Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Reviews

Cisco SD-WAN is a very good product. It is difficult to highlight one specific feature.

We don't have any issues with this solution other than the price.

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

We have recently upgraded to the newest version.

Cisco SD-WAN is a stable product.

Cisco SD-WAN is a scalable solution.

We have many users in our organization.

The technical support is excellent.

I have worked with VMware products, but not with SD-WAN.

The initial setup is straightforward. It is easy to install.

The price is high.

It's a good product, it's stable, and has good support.

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

Full replacement of office to office, office to data center, and data center to data center MPLS and private lines with commodity Internet and SD-WAN.

80% reduction in WAN costs.

New sites can be onboarded in hours or days versus many months with carrier based technology. 

The most useful feature for our organization is the combination of on-prem and cloud-based deployments. We connect securely to our hybrid cloud using transit VPCs and cloud on-ramp for fast deployments. We have recently started using deep packet inspection allowing the use of the transit path as the firewall instead of putting firewalls on both ends of the mesh.

The inexpensive Viptela hardware may be replaced with overpriced Cisco routers. This would be a tragic mistake for Cisco as the lightweight commodity platform built by Viptela is the reason to own this solution. 

Since it was Viptela in 2017.

It is extremely stable. You can set it and forget it, if that is your thing. There are a lot of improvements with each full version release. As with all things Cisco, if you have the chance to wait for a few months before deploying the latest release, do it. They can be buggy for the first few months. 

It is very scalable. We have it deployed to 23 countries, AWS, Azure, and our data centers. 

MPLS, P2P lines and multi-point VPN mesh. These were either too expensive or required too much operational overhead. 

The team at Viptela,and subsequently at Cisco, were extremely engaged and ready to help ensure we had a successful deployment. The concept of an overlay and underlay can be intimidating if you are used to conventional networks, but you will get used to it. 

We deployed it ourselves with our own network engineers. 

80 percent reduction in WAN costs. There are no MPLS or P2P circuits left in the organization. 

Cisco, Citrix, and Fortinet.

Map out all of the applications that use your WAN today. If you have assets like physical phone systems or dedicated VPN devices that are not ready to be off-the-books, start the project anyway. As contacts and hardware become end of life, onboard those sites. You will have a full mesh in no time. If you wait for all of your existing technology to be end of life, you are missing the point.

Our primary use case is for the web gateway and VPN server and for access list control. We basically use the solution as a minimal requirement for the network gateway. We have about 50 users. I work as a network analyst and we're vendors, not a direct partner of Cisco. 

The regular net routing is a good feature. It's not just good for routing although like a lot of things it isn't linked to anything else.

On its own the product does what it's expected to do but if you're looking for more features you'd need to move to a dedicated firewall like the ISA firewall. There's something a little inconvenient and old style about it. 

The solution could have a better web interface to simplify changing configurations or see some statistics. I think the main weakness of the Cisco product is the user interface, I'd like to see things more clearly. 

I've been using the solution for five or six years. 

The stability of the solution is one of the better features. 

Scalability is somewhat limited, especially from the technical side. It's just a gateway with some routing and we don't use any dynamic routing. There's nothing fancy and the scalability is enough for our needs. 

Cisco is always good with technical support, it's easy and the contact is fast when you really need it. 

Initial setup is a little difficult but more or less straightforward. We have an older version which is not as flexible. 

It took us one day to implement and we didn't use any advanced features so it was quite quick. We migrated the set-up from the old device and put it on the new one. They're both on the same platform. We did the implementation ourselves and we have one staff member involved with maintenance. We're currently looking to switch our internet gateway so I'm not sure how long this situation will last. We're looking for a provider so we can outsource the network. 

There's not much advice I can give other than to suggest that people get familiar with using the command line.

I would rate this product an eight out of 10 because it has good reliability. We've rarely had any problems with it.  

Some of my customers are replacing their legacy solutions with Cisco SD-WAN.

Encryption, which is native to the solution, is a valuable feature. Also, central management, onboarding of devices, QS, and routing applications are all okay.

All of the configurations are based on templates, and we need to spend a lot of time doing the templates. It's good because that means that all of the configurations will be equal in the network. However, we need to spend a lot of time implementing the templates and doing the customizations.

I've worked with this solution for about a year. It's a cloud solution.

It is a stable solution.

It is very scalable.

The technical support was okay.

SD-WAN is very difficult to implement, but nowadays, most solutions are difficult to implement.

On a scale from one to five with one being the most complicated and five being very easy to implement, I'd give Cisco SD-WAN a rating of three.

It is not difficult to maintain.

You should prepare to spend a lot of time with the design and implementation of the solution. The design in the cloud is difficult to do because you need to have all the connectivity in place to reach the cloud. It's very easy to spin up an instance of SD-WAN in the cloud, but the connectivity from on-premises systems to the cloud is sometimes difficult to accomplish because of the security features the customers have in place. It's not easy to establish connectivity from the enterprise network to the cloud.

On a scale from one to ten, I would rate Cisco SD-WAN at seven. From a network perspective, it's a very good solution, but the security features could be better. It's not easy to manage security using Cisco SD-WAN. It's not clear; the solution is not related to security and is more related to planning and networking.

We are a solution provider and this is one of the products that we implement for our clients. the primary use case is interconnecting offices.

The main functionality includes a secure firewall, cloud access security broker (CASB), and zero-trust configuration.

It is very simple and easy to manage, compared to other methods.

They should enhance the reporting because, as it is today, they need more executive-level reports.

If in the future they can support Cisco SASE then it would be good.

We have been using Cisco SD-WAN for the past years.

As of now, the stability is fine.

We have not tested the scalability because the volume of traffic is not very high for us. We didn't have to look at it.

My team has been in contact with technical support, but I have not personally had experience with them.

Prior to Cisco SD-WAN, we were using a manual configuration. We used to achieve the same functionality; however, in order to make it simple and easy to manage, we switched to this solution.

I have not worked with other similar products and have no experience with them.

The initial setup is straightforward, and not complex.

It took us almost two months to deploy because we were connecting with a few offices outside of the country. We had to send the equipment to those countries, which was time-consuming.

Our clients have made decisions related to pricing, but we are not involved at this stage.

With respect to security, we did not use the functionality because we were mainly using it to interconnect offices. Security was not a big concern for us. Had there been a requirement for direct connectivity to the internet or accessing the public cloud, then security might have been needed. We were establishing IPsec VPN, which accomplished this task.

This is a product that I can recommend. I am satisfied with it.

I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.

We are a service provider and we plan to provide a managed service to our customers using this product.

The most valuable feature is the ease of central management. That is the main thing for us.

The licensing model needs to be improved.

Sometimes we feel that the choice of models is very limited, so we would like to see additional devices made available.

We have been evaluating Cisco SD-WAN for the past two months.

We have not experienced any issues with stability over the past two months.

We have about 16 users. Because we are just evaluating, we don't have a forecast at this point.

We contacted support because we needed some initial awareness about configuration-related issues.

The initial setup is very difficult. We did not find it easy because we hardly have any experience. This is just the first one that we are setting up.

The costs are a bit on the high side.

We are currently conducting a PoC. We did evaluate two solutions, and Cisco was the one chosen for the proof of concept.

Although we are still in the initial stages, I feel that this is a product that I can recommend. In general, we are satisfied with it.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

Typically it's used for connecting the hundreds of branches to multiple data centers and also the headquarters. 

The mean time between the failures is much lower than was before. Also, the man-hours required are fewer. Overall, the user experience is better than before this solution.

The application link selection, I would say, is quite useful. 

The load sharing over the multiple links is great. 

We like the centralized management and aggregation aspects.

Technology-wise, it's decent.

The solution is pretty stable.

You can easily scale the product.

They did a new interface of Cisco SD-WAN. It's good.

They need to improve the licensing, definitely. It needs to be easier to license. It should also be much more affordable for a larger number of customers. This is one of the main issues when working with customers. When you want to offer them the solution, they really do not like the price.

I would love to have better templating. It needs a more user-friendly interface. 

They need to add the features that help to configure and navigate the daily features. 

It's stable enough. They hardened it to their operating system. It's not an issue.

It scales to a very high number, in terms of the hardware branch elements or hubs, or data centers, or even the cloud connection points. Scaling is not really an issue when it comes to Cisco SD-WAN. 

We currently have two customers on the solution. Right now, mostly, it's in the phase of testing to see how it fits the customer environment. They are considering growing in terms of the sizing and migrating all their traditional or legacy network to SD-WAN. 

Technical support is decent from the Cisco side. We have no complaints about their level of service.

We definitely worked with the other vendors, other competitive vendors. All of them have pros and cons. I have not switched from one vendor SD-WAN to Cisco. It's a relatively easy technology, however, it's not that easy to switch from A to B. We've worked with, for example, HPE, Aruba, and Fortinet.

The initial setup is definitely not straightforward. It takes a lot of experience and knowledge to properly run up the system and clean up all the moving parts, and all the elements of the fabric. After that, the operation is easy. Operation is not that hard, however, to get there, the initial startup is not that easy.

The deployment time depends on the scale, however, typically, the controller spins up after one or two weeks. That's not counting the high-level designs or lower-level designs. 

The deployment only needs one or two engineers, and then you might need one person to handle maintenance requirements.

We are the partners, therefore we are the value-added resellers. So what we do, is to help the customers do the implementation.

The ROI is really good. However, it depends on the company. I can't really evaluate the ROI in general. For some, it will be very high, and for some, it'll be very low. It depends on what they do, and what their expenses are.

The costs to use the product are quite high.

That said, I can't speak to the exact licensing arrangements.

The most annoying thing is that you have to pay an annual subscription in order to operate the whole fabric. Regardless, the customer isn't getting the signatures or any updates. It's just for the functionality to continue as it is. It's also very annoying. This is not only for Cisco. It's true for others as well.

A solution we're currently considering right now is Versa.

We are Cisco partners.

It's a decent technology. If a company really wants to go with SD-WAN, Cisco is one of the greatest in this area, definitely. If they have the budget for that allocated, and the operating expenses are allocated for the coming years, then I would suggest going ahead and trying it. There is always an option to go back to the traditional networking when it comes to Cisco. Therefore, if you don't like SD-WAN, you don't have to throw away the hardware. You can keep the legacy or traditional connections. That's one of the benefits of having Cisco SD-WAN.

I'd rate the solution at a seven out of ten.

There are a few use cases. We work, for example, with a telecom that provides end solutions to end users across different countries.

The product's brand recognition is one of the most valuable aspects of the solution.

We've just started using the solution, so I don't know if there are any features that are missing. We haven't used it long enough to find any faults.

The initial setup could be a bit less complex.

We only started using the solution a year ago.

The solution is stable. There aren't bugs or glitches. The solution is reliable. It just works.

The solution is scalable.

We have the technical knowledge on our side. We get very little support from Cisco, so we rely mostly on our own team.

We use both Cisco and Juniper.

The solution is complex. It's not straightforward. There's a lot of ways to configure it and they're not straightforward. There are two types of the solution as well, so a person would need to know how to deploy either one.

For us, the solution took two to three days to deploy.

I don't know much about the pricing because, at present, we used some simulators to test the software for clients. The pricing does not always match up with what our lab predictions are. We give information to the customers, and we give them some knowledge about the products and we explain the differences between the different vendors, like Juniper, and other vendors small vendors like Altera Technology. Ultimately, the client decides which vendor they will go with.

I'd recommend the solution. Instead of going to another vendor, it's best to go with Cisco, because Cisco has a level of longevity in the global market.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.