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.
"We had different networks and combined them with ACI so we could have the control of one controller-based network. Also, everything is combined now."
"In legacy networks, managing changes requires individual tickets for each device. ACI's single pane of glass management through APIC is a big advantage. So, single-tenant management is a plus."
"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 stability is perfect. We have had no problems with Cisco ACI."
"What's most valuable in Cisco ACI is that it isn't like the legacy infrastructure where you have a lot of complexity in a TTR architecture. What I like most about Cisco ACI is that you can control those devices from a single console, even if you have three hundred devices. You can manage the entire infrastructure from a single point of contact, so Cisco ACI is a time saver. Another exclusive feature of Cisco ACI is its API interface that lets you enhance automation within the environment. You can manage your entire data center from a single interface through Cisco ACI. If you want to upgrade three hundred devices in one click, you can do that, and within one hour, all three hundred devices will be upgraded. I also like that Cisco keeps enhancing the product by adding different features, so there have been five major releases of Cisco ACI. Another valuable feature of the solution is that it's more user-friendly than Aruba and Juniper."
"The biggest benefit has been that it has improved communication between my endpoints in the data center."
"The most valuable features of Cisco ACI are micro-segmentation, the VXLAN, and the ACI flattening services."
"We are doing automation from ACI and we have integration with Azure. With the Azure stack integration we can have total automation. We can configure the EPGs from there, and we can configure load balancing functionalities from there as well. The most useful feature is that you don't need to configure anything on ACI itself. You can configure on Azure and it will provision your application."
"The product offers great visibility into the network so we can enforce security measures."
"The most valuable feature is micro-segmentation, which is the most important with respect to visibility."
"Instead of proving that all the access control lists are in place and all the EPGs are correct, we can just point the auditor to a dashboard and point out that there aren't any escaped conversations. It saves an enormous, enormous amount of time."
"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."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is security."
"Scalability is its most valuable feature."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that we don't have to do packet captures on the network."
"Secure Workload's best feature is that it's an end-to-end offering from Cisco."
"I believe there's room for improvement in terms of ACI's integration with various technologies."
"Quality Assurance could be better, and there are a lot of bugs in each release. We discover these bugs when we upgrade the ACI environment, sometimes resulting in downtime. In the next release, I would like to be able to manage hybrid cloud networking. So currently, if you have an ACI environment running on-premise or Epic in the cloud, we can handle it with the NexSys dashboard. But if Cisco can integrate SD WAN-related features, through which we can do multi-cloud networking, that will be an awesome feature. It should be more flexible."
"I would like to be able to test the upgrades in a simulation before implementing them in production because not everyone has a lab."
"I wish that if I had to open up an additional tab, I wouldn't have to log in every single time."
"We had issues in the first deployment when we tried to finish the migration from traditional networking to Cisco ACI."
"There should be an alternative "ACI Light" solution for smaller-sized enterprises."
"It would be nice if I could specify network-centric in my design, and the system would organize and set itself up in that way."
"They should make it easier for the network people to do automated solutions."
"The product must be integrated with the cloud."
"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."
"It has an uninviting interface."
"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 emailed notifications are either hard to find or they are not available. Search capabilities can be improved."
"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."
"There is some overlap between Cisco Tetration and AppDynamics and I need to have a single pane of glass, rather than have to jump between different tools."
"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, 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.
