Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Reviews

Cisco SD-WAN is used to connect users to network applications securely.

The segmentation, high security, and flexibility of the Cisco SD-WAN are the most valuable features.

The cost of Cisco SD-WAN is high and has room for improvement compared to competitors such as Fortinet which has similar functionality.

The technical support has room for improvement.

The UI has room for improvement.

I have been using Cisco SD-WAN for a couple of years.

Our engineers dislike dealing with Cisco technical support as they frequently face redirection and have to wait for months to get their issues resolved.

The initial setup is straightforward and easy to deploy.

The price is based on the types of routers being used as well as the product licenses.

Fortinet FortiGate has a more comfortable UI and better logic than Cisco.

I give Cisco SD-WAN an eight out of ten.

Cisco SD-WAN is mainly intended for medium to large enterprises as it provides significant benefits for organizations with distributed offices across different regions or countries.

I recommend that new users become familiar with all the features that Cisco SD-WAN offers, to enable them to complete their tasks effectively.

We use this solution for banks in the private sector. They use it to connect their headquarters to multiple branches with the SQL connection. They previously used different technologies, like MPLS, so we offered Cisco SD-WAN and did the project using this technology.

We are a system integrator and Cisco partner and usually sell products to customers. So we have different use cases, not only in Cisco SD-WAN but for other products. So the use case often differs from customer to customer.

The availability of services and combining different connections is most valuable.

Cisco should pay attention to the software as we recently found some bugs. There should also be better integration with other third-party software for the SD-WAN.

There are some features I'd like to see in the next release, and we have them for the Cisco account manager. First, we would like a single sign-on to be supported on the SD-WAN. Integration with third-party applications, like Active Directory, is not available and is also very important. They should also enhance traffic monitoring.

We have been using Cisco SD-WAN for about a year but are not using the latest version. It is deployed on-premises.

It is a stable solution, and I rate the stability a nine out of ten.

I rate the scalability a nine out of ten, and we have approximately 150 users from different departments. We may increase our usage depending on customer and business needs.

The technical support is very responsive and helpful, and I rate them a ten out of ten.

Positive

We've used different technologies from different vendors. Some customers preferred the SD-WAN from Cisco, and some preferred other vendors.

I rate the initial setup an eight out of ten, and it is straightforward. The deployment time depends on the use case and the number of branches and connections. It could take two or even three weeks because you may have the migration from a new to an old system. First, we had to prepare for the deployment, vulnerability design and migration plan. We then had to migrate branches one by one and check the services. The deployment was also completed in-house, and one person can complete it.

Regarding price, it should be better than S3 to be more competitive than other vendors. I rate the price a seven out of ten, with ten as very high and one as low. The licensing is annual.

I rate the solution a nine out of ten and recommend it to others.

I work for a global telecom operator. I'm a system integrator. It's deployed on cloud and on-premises.

The most useful features will depend on the clients' requirements.

Cisco SD-WAN doesn't have automation capabilities, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and isn't IOT-based. There are a lot of technologies coming onto the market that Cisco SD-WAN doesn't have. I would like to see AI-driven capabilities.

It should be more cloud-based and compatible with all the clouds.

I have used Cisco SD-WAN for seven years.

Sometimes there are issues on the routing layers. Most of the time, the protocols don't meet the compliance standards. If one site is Cisco and another site is Juniper, then there is a mismatch in the protocols, so there is latency. If all the sites are Cisco, then it's stable.

I would rate the stability as six out of ten.

The scalability is good. I would rate it as seven out of ten.

I would rate technical support as eight out of ten. They're responsive, but many of the people I speak to don't have a lot of technical knowledge.

For new telecom companies that have a 5G or 4G setup, there are other service providers that they can contact.

Initial setup is easy. I would rate setup as seven out of ten. 

It depends on the sites, the connectivity, and how many tunnels there are between various planes, like the control plane and management plane.

The cost is reasonable. I would rate the price as seven out of ten.

Huawei has their own cloud, and they don't have any dependencies. The best part is that there isn't a lot of tactic latency. Cisco doesn't have that kind of feature. Huawei is more advanced compared to Cisco.

I would rate this solution as seven out of ten.

The most valuable feature of Cisco SD-WAN is its compatibility and integration with the rest of the infrastructure.

Cisco SD-WAN could improve on the ease of integration, the configuration should be easier. At the moment the process is more command line based and it would be better if it was able to be done through an interface.

In a feature release, Cisco SD-WAN could add more features for wireless SaaS-based solutions.

I have been using Cisco SD-WAN for approximately two years.

Cisco SD-WAN is stable.

The scalability of Cisco SD-WAN is good.

The support sometimes is delayed. They could improve their response times. They are knowledgeable about the solution but you have to reach the correct person.

I rate the support from Cisco SD-WAN a three out of five.

Neutral

The initial setup of Cisco SD-WAN is not overly complex, but there should be a good understanding of the configuration and setup. There are many technical commands for the process that one should be aware of.

I rate the initial setup of Cisco SD-WAN a three out of four.

We used a third-party vendor help to implement the solution.

Overall, we are receiving a better financial cost advantage using Cisco SD-WAN than what we were using before.

I rate the ROI of Cisco SD-WAN a four out of five.

The price of Cisco SD-WAN could improve, it is expensive. The cost of the solution is approximately 30 percent higher than competitors.

I rate the price of Cisco SD-WAN a two out of five.

There are other competitors in the market that work well, such as Fortinet. The best solution is determined by its ability to handle a use case. There is not one overall best solution, there are suitable use cases for the different vendors.

If a customer is looking for a solution for a large enterprise, then I would recommend Cisco SD-WAN. However, if they have a small setup for a small business setup, Fortinet is better. It is integrated well with all the security features.

I rate Cisco SD-WAN an eight out of ten.

The integration to the LAN could be improved. It should be an end-to-end solution, not only on the WAN side but also on the LAN and wifi, so a full end-to-end solution.

The integration of Layer 3 and application routing is great.

The technical support is a bit slow. Regarding additional features, it would be good to have a fully integrated solution with the Meraki solution, leading to a seamless Cisco solution.

We have been using this solution for about six years. It is deployed on-premises, and we are using our own management.

The stability is good.

I think the scalability fits the customer requirements. The number of staff required for maintenance depends on the complexity of the network and the number of sites. A single part does not cover it, so we have about 20 staff running our network services.

I rate the technical support a seven out of ten. They are good but not very innovative, and the feature requests take too long to implement.

We use different solutions like Viptela, VeloCloud and Versa.

The initial setup was complex, and it was completed in-house.

I am unsure about licensing costs.

I rate this solution an eight out of ten.

Cisco SD-WAN is primarily used in the banking industry in Pakistan for bandwidth development and application control.

Cisco SD-WAN's best features are the development of network links, application control, and bandwidth monitoring.

Cisco SD-WAN's clustering mechanism needs to be improved. If there are more than five milliseconds of latency time between installations of the VM manager, the cluster automatically breaks down.

I've been using Cisco SD-WAN for a year.

Cisco SD-WAN is stable.

Cisco SD-WAN is very easy to scale.

Cisco's technical support is very good, and they're one of the few companies that provide local support. If we face any problem, they respond to and resolve it within three to four hours at most.

Positive

I previously used Forcepoint, but they have no local support, which means we had to wait much longer to get resolutions to our issues. Cisco's knowledge base was also better.

The initial setup wasn't easy, and I would rate the setup experience as two out of five.

In the first phase, our partner implemented the solution, but afterward, we managed it by ourselves.

For 600 links, the license for Cisco SD-WAN costs us US$250k a year. In Pakistan, we have the option to get this solution at a more discounted price.

I would give Cisco SD-WAN a rating of seven out of ten.

The load sharing in the fabric and the cloud connectivity are both pretty flexible. The solution offers us the correct field mechanisms.

The solution is stable and reliable.

It can scale according to our needs. 

While the environment itself is not a bottleneck, the dependencies and the provisioning and the different parties involved altogether form, complexity and introduce limitations.

The initial setup is really complex.

We've been using the solution for two years. 

The stability is really great. It's definitely reduced downtime. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. 

For us, the solution scales well. We are far away from its limits. That said, we are not, let's say, a very big company.

Technical support has been good. They are helpful and responsive. 

We did not previously use a different solution. We had a fairly traditional wide area network without any sophisticated connection options.

The initial setup is not straightforward or simple. It's very complex. 

I'm not sure how many staff members are needed for deployment and maintenance. 

We did outsource the initial setup.

I'm on the technical side. I have no idea what the price is and don't deal directly with licensing. I do know that this is an all-in deal, meaning there aren't extra fees associated with the cost. 

We're basically an end-user interacting with Cisco on this, however, the final responsibility is with our ISP.

SD is an enterprise tool and you should not use an ISP for implementation. Better to use an NSP or do it yourself. 

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

We primarily use the solution for connectivity.

The connectivity is great.

The dashboard is excellent.

It's a scalable solution.

The product is stable. 

Technical support is very good. 

The solution is a bit complicated. They could work on simplifying the product. For example, doing configurations could be easier. 

The initial setup is tedious.

It was a bit expensive. They can improve their licensing model.

We'd like to see more monitoring features. 

They can improve in terms of their GUI. 

They can improve in terms of hardware.

I've been using the solution for five years. 

The solution is stable. There are no bugs or glitches. it doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable.

The product is scalable. 

We have been satisfied with the technical support. They are great. There is always room for improvement, however, they're always resolving the issues

Positive

We also have experience with Meraki. The differences are licensing and pricing, however, the features are pretty much comparable.

The solution is difficult to set up. It's tedious. We'd like it to be easier. You really need to know a lot of stuff before initially trying to configure everything.

I'd rate the process a three out of five in terms of ease of use. 

It took us about two weeks to set up.

It's one of the more expensive solutions out there. I would rate it two out of five in terms of affordability. All you need to pay is the licensing fee. There are no extra costs. 

I'd rate the solution a six out of ten.