We performed a comparison between Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN Platform, Exinda, and Steelhead based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out what your peers are saying about HPE Aruba Networking, Cato Networks, Citrix and others in WAN Optimization."The solution includes features for SD-WAN and WAN such as batch conditioning and optimization."
"The tool's most valuable feature is bandwidth optimization."
"First and foremost, it enables the customer to deploy high availability connections. This kind of solution enables them to deploy these HA connections for policies mostly automatically. It's a more automated approach than with other vendors."
"I really love the auto-tunnel creation feature."
"Silver Peak Unity EdgeConnect has high availability."
"The most valuable feature of Silver Peak VX is the overall performance."
"We had several clients that were paying $7,500 a month for an MPLS line for one single 10 megabit circuit and we were able to take that from $7,500 a month down to $500 a month for two 10 megabits circuits that added redundancy where before they did not have redundancy and it gave them a much better throughput."
"The tool is easy to configure due to the existing pre-configured templates. It is easy to manage compared to legacy systems, which takes time. We can complete a site within 30 minutes. The tool's best feature is outdoor onboarding. You need to bring the box to the site with the internet. It is a simple plug-and-play. The solution offers a zero-touch procedure."
"Exinda can show you which product uses how much throughput and can help you manage it."
"It has the ability to prioritize, providing an automatic optimization. I can put it in a hierarchy and know that certain devices will be prioritized over others. It is able to identify the traffic. It can pick out whether if its a Zoom meeting (or something like that), then it's able to put that somewhere in the hierarchy based on the traffic type."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to create policies where we can tailor them to the customer. It enables us to prioritize apps and users for bandwidth."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to provide very granular classes of service. That's important because it allows us to prioritize certain traffic types over others, to a very granular level."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to manage the traffic at the application layer. It makes things a lot easier. We're not digging for port numbers and IP addresses and different services... It makes us far more responsive in our ability to do things and speed up the process. We're a very small shop, so having something that's straightforward and easy to use is a big help."
"The most valuable features are the shaper, accelerator, and the reporting... it will shape the traffic better than, for example, a Cisco, because it's more gentle on the shaping side of things. Suppose you were selling a 20-meg link. Because you can shape to the nth degree of traffic, the 20-meg link feels like about a 30 to 40-meg link."
"The connectivity to speed is the valuable feature."
"I find the most valuable to be the compression and exchange replication."
"The compression of Riverbed is very powerful. It can also handle large quantities of traffic."
"The most valuable feature of Steelhead is its optimization capabilities."
"TCP optimization... caches a particular TCP connection and the next time a user uses that connection he will reach the destination easily."
"Scalable data referencing is a great feature."
"Steelhead is stable, and it can even help you avoid service interruption in the event of a power outage. If your hardware fails, technical support will replace your device quickly."
"It is very easy to install the solution."
"More technical sessions should be offered for deploying the solution."
"Their WAN optimization in terms of wireless connectivity doesn't have a very good cellular capability."
"The license features should improve in the solution. For example, when you purchase VMware, it starts at a low level that has some functionality. When you want to expand, the difference in the price is substantial. I purchased the lower functional version for $4,000, and now if I want to upgrade, they ask me for $80,000. This is a $76,000 difference, there's no logic, but this is VMware."
"Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN Platform’s stability and technical features need improvement."
"If compared with Cisco, then Aruba's pricing is very aggressive."
"They have to implement more security with it. The security, mainly their firewall functions, have to be included in the firewall features."
"This solution is suitable for small to medium-sized companies. If we have large-sized companies it is better to use Cisco or Palo Alto."
"There are some functional limitations that could improve."
"There might be room for improvement in the speed and throughput of some of their devices. They're getting a bit slow on some of the bigger devices. It would be helpful if there were some sort of an ISP model."
"A lot of working with this solution is really intuitive. I have picked it up mostly on my own. I'm sure that there are some things that maybe I hadn't thought of or really hadn't considered, and I think it would be good just to promote some day courses. I don't really see a whole lot that comes out for Exinda as far as training or informational sessions through our normal resellers. It would be cool to know more about the solution by utilizing educational resources or even have Exinda promoted a bit better."
"What I don't like is the fact that I haven't purchased the overall management interface. That is the interface that allows you to manage multiple Exindas. Personally, I think Exinda should provide that for free. I think that if you buy more and more Exinda boxes, you shouldn't then have to incur a charge for the overall management software. While I can manage each Exinda separately, if they provided me with the overall management platform for free that would probably encourage me to buy more appliances."
"The updating of applications that the system knows about could be a little quicker. For example, Zoom had been out for a while, but it took a while for it to show up as an application that Exinda could natively handle. We had to write some things in order to handle Zoom, initially."
"In terms of improvement, one thing that has always frustrated me about it is that when you look at real-time monitoring, you can only filter it by IP address. You can't filter it by anything else. It would be good if we could filter by VLAN."
"It should improve the quality of service. It can improve their connection to the internet and your IP."
"The application response time of the solution can be improved."
"One area for improvement is related to monitoring and visibility."
"Application response time and network performance could be improved."
"The solution needs to have alert notifications."
"Steelhead's handling of encrypted traffic could be improved because it requires some complex configuration to optimize encrypted traffic, especially when working with Microsoft protocols for mail servers and VPN services"
"The product should offer more integration capabilities."
"They should include a network switch in a future release."
"If we load a primary firewall, the secondary firewall usually handles all the active connections, but in Riverbed, this isn't the case. We lose all the active connections at the moment of failure."
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