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 most valuable features are the automation with the different systems for the software development and the ability to provision switches in hours rather than days."
"I like features like policy control and micro-segmentation."
"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."
"It has benefited my organization by saving us a lot of time."
"This product improved the way our company functions by enabling us to establish our goal of moving to a zero-trust model. That's how Cisco ACI helps us the most."
"It is a complete re-write of everything that you've ever thought of from a networking standpoint."
"The integration with vCenter means that when I create something on the network, it only has to happen one time instead of many times for our many virtual hosts."
"The centralized management of the entire network data center, in this case with ACI, is the most valuable feature. By having access to some powerful APIs you can build your own tool to speak to the ACI controller, then with that, you can deploy things really fast. Having the option to build your own tools and then using the centralized management of the ACI to push the configuration to the network devices is very valuable."
"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 product provides multiple-device integration."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is micro-segmentation, which is the most important with respect to visibility."
"The product offers great visibility into the network so we can enforce security measures."
"Scalability is its most valuable feature."
"Generally speaking, Cisco support is considered one of the best in the networking products and stack."
"Compared to VMware, it needs more virtualization technologies."
"The initial set up was complex. We had to deploy 120 leads. Migrating from Legacy Cisco network to ACI was complex."
"Cisco ACI would be improved by providing a cloud offering; otherwise, it risks becoming a niche product."
"There should be an alternative "ACI Light" solution for smaller-sized enterprises."
"I would like to be able to test the upgrades in a simulation before implementing them in production because not everyone has a lab."
"The way the objects are oriented on it are not as straightforward as they should be."
"I would like to see more troubleshooting apps."
"The ability for us to figure out the traffic flows, to enable some of the more segmentation parts of it, is really tough with what is built into ACI."
"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."
"The emailed notifications are either hard to find or they are not available. Search capabilities can be improved."
"It is highly scalable, but there is a limitation that it is only available on Cisco devices."
"The integration could be better, especially with different types of solutions."
"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."
"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."
"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."
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.
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