We compared Cisco ACI and Illumio Zero Trust Segmentation based on our users' reviews in six categories. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below:
Comparison Results: Cisco ACI has a more intricate initial setup, but once deployed, it excels in configuration and management. It adopts a network-centric approach, offers micro-segmentation, and integrates well with VMware. However, users have reported issues with the GUI, high pricing, and a need for improved integration. On the other hand, Illumio Zero Trust Segmentation boasts a relatively simple setup and receives praise for its monitoring and visibility features. However, it lacks support for certain operating systems and proves less effective in OT environments. Users have also mentioned its high cost and have provided mixed feedback on customer service and support.
"ACI's most valuable feature is its SDN capabilities. Everything is on your software design controller. Everything is blocked by default until you allow it."
"Cisco ACI's best features include its network-centric approach and micro-segmentation."
"The stability is quite good."
"All the features provided by Cisco ACI including orchestration to layer seven, service training, load enhancements and firewalls."
"The most valuable features include microsegmentation, L3 Out features, and the common tenant and tenancy model."
"I like using WebEx Board."
"I like features like policy control and micro-segmentation."
"It has reduced our day-to-day operations by at least half."
"The Explorer allows you to know the traffic between source and destination."
"The solution helps to maintain logs and monitor activities. It also helps us with access management. The tool helps us to secure organizational data that include files."
"It has helped us to understand internal network visibility and firewall policy implementation. We use the product to simplify firewall policy implementation."
"The features that I have found most useful is the ability to centralize all the rules and then distribute them across various locations. However, I've encountered challenges related to tagging policies, which can be complex to devise. It's a matter that requires careful consideration and stakeholder involvement before implementing such policies."
"The product provides visibility into how the applications communicate and how the network protocols are being used."
"The flexibility of the solution is its most valuable feature."
"The most valuable feature of Illumio Adaptive Security Platform is monitoring. When I have no requirement from the other application, I can use the web block traffic to build."
"The solution is easy to use."
"Biannually, there is a new design delivered by Cisco. Thus, you are always running behind the new design, and it never stops. With Cisco ACI, this has been a nightmare."
"If I lose the connection from one side to the core, I can't use the other side to go to the core. I hope in the future, this will be fixed."
"I would like this solution to be integrated with Pure Storage."
"Figuring out how to implement the product for clients is the area we struggle with the most every day. Perhaps an enhancement would be artificially intelligent solutions, but that would be further down the road."
"Because this is new technology, which requires a different way of thinking, it can be hard to understand. Therefore, I would like more documentation or education."
"Training for this product is available from institutions but it is not available online where you can get users trained easily."
"For Multipod we need Layer 3 devices that support multicast. Customers ask: "Why can't ACI do that? Why do we need a dedicated Layer 3 device for this?" If they go for Multi-Site there is no need for that, ACI can do it. So Cisco needs to increase the Multipod features in ACI."
"The tool's initial deployment is complex and takes five hours to complete."
"The solution is very basic and doesn't do anything other than the orchestration of layer four endpoint firewall rules."
"Illumio Adaptive Security Platform could improve by supporting more operating systems. For example, Cisco and Apache appliances."
"Some of the features that can be improved is offer additional guidance on creating an effective and risk-free tagging policy would be highly beneficial."
"It requires a low-level re-architecting of the product."
"The customer service is lagging a bit. It could be better."
"The product’s agents don't work very well in OT environments."
"I would like to see better data security in the product."
"The interaction we've had with the support team hasn't been ideal. Technical support should be improved."
Cisco ACI is ranked 2nd in Cloud and Data Center Security with 97 reviews while Illumio is ranked 4th in Cloud and Data Center Security with 8 reviews. Cisco ACI is rated 8.0, while Illumio is rated 8.0. 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 Illumio writes "Pprevents attackers or threats from spreading or moving laterally". Cisco ACI is most compared with VMware NSX, Cisco Secure Workload, Akamai Guardicore Segmentation, Nuage Networks and Aviatrix, whereas Illumio is most compared with Akamai Guardicore Segmentation, VMware NSX, Cisco Secure Workload, Zscaler Internet Access and Zero Networks Microsegmentation. See our Cisco ACI vs. Illumio report.
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