Cisco ACI Reviews

We are switching the Nexus line to ACI for our customer: the server, firewall, etc.

We will improve our organization using the automation.

• Its resilience
• It easy to configure.

They need more documentation. Because when we hit an issue and searched on Google, we didn't find a lot of documents about the issue. Possibly because it's a new product.

We are deploying ACI, and at same time, we are testing migration from our old network. Our old next is Nexus, latest version, and we have a less load balancing and it's hard to migrate. We are hitting some issues, so maybe there is room for improvement.

It is to early to evaluate the stability.

The scalability is okay. We are deploying the leaf switches one-to-one.

The technical support is okay. We have been looking into some issues with our legacy network when migrating our ACI. While the tech support has responded well, we are still waiting for some more information.

We were having some issues with our network, so we took some advice from Cisco regarding that product, and looked for another product to replace it.

We deployed a lot of Fabrics to multiple sites, which was a bit complex.

We only worked directly with Cisco's IT, and they provide some consultants onsite to help us.

Cisco ACI is a good solution, but Cisco needs to test all the networks before doing a migration.

Our use case is to change our network architecture and install new free data centres for our company.

It has been able to  transverse all the processes between two companies merging into one: Air France and KLM.

I have found the SDN features to be the most valuable.

The product needs to be more visible on the Internet and have the ability to be integrated into more software developments. For example, with Amazon, you can click and deploy SDN with firmware, but not with SDI. It needs simpler process to be deployed everywhere. 

The Multi-site is not easy to use. While Cisco has plans to change this going forward, for now, it is complex.

It is very stable.

It is really scalable. It is the most scalable product that I have tried.

We have been one year on the project and it is very scalable. We have tested it in our data centres, and it's easy to add more automation processes.

I would rate the technical support as an eight out of ten, because it can be very difficult to find the right person to provide us answers. Our project needs a lot of knowledge with very complex solutions.

It has a very complex setup, because it is a complex solution. However, we have a great level of knowledge.

We used Cisco directly and an integrator. We had very good experiences with both of them.

We evaluated Cisco ACI vs VMware.

Now, I don't want to switch to another solution. I want to use this one, because it is the only solution that we tried for our use cases to unclog holes, resources, and work loads.

It is a very good solution to improve architecture. Read the literature.

We use this solution to achieve a properly defined data center, so we basically use it for SDN. 

The basic functionality that is the most useful is creating a virtual network on a physical device. We use it for Software-Defined Networking where we have a centralized controller, and the rest of the switches are just for packing traffic. When you have a centralized controller, it's easy to manage.

The virtualization part of it is still all hardware-based. You have to buy the switches, and they have to be Cisco switches. You cannot roll the Software-Defined Network and network virtualization over onto any other product. For example, if I have a mix of Juniper and Cisco in my network, they are of the same physical fabric layer, but when I want to virtualize, it's quite difficult. You cannot do it. There are solutions like NSX that can sit pretty on any physical layer, but Cisco SDN will only work with its own devices, so that's a downside. They need to be able to achieve virtualization end-to-end with Cisco ACI.

I have been using this product for over four years.

I rate the solution a nine and a half out of ten for stability. 

You can scale the solution, but you cannot scale to other products. I rate the solution an eight out of ten for scalability. 

For backup you might want two people, but one person can handle all of the maintenance. Everything is managed centrally. This is a backend product, so not everyone knows they are using Cisco ACI. The organization I currently work for has over 10,000 employees, and practically everyone is involved in usage of the solution. 

If you have the right license and premium support, the tech support is a nine out of ten.

On a scale of one to ten, I would rate the initial setup as a nine. It was very easy. There are some external factors you need to connect, like cables. However, with the push of a button, in less than 15 minutes, you can roll out the basic Cisco configuration.

It's a graphic installation. You will see buttons: "Next," "Next," "Next." It's very easy to get up and running, just like setting up a phone. "Do you want to install this?" "Yes." "Do you want to enable this?" "Yes." "Do you want to configure this?" Unlike before where you had to configure Cisco switches one at a time, now you manage and configure it centrally, and you have a template to work with.

Sometimes we handle the deployment ourselves, but for the current deployment we are rolling out, we have a system integrator. We have Cisco itself involved. 

The good thing about Cisco is that you can trade in your old products to replace them with ACI. On a scale of one to ten, where one is inexpensive and ten is expensive, I would rate them a two. 

We considered VMware NSX, but some believe that VMware is vulnerable, so we stuck with Cisco. 

I would 100% recommend Cisco ACI to other users. I would rate this solution as a ten out of ten. 

The primary use case is for the data center. 

We're just starting to deploy it. We literally just bought it and we're getting ready to start. 

The fact that it's modern and that it's easy to configure are the two most valuable features. 

In terms of improvement, I would like to see some sort of way to baseline the system in a network-centric fashion. The way ACI works is that it is very application-centric but I think that a lot of people who I have spoken to that use it don't need all that application-centric focus. Cisco says you can do a network-centric approach but I want to do network-centric in my design and then have the system organize and set itself that way. That would be cool. I would like to see that. If you as the customer want a network-centric design, after you build that initial configuration and you go into the GUI for the first time and you decide which direction you want it to go in and you point it in a certain direction, then it builds out the infrastructure to accommodate that, that would be beautiful.

They are selling the system as application-centric. I think a lot of people, ourselves included, are not ready to approach it in that way. It's too many knobs to turn. It's great overall architecture, scalability-wise, has an easy configuration, central configuration, but there are too many knobs to turn.

The early versions of the code were buggy but now, they've gotten better. The code a year ago wasn't so great. Now, it's much cleaner and more stable. 

Scalability is definitely something that we are looking at and that's one of the attractive features of ACI for us. It's one configuration interface and if you want to add more interface you just buy more gear and plug it in. It's almost a plug and play solution. We just don't know how our business is going to grow and change over time. We can buy and implement something today and they can come and say that they are doing an acquisition or some sort of growth or new business venture and we need more capacity in the data center. With ACI, if you need more capacity you can just buy more and plug them in without needing to do anything else. All of the sudden that infrastructure is there for me to use, configure, and add stuff to.

We use professional services for the design configuration. 

Our investment reason was purely due to the depreciation of the existing infrastructure. We needed to get rid of the old infrastructure and we had to make a choice. We needed to decide if we were going to use 9000 or if we were going to switch to ACI. We ended up deciding to go both ways. We're going to do some stuff with the traditional 9000 and we're going to do other stuff inside ACI and so it's going to be a hybrid.

The initial setup is pretty straightforward. Because it's a plug-and-play type of solution; you can take it out of the box, you can start just connecting wires, and then have it go from the infrastructure. Once the system is there then it becomes complicated. ACI is not simple by any stretch of the imagination, but the initial go-at-it is pretty straightforward, which is nice.

We used an integrator for the deployment. 

We're a Cisco shop so we weren't going to another avenue. We already have our partner for purchasing, all these relationships were established so it wasn't really much to choose in that regard. It was more of a design decision, 9000 or ACI. Originally, we said all ACI but then as we started really getting into the design and having deep conversations with our Cisco account team and the Advanced Services Team, they told us it makes sense to do some 9000 and leave some things as ACI. This is the route we're taking. 

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten. I would really love that network-centric philosophy of configuration to be a little bit easier to do and the learning curve is steep. Being somebody who has been working with traditional Cisco IOS this is not bad at all. This is a complete rewrite of everything that you ever thought of from the networking standpoint.

The advice I would give to someone considering this solution is that you have to look at your data center. You have to look at your infrastructure. Not only that but you also have to look at the operational and support teams that are going to support this thing because if you have people that are familiar with the traditional way of the doing Cisco and have never touched ACI, then you're going to have a huge learning curve for your operational team to ramp them up and get them educated. That's definitely a factor. 

We use the solution’s microsegment for the security of the servers in the same VLAN.

Micro-segmentation is the solution’s most valuable feature.

We faced some issues while configuring the microsegment. 

The solution should provide a visibility tool for troubleshooting.

I have been using the solution for five years.

The solution's stability is okay.

When we contacted support for troubleshooting, the issue was escalated to the next level in four hours. However, the last time we had a problem, the support took a long time to investigate.

The initial setup is complex because it is a software-defined network.

I suggest that Cisco delete and add a new EPG. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

We use ACI to configure and manage all the infrastructure in our data center. We're trying to automate the process and centralize the management of all our devices. We deploy the network-centric mode in our Cisco ACI.

ACI divides the management process in the network. It's a software-defined solution.

The best part of Cisco ACI is the server deployment and integration.

We have been using ACI for around two years. 

Cisco ACI is a stable product. 

I rate Cisco support 10 out of 10. 

Positive

In the past, I used Huawei HCI Data Center.

Deploying Cisco ACI was a little complex because we needed to add a lot to the fabric. You need to configure some servers, connect everything, make templates, and deploy switches. It takes five people to deploy and maintain. 

We used an in-house team to deploy ACI with support from Cisco.

We pay for a yearly license. I think we buy it for three or five years. 

We used it as a data center switch. The company - our client - that uses it uses Cisco HyperFlex and FlexPod both connected to Cisco ACI.

It has made it simpler and easier for non-Cisco personnel to come in and configure stuff because it is easier to understand, compared to when you configure Nexus using the CLI. Configuring the ACI using the graphical interface is easier. That's one advantage. New administrators can easily jump in and manage the system.

It saves time.

It adds a layer of complication but one area where it has an advantage, a benefit, 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.

You can back up the configuration, restore a configuration. It's easier compared to the traditional way of keeping a text file of the configuration. With ACI the management itself has been improved since you can manage it using the graphical user interface. 

There a lot of integrations that can be done. VMware can be integrated with ACI, that's another advantage, although we did not use it as much because the client also has its own virtualization software.

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. Because ACI re-invented something that's been working for so long - you can now have overlapping subnet - it gets really confusing when they say that you can use the same subnet for different VLANs.

They should make a standard list of best practices and that makes it easy for the people who are going to use it. That part alone, when they tried to remove subnet and VLANs, that's an integral part of networking which people have been used to for so long. They tried to remove it. I don't know why, but when they did that, it muddled up the concepts of networking, and people need time to adjust. That's why they have to put out a best-practice's guide, to make it easier for traditional-method people to adapt to ACI. 

Another area for improvement is establishing a Layer 3 Out policy. Accessing the internet is a bit complicated where, before, using Cisco devices, it was just one line of code. With ACI, it took us a few days, almost a week, to just figure it out using the GUI.

Stability-wise, we really have not had any issues with it. It's pretty stable. That's a good thing.

It's scalable because of the spine-and-leaf infrastructure. You can add spine and leaf. I haven't scaled it that much. We've only used three or four leaves into the ACI infrastructure. But I believe the scalability is good.

Cisco's technical support seems pretty good. No complaints about the response time. When we were into the implementation phase, we had two cases and they were able to respond quickly and to resolve the cases quickly.

The setup was relatively complex. It was really not straightforward at all.

The strategy was to just browse through Cisco's web site to get the setup guide. We used the initial configuration guide and we browsed through a lot of videos from people who had done it before us.

The deployment took a few days more a month. The biggest complication was establishing the routing system, how to do routing.

There were three of us from our company involved in the deployment, but the project also involved Cisco Hyperflex and Cisco FlexPod.

I'm not really so sure of how fast our client has seen return on investment. But maybe in the past three years they have seen it.

I cannot comment on how much ROI they've had. But they've established some BPO centers, call centers, using the infrastructure. I don't know how much success they've had.

If you can afford it, it's a very good solution. It's a high-end solution to put a data center on. Also, you need the right people to use it. It would be better if you had some programmers who know Python and not only people who are network engineers. If you can afford it, it is going to be the next thing, in a few years' time. It's a good solution if you have the right people and budget.

We have an ongoing interaction with the client for whom we implemented ACI. We implemented it two years ago and since then we have been constantly supporting the client with their ACI infrastructure. The people who use it are the ones accessing their data center. There are around 200 to 300 people, across the entire organization.

Two people maintain it.

In the past few years there hasn't been much increase in usage. The client has not told us of any plans for expanding their ACI infrastructure.

I would rate ACI at seven out of ten. It adds a layer of complexity that you can really do without. I can't give it a ten when the traditional way of doing things still gets the job done, especially for people with experience with Cisco. It's much easier to configure stuff the traditional way using the CLI. For me, there's really not much of an advantage. The advantage is for people who are new to Cisco and the CLI environment. Then, going into ACI and having to configure it using the GUI is better. For me, it doesn't really give me that much of a benefit.

Right now, we are using ACI Fabric to replace legacy equipment.

The customer is in a phase where they are building all the Fabric and moving everything. Therefore, it is early to discuss the use case. In the short-term, they plan to use ACI Fabric  to replace everything (their entire infrastructure) that they have at the moment. 

You can do a lot of things with it because it is a very flexible solution.

There is quite a learning curve at the beginning.

I haven't seen any major issues with stability.

The scalability is great. This is the greatest feature of the technology. It is a great improvement in scaling out. It can greatly increase the overall scalability of the Fabric with multi-port and multi side, making it a great product.

There is a dedicated support team inside the Cisco, except (instead of them) we are doing all the day-to-day, standard support activities for our customers.

The ACI setup is in its initial phases is difficult. The learning curve at the beginning is higher than a normal setup. However, there is a point in which you have all your objects setup,  policy, etc., then you can reuse them, which is faster compared with a more traditional software, e.g., Nexus 7000 or Catalyst. Once you overcome the learning curve, you can move on with the rest of it.

Cisco ACI is a good solution, so I would recommend it.