If you have the money to spend on it, then the solution is an option. If you are on a budget, then there are other options. 

I rate the solution a seven out of ten. 

We’re just customers.

We started off with version four point something, and we migrated to version five. We're currently using 5.2.0. However, they have a newer version - that's 5.3. I’m actually in the process of upgrading. So within the next two weeks or so, I should have it running in my data center soon.

We try to do server deployment between on-prem and the cloud, so we try to handle the hybrid deployment. We have the local infrastructure, and we're also partially using the cloud for mainly dev environment stuff, and for production, we'd use our on-prem. The reason why we're using CloudCenter is due to the fact that it's facilitated the deployment of this infrastructure and some other applications.

There's a tool called Action Orchestrator in Cisco CloudCenter. It’s a tool for building workflows for automation. That's very helpful. I really use it a lot.

There's another tool called Workload Manager for handling VM deployment. Workload Manager is an orchestrator that will orchestrate VMware. If you want to deploy a VM, you will build a workflow using Action Orchestrator, you would talk to the Workload Manager API, which would then talk to your VMware infrastructure.

I’d rate the solution eight out of ten.

If there's a company that does not have the local infrastructure, it’s a good idea to definitely go cloud to reduce the amount of operational support. Not that there's a lot. However, it will be better to just use the tool than worry about issues related to the operations. On the other hand, if they just want something that's really automation of infrastructure, it will be something great to use with Action Orchestrator and Workload Manager. It's a tool that I would recommend for people that are just going through the automation of the infrastructure journey. I would definitely recommend the tool.

It is a benefit that the solution supports Amazon Azure, GCP and vSphere. As a cloud management platform, I rate the solution a seven out of ten. But as a true CMP they lack multi-tenancy and out-of-the-box support for new tool sets like Terraform, Ansible Vault, and Conjur from CyberArk. 

I'm not sure if this support has been added because we started focusing on MyCloud for enterprise VMware vRealize Automation, Cloudify for small business customers, and Terraform and Ansible for IAC customers. 

If you provide an API abstraction layer, you can integrate with anything rather than needing to provide plugins or adapters. For example, VMware used to only have support for Puppet but not Ansible. Then they supported Ansible and Salt. Now they have created an out-of-the-box solution where you can integrate with any configuration management tools like Chef, Puppet, Ansible, and Terraform.

The same process is being used by Cloudify but in a much better way. Rather than creating different plugins, they created plugins for endpoints like Amazon, Azure, GC, and vCenter and created a custom solution that is API based. You can integrate any of your configuration management tools and execute any scripts in PowerShell or Shell.

Every new CMP solution is going with API based which allows you to create a solution that is customizable.

I would advise someone considering this solution to contact Cisco and be briefed by their account manager so that you can see the full breadth of integrators that are available to help build it up fast. Don't try to take it upon yourself to actually learn all of this at a particular speed. Make sure you get the help that you need. Then you'll be able to be running fast instead of walking in six months. If you start crawling, start by walking and you'll be running in six months.

If you want to have a return on investment quickly, you'll want to be able to bring it to production and have people using it quickly.

Use whatever tools you can from the creator regardless of who it is. Make sure that it's a nice fit with what you're using it for. My advice would be to talk to the vendor. Talk to a Cisco representative and look at how it works. Make sure it integrates with what you have and in the end, make the decision for your company, not for whichever vendor you're buying it from. If it's good for your company, then go for it.

I would rate it an eight out of ten.

I recommend Cisco CloudCenter to others and rate it a nine out of ten.

We're a Cisco partner and part of the board with Cisco CloudCenter and Cisco ACI, etc.

We are using CloudCenter now, and we know that CloudCenter is going to be on its end of life by 2024. We're in process of looking for a new replacement.

We're using the latest version, which is something like version 4. Version 5 is on the on-premise cloud-only, and we are not using this. We were planning to migrate to the cloud version, the faster version of Cisco CloudCenter, however, we just learned last week that the end of life was 2024, and so we've decided to not move forward in that direction.

It's a good product. It's working. The only thing that I don't like is the upgrade process. However, for the rest of the solution, the product is doing a great job for what we require.

I'd rate the solution a six out of ten. The upgrades are difficult and I would note that it is coming up to its end of life, so no more upgrades are really going to happen.

I would rate the product an eight out of ten. 

We are implementers, and we are a company specializing in professional services. We don't represent any vendor. We are multi-vendor. We provide professional services.

I'm on the sales side. I'm not sure which version of the solution our clients are using. The last implementation we did was for an operator in Bolivia. I would assume we deployed the latest version, however, I don't know the version number.

I would recommend the solution in general to the customers. However, companies should note that they need the best product, and they need the best services. It's very, very, very important that the planning, the design, the development, of the solution are all handled properly in order to avoid future problems during installation.

In general, I would rate the solution at a nine out of ten.

I would rate Cisco CloudCenter a seven out of ten.