Cisco ACI Reviews

The primary use case is for data center switching. This is what it was intended to do.

I am a partner, and I implement the solution for other organizations.

• It scales very well. When you increasingly scale with it, it makes the product easier to work with.
• You can automate it.
• It has a lot of insight into monitoring and traffic. However, this could also be improved.
  

The interface is sometimes slow. I receive a lot of weird errors when I try to install apps, such as contract apps, which should give me a nice visualization of all the contracts. However, it just doesn't load, etc.

I would like more thought put into the way the graphic part of the monitoring is rendered. When you have a lot of contracts, you can't understand the graphics because they are so loaded.

The solution is stable. I haven't seen it crash.

While I haven't done big installs, it does seem like it would scale well.

I haven't used the technical support.

This is a client decision on whether to switch.

The initial setup isn't straightforward, but it is manageable. 

We are the integrator for our customers. The installation is straightforward.

I am an implementer, not user, of the solution. Therefore, ROI is not applicable.

We were only considering Cisco. ACI is such a complex solution that I am not sure that are any competitors which can match the product's complexity.

Go for this solution.

We use it to design and manager our network. There are a lot of places inside the building, and we have to bring the new network everywhere to help us.

We use Cisco everywhere in our network, so it makes sense from a compatibility point of view.

The stability is perfect. We have had no problems with Cisco ACI.

We have not thought about scaling at this time.

As the project manager, I don't call the technical support.

We did not use another solution before Cisco ACI.

The initial setup was a bit complex.

Cisco helped us in the beginning.

Price is always an issue.

Our network is entirely Cisco, so we did not consider any other vendors.

Talk with Cisco partners and Cisco. When we needed to find a solution, they helped us to create the network.

This is software-defined networking. So, all the configuration done on a customer network is done with this application.

I am using the version before the latest version.

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.

Its graphical user interface (GUI) is not as user-friendly as it could be.

It is quite expensive.

I have been using this solution for about a month.

It is stable and reliable.

It is quite scalable. It is one of the most scalable products we have come across.

We have five people who are using it in our company in Portugal.

We haven't had any need.

We were using a different solution, but it was not for software-defined networking. It was for a different type of networking.

It is very complex. All the configuration that needs to be done on the Cisco ACI is very complex. We have to create base policies for all the network devices and then implement it. Afterward, it is rather easy, but the implementation part is a long and complex process.

After it is deployed, it is rather easy because all the configuration is done automatically. You only need to do regular visits to see that it is working and do some regular tests. It is not that difficult.

We took Cisco's help.

It is quite expensive. It is not at all on the cheap or medium side.

I am quite new to this product, and I am still learning it. My recommendation would depend upon the size of the organization. It is one of the flagship products of Cisco, but it is not a product that you can implement for any customer. It is more suitable for medium to large enterprises.

I would rate Cisco ACI an eight out of 10.

I am a technology consultant and my company is implementing this product for data center networking.

The most valuable feature is the throughput that it offers.

Training for this product is available from institutions but it is not available online where you can get users trained easily. It would be better if the training for our users was easier to get.

Cisco ACI should have better integration with a hypervisor such as VMware, Hyper-V, or KVM. This would give us a one-window solution for our networking, compute, and storage.

I have been working with Cisco ACI for about two years.

Our customers are very much satisfied with the stability. We do not have any issues with it.

It is scalable, although it depends on the design and the customer.

This is not a product for small-scale users. If we have customers with large data center requirements, we offer them Cisco ACI. For example, it is not for small enterprises without a lot of services running in their data center.

Scaling is easy because we can add, as required. While it depends on the design, scalability is not normally an issue.

We have received technical support when required and we are pretty satisfied with the support we get.

The initial setup is okay. It is not very complex, although I would not say it is very user-friendly because it is different from what we have been using. The best way to put it is that for me, it is new and it is straightforward.

A complete deployment, including the migration from their existing system, will take approximately two months.

Initially, we had Professional Services assist with hour deployment.

This is an expensive solution.

Overall, this is a good product but if it had better integration then I would rate it a full ten out of ten.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten. 

We use this solution for our data center infrastructure. We are a small, private university, supporting a mix of cloud and on-premise applications.

This solution saves us time. 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 most valuable feature is the integration with vCenter, as it makes it easier for the systems and network to interoperate.

I would like to see simpler contract building, engineering, and architecture.

There should be an alternative "ACI Light" solution for smaller-sized enterprises.

This solution has been very solid. We've had no problems in the three years that we have been using it.

We haven't really grown or changed the network since this solution was installed, so I cannot comment on scalability.

Technical support for this solution is great. The ACI guys have been some of the best technical support people that I've worked with at Cisco. They just seem to know things better than the other groups within their support infrastructure. 

The initial setup of this solution is complex. Our environment is not very complex, but the product itself is very complex. It takes a lot of steps to configure.

We used a partner that Cisco recommended to assist us with the implementation. 

We were one of the first implementations, and I think we were used at the lab during our installation. Some of the things that you learn over time were not known, so it could have been done better.

We have seen partial ROI. However, that is probably more our fault than the product's fault because we haven't leveraged the tools that are there.

Three years ago when we were starting with this process, the industry said that software defined networking was the way we had to go. At the time, this is the only solution that was available.

I was one of the proponents of this solution.

My advice for anybody considering this solution is to really look at the size of your organization. Ours is kind of in the middle in terms of size, between large and small. So, ACI may be a little bit of overkill for the size of the shop that we have. If you have a large organization then it's a good product. If, on the other hand, you are a little shop, it is probably more than you need.

This is a good solution, but no product is perfect.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

Our primary use case is to interconnect both data centers in my corporation.

The biggest benefit has been that it has improved communication between my endpoints in the data center.

I would like to see better training. I don't have good training with this product. If I did, I probably would be able to solve all of the problems during the installations. 

It's very stable. 

Their technical support is fantastic. Whenever I have a problem, our partners at Cisco support answer quickly.

The initial setup was complex. If I didn't have my partner's support, I probably couldn't deploy Cisco ACI in my data center.

We implemented through a partner. I trust our partner, and I trust any of their recommendations and their deployments.

I would rate this solution a five out of ten. Not a ten because I don't have good training for this solution. I am now implementing Cisco ACI in the company. It's not 100% on the network. It's on 25% approx, more or less.

We use this product at a French hospital. It has helped to improve the data center and we would like to use it to change how we work with clients. 

It has reduced the time it takes to resolve problems and to understand what colleagues want from inside the company.

It simplifies the utilization of the network. 

The first time we used it, it was not stable, but now, a few years later, it's better. Cisco continues to work on this. If anything is not stable, tech helps us. 

It has very good scalability. 

Their technical support is very good. We had a problem and Cisco gave us the best engineer to resolve the issue. 

The initial setup was very complex. It's a new solution and it was very difficult to have an approach for it. With a lot of the help from a Cisco network engineer we had a good approach and are able to easily resolve any problem. 

We used our own company to deploy the network. 

It's expensive but the product is very good. I have never found another partner like Cisco with a solution like this and with great support.

We also looked at Juniper but their solution isn't stable so we didn't go with them. 

I would rate it a seven out of ten. It's a good product, and Cisco has a very good support team and very good network engineers. 

Of course I would recommend this product. We work with Cisco because they have many possibilities to work with very good support. 

We use this product in our services. At this moment, it performs very well.

• It is popular.
• It is simple.
• It works 100 percent of the time.

We would like to have faster services and problem monitoring for our customers.

It is very stable. It works 100 percent of the time. We don't have any problems at the moment.

The scalability is good. At the moment, we are using about 18 percent of the solution. In a few months, when we grow, we should be using more performance of the solution.

This depends on our customers and their change strategy.

The initial set up was complex. 

We are internally integrated. The integration was simple.

We also looked at Juniper and Fortinet.

We chose Cisco because we trust them. Cisco give us a very high level support and technical information.

I would recommend Cisco ACI. This solution is the best.