Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Reviews

Cisco SD-WAN's most valuable feature is the ease of transition.

Cisco SD-WAN's smart account stuff could be improved. People still think they're using traditional licenses, so customers need a lot of education on using SD-WAN devices, especially on the smart/virtual account side.

I've been using Cisco SD-WAN for about two years.

Cisco SD-WAN's stability is good - I haven't found any issues at the operational level.

Cisco SD-WAN's scalability is good.

The initial setup was complex and required us to plan ahead. If you don't have an in-house design team or outsource to a third party with expertise, the setup will be difficult.

It takes some time, but Cisco SD-WAN gives a good ROI - for example, we have had some savings in terms of transport.

I'd advise anybody thinking of implementing Cisco SD-WAN to learn the smart and virtual account setup and the staging and installation process very clearly. This isn't just a case of buying a license or device and installing it, you need to create a lot of stuff, so you need to understand the technology before buying it, at least in a test lab or non-production environment. I would give Cisco SD-WAN a rating of seven out of ten.

Our use cases are mostly focused on the application side and any kind of cloud breakout, like local breakout clouds.

I'm focusing on using the application ware routing.

There's not much that should be improved, but the focus should be on the application side and more cloud applications should be added into the system. Most common sales applications should be supported.

Mostly, I think cutting edge solutions should be included in this product. I'm talking about buzzwords like the cloud, for example. The solution should be more focused on the cloud because, apart from the controllers, everything can be cloud-based and everyone is moving to the cloud. Cyber security should also be implemented in the solution, along with maybe implementation of AI/ML.

I have been using this solution for about ten years.

The stability of the solution is good as of now. 

The solution has great scalability. The people using it are mostly senior management, junior management, and junior engineers. Maintenance for this solution requires about four people: two senior employees and two regular employees.

I have been using Cisco since the beginning. I am familiar with it and it's easy to deploy, so I am sticking with it for now. I have no plans to switch to any other products, but we are looking at integrating this product with other solutions. 

The initial setup was easy and straightforward.

The deployment was done in-house and did not take more than two to three days.

The return on investment is good. I mean, not when compared to the other solutions on the market, but it is pretty flexible and scalable, so you cannot only consider the cost. The solution has flexibilities that benefit you. The return on investment, if you ask me, can be seen in the long-term. If the organizations who are deploying it are looking to grow for a certain period of time, maybe a longer vision of five to seven years down the road, the solution will be helpful to them.

The licensing cost is slightly on the higher side, but some of the customers are large, so they are willing to pay for it. On a scale of one to five, I would rate Cisco's pricing as a three. 

My advice is that there might be some other solutions on the market that are also pretty good, so they need to understand their market and customer requirements. Think about which solution will be easy to deploy and also how scalable it will be. The strategy should be to understand the solution and have an approach and proper plan and roadmap before implementing the solution. Also, compute the information of the devices before implementing the solution.

I would rate this solution as a nine out of ten.

We use it for network services. We use them as edge network devices, edge network routers, and firewall routers.

We looked at an SD-WAN service and Cisco was a vendor that provided termination of those services. We bought it and it met the specification. Cisco Viptela solution met the specification for our network.

I would recommend better-integrated management. Some of the other vendors have moved to integrated management platforms. Better analytics and operational consoles with a deployment configuration that can work easily across the network. 

I have been using Cisco SD-WAN for over five years.

It is pretty good. We have been reasonably happy with it.

The scalability is fine. The issue has not been an issue of technology, it's been one of price. 

It was straightforward.

We had a vendor and it was not hard. We took a while to get the templates, but not that long. 

Cisco SD-WAN is a good product, but as I said earlier, it's not priced competitively. There is nothing wrong with the product, but it is not as good as what you can buy from other vendors for a lower price. It depends because it's bandwidth-based licensing. It depends on how much bandwidth you put through it. Other products on the market do not have any licensing for bandwidth and that is one of its cost issues. 

We will be migrating to a different vendor. I would rate Cisco SD-WAN a six on a scale of one to 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.

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.

I am using Cisco SD-WAN for access to the internet.

Cisco SD-WAN could improve the integration with the cloud.

I have used Cisco SD-WAN within the last 12 months.

Cisco SD-WAN is a stable solution.

The scalability of Cisco SD-WAN is good. 

We have approximately 2,000 people using the solution and approximately 25 of them are engineers.

The support from Cisco SD-WAN is good.

The setup of Cisco SD-WAN was easy.

There is a monthly subscription to use this solution.

I rate Cisco SD-WAN a ten out of ten.

The purpose of this solution is mainly for migration from the LAN circuit to the internet using a secure edge SD-WAN for communication.

We are using the latest version of this solution. The solution is deployed on-premises and on the cloud.

This solution is mainly used in the pre-sales department, and then it's implemented by the implementation team.

The scalability is the most valuable feature.

The platform needs to be updated to be more stable and simple.

I have been using this solution for three years.

Sometimes it's a little buggy, so there needs to be some updates to make the solution more stable.

The solution is scalable.

Technical support is generally useful.

Cisco SD-WAN was our company's first choice, but they also use Fortinet.

The solution is "plug and play," but sometimes it needs manual intervention. Maintenance depends on the customer's number of devices.

Deployment is mainly done in-house.

It's costly. The cost is high compared to competitors.

There are many different licenses and devices. There's the license and the device itself as hardware, and the license as software. It varies between the hardware and software, and they have many free licensing models. So, there isn't an exact price. There are also many discounts in the middle before they provide it to the customer.

I would rate this solution 7 out of 10. 

My advice is to identify your real needs for the solution. Do you really need SD-WAN or are you just following the trends?

We use this solution to interconnect our branches with the headquarters and interconnect other countries with the hub.

Before we deployed SD-WAN, we used to have at least two links per branch but could only use one at a time. Now we are able to use all the links together.

The best feature about SD-WAN is the ability to consolidate the links to the branch and load-balance the traffic.

There should be more flexibility in the licensing. In the next release, I would like Cisco to add all the troubleshooting tools from Viptela to SD-WAN.

I've been using this solution for two years.

SD-WAN is very stable - once it's deployed, you can just forget about it, it runs by itself.

This solution is very scalable - the only requirement is to add the licenses for the devices being brought on board.

The initial setup was not very straightforward, but it gets easier the more deployments you complete.

We used an integrator and Cisco themselves.

When purchasing, there are so many features available that it's quite confusing deciding which to choose. And some of the devices force you to buy licenses you don't want. 

As far as deployment is concerned, either get Cisco Professional Services or an integrator to assist, as the person taking lead on deployment needs to have experience with the product. I'd give this product a score of seven out of ten.