Cisco ACI Reviews

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 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.

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.

Primary use case is data center software-defined networking. We didn't have this before, so are just moving onto these new products to try to be more efficient with better performance.

It is more scalable than our previous products. 

The product works very well with our virtual environment.

• Telemetry
• Analyzing the environment.

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.

It is very stable. It allows us to update firmware on the go without any downtime, which we couldn't do before. Everything is redundant, so if you shutdown one system, then another one takes over.

Its scalability is very good. It is really easy to scale in this product.

I haven't a lot of experience with technical support for this product. My colleague has experience with the technical support and says that they are good.

The old solution was outdated and not scalable. It was difficult to manage in a large scale environment. We do not have many people, so we needed to automate a lot of things. This new product helps us do that.

The initial setup was pretty straightforward. It has been a new technology for us, so we had  look at the documentation and follow the instructions, which were pretty good.

We used a Cisco partner who was very good, since we didn't know everything about the product from the start.

The pricing is pretty good for new technology.

We only thought about Cisco because they are our primary vendor for network solutions.

Receive education on the new product before you buy it, since it is pretty complex. It is not like the previous products. It has a different way of thinking. However, software-defined networking has a bright future, and it is a good idea to get onboard with it.

The most valuable features of Cisco ACI are the EPGs and the micro segmentation.

I would like to see Cisco ACI become more similar to what SD is, with improvements made to the onboarding on the multiport situation. Currently, it is complicated.

Cisco ACI would benefit by providing the option to integrate easily with DNAC in their next release.

I have been using Cisco ACI for a couple of years.

The solution is stable.

Cisco ACI is scalable and easy to expand. Cisco ACI is a data center concept. We have 1000 servers.

Technical support from Cisco is good. They are knowledgeable. I would rate their customer service and support a five out of five. 

Positive

The initial setup of Cisco ACI is simple.

Cisco ACI is more expensive than Juniper, however, ACI is not the most expensive option.

Prior to choosing Cisco ACI, we evaluated Juniper. 

Overall, I would rate Cisco ACI an eight out of ten.

We use this solution to implement a network overlay. We have a software-defined network in our data center.

Prior to ACI, a network upgrade or network change would be much more complex than it is now. Reducing complexity means that it is faster to make changes.

The most valuable feature is programmability, where we can manage a network via APIs and software, as opposed to having to manage complex hardware.

I would like to see a lot more integrations with the rest of the Cisco portfolio. I would like to have ACI embedded into HyperFlex, as an example.

This solution is very stable now, although it has had hiccups, for sure.

Most of the early struggles with ACI were not that it would go down. Rather, it was more the stability of the management platform, which has improved a lot over time.

This is a highly scalable solution, and we are running it in some really large environments. We have ACI installed in data centers that have more than one hundred leaps, which is thousands of servers.

Technical support for this solution is pretty good.

We've had a few incidents with environment reliability, but getting to the right engineering teams hasn't been difficult.

Our previous solution was legacy, three-tier networking. The market is changing, and software-defined networking is becoming the way to do business. Our network was the last piece to keep up, so it needed investment.

The initial setup of this solution is pretty complex.

The complexity comes about when you migrate from legacy networks into an ACI network. It's a complex process and there aren't tools that make it easy. usually, you're going to build ACI almost band new. Managing it is not complex, but building it is.

We handled the implementation in-house.

ROI would be hard to quantify, but it would come from a network with less downtime, less complexity in changes, and one that is easier to manage.

We evaluated solutions from Cisco, VMware, and HP. Cisco's solution, from a software perspective, may be slightly behind, but from a hardware perspective, it's the most scalable and best to support.

My advice to anybody researching this solution is that you have to test it. You can't take the stats on paper. Rather, you have to actually do the R&D to see it in a real environment. I think a lot of people make the mistake of looking at the features on paper, without actually testing the full functionality.

This is a really strong product. It has been complex, but most of their recent advancements have been in simplification.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

Our primary use for this solution is centralization.

This solution has improved the way we operate because it is a time-saver.

This solution allows you to do everything quicker and more efficiently.

The CLI needs to be improved.

This product is pretty stable. 

The scalability is really good.

We did not use another solution prior to this one.

Our setup is still in progress.

We used an integrator to assist us.

This is a solution that I would recommend.

I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.