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Cisco ACI pros and cons

Vendor: Cisco

4.0 out of 5

102 reviews
85% willing to recommend

924 followers

Pros & Cons summary

Cisco ACI enables network management via APIs, reducing complexity and speeding deployment while decreasing human error. Its programmability and automation support efficient data center management. Scalability allows easy capacity expansion, integrating with virtual environments like VMware. Centralized management streamlines oversight. However, setup poses challenges with a steep learning curve, and troubleshooting needs better documentation. Technical support and features for third-party and cloud integration also require enhancement.

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Prominent pros & cons

PROS

Cisco ACI offers exceptional scalability and flexibility, allowing seamless integration of new components with minimal impact on existing services.

The automation capabilities significantly reduce human error and improve efficiency in managing complex networks.

Features like micro-segmentation and VXLAN provide enhanced security and network management.

Cisco ACI's centralized management simplifies control and configuration across a vast network, saving time and resources.

Its programmability through APIs enables quick deployment and configuration, aligning network operations with application needs.

CONS

Cisco ACI's initial setup process is complex and requires significant effort to configure the Fabric.

Understanding Cisco ACI requires adapting to new technology standards, which can be a challenge for customers.

Cisco ACI's technical support needs improvement, with issues in response time and product knowledge from the support team.

Cisco ACI demands significant effort in migration and integration, particularly when moving from traditional networking setups.

Cisco ACI could benefit from enhanced disclosure of bugs and a more straightforward troubleshooting process.

Cisco ACI Pros review quotes

Director, Head of Networks at MUFG, EMEA

Sep 10, 2024

Cisco ACI's multi-tenancy has been most beneficial for our network management.

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SA

Syed Ali Wajahat

IT Solution Architect at Dimension Data

Mar 5, 2019

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.

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IA

Network Consultant at Onstack Inc

Mar 3, 2019

The best part of ACI is that it can integrate with a lot of virtual environments like VMware, Hyper-V, and KVM.

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VP

Network Architect at Neev limited

Oct 29, 2022

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.

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Data Center Implementation Engineer at Lumos

Jun 19, 2019

In a very general way, the ease of access, ease of use, and ease of connecting the system is a valuable feature in itself. The solution doesn't really increase detection rates as that is not what it was created for. Threat prevention comes in from other devices that might be connected into the Cisco ACI that monitors external traffic. It maintains what end-of-life products would be doing and offers other opportunities to unify solutions.

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DG

Technology Support Specialist at Fujitsu

Mar 3, 2019

One area where it has an advantage... is that you're able to reuse a specific integration. If you add another server, you can use a specific integration and assign it to another port.

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IT Evolution Manager at a aerospace/defense firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Feb 5, 2019

Once we have it running, it should be easier for us to program our IT rather than going case-by-case, by switches and different elements, or program it by hand.

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Systems Network Manager at a non-tech company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Jun 17, 2019

It is a complete re-write of everything that you've ever thought of from a networking standpoint.

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MH

Lead Network Engineer at Booz Allen Hamilton

Jun 19, 2019

It's improved the static configuration of our data center switching environment. But it's added some challenges to our ability to operationalize it and make it easier for people to manage.

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Head of IT at Synnapex

Sep 25, 2021

The most important aspect of Cisco ACI in my opinion is the ease of management. Other solutions, like traditional solutions and pricier solutions—or even fabric and PAT—you have to do many configurations on a box-to-box basis, With Cisco ACI, you go on the AP and do some "next, next finish" installer.

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Cisco ACI Cons review quotes

Director, Head of Networks at MUFG, EMEA

Sep 10, 2024

I would really appreciate it if Cisco came up with something centralized to monitor everything.

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SA

Syed Ali Wajahat

IT Solution Architect at Dimension Data

Mar 5, 2019

Where there is room for improvement from ACI is for Layer 2 and Layer 7 packages. Normally, when you're updating your ACI fabric or you're introducing new Layer 4 to Layer 7 devices, there are some constraints, there are some limitations... When you are doing device packages you will not have the functionality of ASM. It's like WAF, web application firewalls. So you need to configure it manually.

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IA

Network Consultant at Onstack Inc

Mar 3, 2019

Better troubleshooting features would be helpful. In ACI, it can be a big mess, a real headache to troubleshoot a single issue... The troubleshooting part, and the information that ACI gives you, sometimes don't give you a proper, inside picture of what's going on within the fabric.

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VP

Network Architect at Neev limited

Oct 29, 2022

An area for improvement in Cisco ACI is security, which Cisco needs to enhance in the solution. Though Cisco ACI uses a whitelist model, you must purchase an external product, such as a security firewall solution, to make whitelisting work, which the customer could find expensive. For example, you're a customer who has Cisco ACI, and the solution doesn't have IP-based filtering, so as a customer, you've purchased Cisco ACI. However, you still need to buy another product for security, and some customers wouldn't like that. However, some customers prefer to go with Cisco ACI because of its scalability and flexibility versus other solutions such as Juniper and Aruba. Technical support for Cisco ACI also needs improvement, particularly in product knowledge.

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Data Center Implementation Engineer at Lumos

Jun 19, 2019

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.

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DG

Technology Support Specialist at Fujitsu

Mar 3, 2019

One of the things that makes it a lot more complicated is the way contracts are handled in ACI. Contracts are like their own access lists. They can improve the setting up of contracts between devices a lot. It can be simplified.

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IT Evolution Manager at a aerospace/defense firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Feb 5, 2019

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.

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Systems Network Manager at a non-tech company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Jun 17, 2019

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.

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MH

Lead Network Engineer at Booz Allen Hamilton

Jun 19, 2019

So far we've had very few issues, a couple of routing things that were glitches within ACI.

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Head of IT at Synnapex

Sep 25, 2021

Before version 5, you could manage your firewall or load balancer from the AP. It was very basic and now they removed the whole features in the new version, so you cannot manage your load balance or firewall from your AP on L2, L4, and L7 services.

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Product Categories

Product Categories

Network Virtualization

Software Defined Networking (SDN)

Cloud and Data Center Security

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Product Categories

Product Categories

Network Virtualization

Software Defined Networking (SDN)

Cloud and Data Center Security

Popular Comparisons

Popular Comparisons

Illumio vs Cisco ACI

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs Cisco ACI

VMware NSX vs Cisco ACI

Cisco Secure Workload vs Cisco ACI

Meraki SD-WAN vs Cisco ACI

Omada Cloud SDN vs Cisco ACI

Juniper Contrail Networking vs Cisco ACI

Aviatrix vs Cisco ACI

Nuage Networks vs Cisco ACI

HPE SDN vs Cisco ACI

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