will be much faster because it doesn't have to go through the whole chain of command for the simple task of deploying one little machine on one port in the data center."
"This solution allows you to do everything quicker and more efficiently."
"The basic functionality that is the most useful is creating a virtual network on a physical device."
"We get a full holistic view of the ecosystem."
"It's stable."
"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."
"Scalability is its most valuable feature."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is security."
"The most valuable feature is micro-segmentation, which is the most important with respect to visibility."
"A complete and powerful micro-segmentation solution."
"Generally speaking, Cisco support is considered one of the best in the networking products and stack."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that we don't have to do packet captures on the network."
"We had issues in the first deployment when we tried to finish the migration from traditional networking to Cisco ACI."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"The product needs to be simpler. There is too much complexity in ACI. 80 percent of its features are of no use to us. We could do with a simplified version."
"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."
"The only drawback that we are seeing is the user interface is still a little complex and difficult to use. It needs a more user-friendly interface."
"Our problems with Cisco ACI are mainly related to the contracts and how to manage them easily in the platform. Cisco also needs to improve the log files and the complexity of the graphical interface."
"The emailed notifications are either hard to find or they are not available. Search capabilities can be improved."
"It has an uninviting interface."
"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 interface is really helpful for technical people, but it is not user-friendly."
"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 integration could be better, especially with different types of solutions."
"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."
"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 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, 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.
We monitor all Cloud and Data Center Security reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
