Cisco ACI Reviews

Our primary use case for the Cisco ACI solution is the data center.

This product has improved our organization through automation.

The most valuable feature is the unified fabric.

I recommend to customers that they meet a knowledgeable vendor to help them with it.

Cisco ACI customer service is very good.

Cisco ACI was sold to us. Everybody is using it now.

With the initial setup of Cisco ACI, it is new, so you need to make sure issues pop up. You have to work through those issues. I would like to see included how-to videos.

We went with a consultant, i.e. a third party vendor: HCL. They're very good.

Arista was one of the main alternatives that we evaluated.

On a scale of one to 10, I would rate this product at an eight based on everybody else's experiences. It's pretty good. I don't have a full review.

More how-to videos and instructional information is required. We need to simplify it.

Our primary use case is to provide a replacement for our existing infrastructure in the data center. It's part of our lifecycle management.

The ability to integrate with other systems is the most valuable feature. 

We designed it from scratch which contributed to the complexity. They should have better information about the deployment requirements.

We haven't had any issues with stability so far. This is going to be concluded after doing some DR testing. 

We have had two calls with technical support. They are not the best. We opened a case to diagnose issues and it's taken weeks to get someone on the case and to move forward. 

The setup is simple in the beginning but complex when you get to the tiny details that need to be taken care of. I would say the initial public deployment is easy, but the migration part is more complex. 

We used Cisco services to help with the implementation. They were involved in the design phase but the rest we tried to keep in-house. Our experience with Cisco was that they were very helpful. 

We also looked at VMware NSX. We went with Cisco because they are the most cost effective compared to the other options. 

I would rate it an eight out of ten. Not a ten because it has a steep learning curve. 

I would advise someone considering this solution to watch the ACI presentations because they are packed with details and experience that comes from the trainers. It's very beneficial to get real-world experience.

My customers use Cisco ACI to replace the legacy networks that they have. Most of the time, however, they don't seem to be using the functionalities that are specific to ACI. They just use the base consumer functionalities similar to what they were using in the old solution.

One of the most valuable features is centralized management. The other is the ability to create policies by routing.

The learning curve is long. It's very difficult to learn Cisco ACI. As a result, our customers usually have difficulty working with this solution.

I started working with Cisco ACI about two years ago.

It's stable.

It's scalable.

They have good technical support, and I would give them an eight out of ten.

Positive

The initial deployment is not difficult, but the migration from old networks to Cisco API is not easy. However, migrations are usually not easy.

If I were to rate the deployment on a scale from one to five with one being the most difficult and five being the easiest, I'd give it a two.

It's not difficult to maintain, but it's difficult to learn how to maintain it. Once you learn it, however, it's easy to maintain.

You should spend a lot of time learning the solution. I recommend Cisco ACI because right now, there is no other solution like it. It's a good solution with central management, and I would give it a rating of seven out of ten.

The primary use case was to implement SDN in the data center to bring new technology for the application team.

We had different networks and combined them with ACI so we could have the control of one controller-based network. Also, everything is combined now. Automation is running so that the operational effort was reduct massivley.

We have the flexibility to bring an application from wherever it is located from one end of application to the other. It has overlay at the end.

I don't like the idea that Cisco is bringing in different machines or dashboards. This does not allow us to have one solution. We are viewing the DNA Center, ACI, and Meraki. A link from another system may have you end up in the Meraki dashboard, that's not what I expect. I want to have one single pane of glass where I can see and do the changes on every thing.

I would like to be able to test the upgrades in a simulation before implementing them in production because not everyone has a lab.

Nexus Dashboard could bring us a hugh step forward to become more felxible and agile.

2,5 years

In the beginning, the stability was not that good. However, the code now seems to be stable.

We like its scalability because we have use its paths to bring all the networks into ACI. Therefore, we need to be able to scale.

I like the technical support. It is great. We have a good team on the other end of the line. We also have good support from our sales engineer (SE).

We started with Cisco solutions and are now switching to ACI, which is the new solution. If it doesn't work how I expect, I will consider exchanging it.

The initial setup is straightforward, as it has a network-centric approach.

I joined the team after they did the integration, but I know that they bought the starter kit from Cisco. Our company had a lot of issues with the starter kit.

Once you sign for the start kit implementation, you have to go all the way through to the implementation, even if you are experiences issues.

I do not know who was on the shortlist.

For me, Cisco is the best solution.

I would tell someone considering this solution to talk to an account manager from Cisco and some technical people. Then, go to a Cisco conference and discuss the product with people, e.g., ask them how they did the implementation. 

It is an upgrade from our previous data center technology.

The solution has allowed us to redesign our data center environment into more of a zone-based network where we can section off areas. It definitely gives us a lot more security and control in our data center.

The most valuable feature is that we have centralized management and control of pretty much the entire data center and the architecture of it. It gives us a genuine single pane of glass to look through to manage all of our devices.

We're still in the process of doing the migration. We haven't migrated completely all of our applications out of our legacy into it yet. It was challenging at first, but getting easier now that we're starting to get into it.

I haven't been using the product long enough to really be looking for additional features as I haven't exhausted learning about the features that are available.

The stability seems great. It's stable so far and we haven't run into too many issues at all.

The scalability of the product seems great. It doesn't seem to have too many limitations if you want to scale out. We haven't run into any issues yet.

Technical support has been pretty good. I haven't worked with them too much with the ACI stuff, but some of my coworkers have and they said they've had good support experiences.

I wasn't there for the driving factor behind the switch because I started when it was already being implemented. However, the company was already using Cisco before implementing Cisco ACI. The previous environment was an older version of the data center — 9Ks and 5Ks. Migrating over to the more centralized management of the newer ACI just makes sense.

I wasn't there for the initial setup, so I can't really comment on the initial setup. The only thing I can say is that the setup seems to be an ongoing process.

We had a consultant company help us deploy and it was a good experience.

We're still in the process of implementing the product, so I don't know if I'd be able to tell about an actual ROI already or define what that is.

I don't think there were considerations of any other products when we went to upgrade as it was just an upgrade from the previous architecture.

In rating the product, I'd give it an eight out of ten. It is a pretty stable product and gives us really good central management structure.

It was challenging at first, but getting easier now that we're starting to get into it.

This solution is used in our data center.

This solution is faster than what we had previously.

The most valuable feature is the data center communication.

I would like to see more troubleshooting apps.

There should be more and better SNMP monitoring.

The stability of this solution is pretty good.

In terms of scalability, this solution is pretty good.

I was not involved in the process of selecting this solution. Rather, I performed the setup.

The initial setup of this solution is semi-difficult. There is a learning curve.

My advice to anybody implementing this solution is to jump in with both feet!

This biggest thing that I learned when using this solution is T-Panel.

I would rate this solution a six out of ten.

We're planning to use it as a product to sell to our customers. We are in the business of service integration. We offer solutions for our customers. We have specific customers who have a use for ACI because of the microsegmentation. They have five regional offices which all have five different people who are responsible for managing their site so we are trying to unite them and put everything under one roof and have a single place of control and visibility of the full network specifically for their data center.

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 eases our deployment. Now, we use service requests when there's a project and we have to deploy it. So when the networking team gets a service request it'll be two clicks, anyone can do it. It will be less of a job, and it will be easier and faster. The main benefit is the simplicity of the deployment. On the flipside, it's also a drawback because if only one person does it and if he does something wrong, the whole system can stop working. If ten people are doing ten different things and one person messes up, it's only one error and it's easier to isolate the problem and fix it. A customer is going to deploy something on their own and more often than not, they don't have the knowledge and experience to understand what can go wrong, so they might accidentally clog the network.

If I was a customer who is using the ACI to run my network, I would like for there to be more information about it available. While using the ACI in the graphical interface, I would like if there was something that explained every step that you can click and it will tell you what you are doing in more detail. For me, I understand what's happening because I did a course, but the problem will be when our customers, who are not so versatile in this, start using it and won't know what's going on. If it works it's fine, but when they run into problems, then it's gonna be an issue. If everything works, it should be fine but if any issues come up, a lot of Cisco services will be needed.

The scalability is impressive. I think the best thing about that is the vendor-agnostic part. In the lab, we did a VMware deployment from what I heard it doesn't matter how the VM is deployed, it can integrate with ACI and you can manage it from the Epic controller.

In the lab environment, we had a setup rebuilt, it was their virtual environment. It was a small deployment. Four switches in total, two leaf and two spine switches, and three controllers. From my past experiences with those types of deployments, the setup shouldn't be an issue. The natural connectivity between them and six switches should be easy. From the controller itself, the deployment of the overlay is pretty straightforward and simple.

I would rate it an eight out of ten. 

I would advise a colleague to definitely try it. Mess around with it, test it as much as possible because it's a new solution. It's different from the traditional data center deployment so there's not a lot of internet posts about it in which you could go and Google and find out more information. The chances that someone has had your problem before and probably found a solution for it are slim so you might get stuck and you will have to go straight to Cisco.

We are an integrator, so we work with the finance, health, and public sectors. We use it to automate the data center infrastructure of our customers. 

• Its provisioning.
• It has the fastest automation. You can move and deploy services in just a couple of minutes. 

Previously, the product was a little tricky to use. However, it's now a well developed platform.

I would like to see the data center unification of Cisco ACI with Cisco DNA into a single platform to deliver the data center and campus sides.

It is very stable. It has 99 percent availability.

It has large scalability. You can deploy a new pod, rack, or service in just a few of minutes instead of hours or days of work. 

The technical support is very good. I don't use them that much because the platform is very robust and well-documented. However, in the past, we needed them a lot, and they were very useful and helpful.

With previous technologies, you had to configure everything by hand: the server, the network, etc. With ACI, you can deploy a service in just a couple of minutes.

The initial feel of it is a little complex. Not everyone can deploy it, but if you know what you are doing, it's very simple from a technician perspective.

My company is the integrator for this solution.

The price could be improved. It is expensive, but then again, it is Cisco. The price is worth what you pay for.

As an integrator, we are using the following vendors:

• Cisco for the networking side.
• VMware for the server side.
• F5 for load balancers.
• NETSCOUT for visibility.

Immediately buy Cisco ACI. It will simplify your work in a way that you can't even imagine until you try it. The product does what it says it will. ACI is a robust, functional platform.