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Aruba Orchestrator vs Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Aruba Orchestrator
Ranking in Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions
12th
Average Rating
8.8
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN
Ranking in Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions
2nd
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
90
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (4th), WAN Edge (2nd)
 

Featured Reviews

Aneesh K - PeerSpot reviewer
Apr 11, 2024
Provides complete internal visibility from LAN to Wi-Fi, resulting in higher stability and easier troubleshooting
Aruba has plenty of solutions showcased at this event. Perhaps they offer their firewall, which we are not currently utilizing—the LAN switching, ClearPass, and Wi-Fi. ClearPass is is still on-premises, but the switching, Wi-Fi, and security features are included. It has some capabilities, like automation intelligence, which they call AI operations. So it is helpful. Our time spent on troubleshooting will be significantly reduced with it. Another useful feature is that we can inquire about the health data from Aruba Central and receive the necessary answers. Aruba Central simplifies management. Yes, deployment will be much faster than on-premises setups, where you need many hardware gateways. With just an access point or minimal hardware, deployment will be quicker. Troubleshooting with it has also made it much more straightforward. A group of ten people should be more than sufficient to manage an extensive infrastructure. Aruba is providing better support. They are also improving their email services. They are up to market standards, so we choose to go with them. We were looking for a direct vendor, but they didn't meet our requirements. Aruba Orchestrator is meeting our current expectations and standards, so we are sticking with them. We don't have any issues because we have been with Aruba for many years. We don't mind moving from one vendor to another. We are simply transitioning from one rental type to another with Aruba. I prioritize enhancements in AI functionality over other features. There are several implementations, with AI being the primary focus. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.
UR
Dec 16, 2021
Reliable and has multiple SD-WAN options
The implementation process is complex because there are multiple touchpoints and initial configurations that we need to do in order to get the setup up and running. For example, opening a lot of firewall ports. Overall, it has multiple components to manage—there are multiple controller components where we need to do the configurations to get it up and part of the architecture. Compared to a few other OEM solutions, it's a bit complicated because there are multiple controller elements. For example, vBond: I have to do some specific configuration to it and need to have a public IP for it to be part of the architecture. Then we have vManage and vSmart—three, four components are there which have to be managed, which is why we have to do specific configurations for those. All the control elements can talk to each other, which is why it's a bit time consuming. Even in the cloud, you have to make some changes to your existing setup so that it can be part of the SD-WAN architecture.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The most important feature is WAN optimization."
"The most valuable feature is optimization."
"The technical support services are excellent."
"The Business Intent Overlay is a great feature."
"We had to deal with separate management models for Wi-Fi and switches. With Aruba Orchestrator, it's now a unified solution, making things much easier for us. We log in and manage everything from a single console. It provides complete internal visibility from LAN to Wi-Fi, resulting in higher stability and easier troubleshooting. The management process is much quicker and more streamlined."
"The solution has a single pane of glass view that allows you to see everything happening in your SD-WAN world."
"The product has reduced OpEx expenditure."
"Aruba Orchestrator has notably reduced enrollment setup times from several hours to within an hour if prepared and planned."
"The most valuable feature of Cisco SD-WAN is its compatibility and integration with the rest of the infrastructure."
"The segmented traffic it provides is the best in the industry right now."
"The most valuable features of Cisco SD-WAN include the DIA and its integration with Cisco Umbrella for DNS security."
"Customizing SD-WAN is very easy because you can define two colors. You can define two different operators. You can deploy a partial mesh, a full mesh, or hub-and-spoke totally differently. If you want to do this on a DMVPN solution, that's really hard."
"I like creating policies. This way, we can better utilize our WAN circuit and get better rates. Its GUI is user-friendly, and the CLI is also great."
"We would recommend this solution to customers looking to implement it on a global scale. We recommend the solution, not only because of the functionality or the technical support, but also because of the delivery of the solution, and the docking and upgrading capabilities."
"It is really easy to deploy and use. It is also easy to use for failovers and designing solutions. The rollout is really quick. It is easy to adjust and roll out."
"The most valuable features are manageability, scalability, and simplicity."
 

Cons

"The management menu should be simplified."
"They could provide essential training to understand the product functionality."
"The initial setup is complex, depending on the overall planning for the entire environment."
"The solution can be improved by lowering the cost and making it more user-friendly for first-time users."
"The solution lacks sufficient security features."
"Aruba Orchestrator should implement dynamic certificate changes for security."
"Some configurations or procedures could be more user-friendly. Adding a bandwidth management feature would make Cisco SD-WAN more scalable and less resource-intensive."
"Technical support could be more helpful and responsive."
"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."
"There should be more security features in the hybrid and on-premise deployments of Cisco SD-WAN. The cloud has most of the security features."
"The solution could have a better web interface to simplify changing configurations."
"The UI has room for improvement."
"The bandwidth limitations would be good to remove, but it is a policy and license situation for Cisco because the cost is very high. It would be good to have OTP implemented with VRF. It can have support for EIGRP Over the Top (OTP) VRF. I saw some limitations in regards to the VRF protocol and the advertisement between VRF configuration. EIGRP Over the Top basically was quite limited with the VRF configuration. If you wanted to do rollback in VRF by using the EIGRP OTP protocol, the formation was not populated across. Cisco got back and confirmed that it is a configuration that I need to wait for until the next release, which is going to happen in one year. Cisco documentation is not the way it used to be before. It just gives an easy way to configure, but it doesn't go into the details of the configuration. The information that you need is there, but sometimes you want to go further and get more information, but the information is quite limited. It would be good to cover a few business cases or configuration cases. They used to be there in the past."
"The solution is very costly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I rate the platform’s pricing a five out of ten."
"I think it is quite expensive compared to other vendors in the market because it depends on what kind of features you really want to acquire in the product."
"Aruba Orchestrator is free to use."
"The solution's licensing costs are yearly. It is not expensive, and I rate it around three to four out of ten."
"The price of Cisco SD-WAN is expensive. We pay approximately $50 monthly for the use of the solution."
"This is not a cheap option but if you move from Capex to Opex, I expect you should have lower costs."
"The license model is too complex with too many flavors and options. You might not be able to see it from an end user's point of view, but from a telco point of view, their license model is too complex. They should have a flexible license model. If you want to have good pricing, you need to buy it for a two-year, four-year, or five-year license immediately. Some other vendors have much more flexible license models."
"The product's license is expensive."
"The pricing is fair, and it's on par with the market vendors. But based on the competition, Cisco could work on the pricing, go deep on discounts and provide more commercially viable solutions to customers."
"Cost-wise, Cisco SD-WAN is comparatively high."
"It is expensive. The license limitation is there in terms of bandwidth. Basically, Cisco is always good in terms of performance and related things. However, if you want to have a license, for example, for 100 Mbps, they charge you because of their 100 Mbps. If you want to go without the license of 300 Mbps, it is a bandwidth license as well. This is not happening with other vendors. That is the reason why we moved away from Cisco. The bill gets a little bit high. I do remember that one time we were trying to increase the bandwidth for at least five devices, and the license got as high as 20-grand for five devices, only for the license. It was expensive for us at the time. Our company is not a big company, but it is a solid company. The price was very high, and we moved away from Cisco because of the price."
"We can only buy three-year licenses, not monthly. The cost seems high for us, especially since we're in Vietnam, which isn't a rich country. But we still like the product because it is good."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Educational Organization
40%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Silver Peak Unity Orchestrator?
Aruba is not expensive. It's subscription-based, so we do not need any maintenance contracts. The support will be handled through self-subscription. I rate the solution's pricing as eight out of te...
What do you like most about Cisco SD-WAN?
When considering the most valuable features of Cisco SD-WAN, the decoupling of self-monitoring stands out significantly.
What needs improvement with Cisco SD-WAN?
Customers collaborate with ISPs and currently work with three ISPs, using options like LSM VPN and MPLS VPN to reduce line costs. They are considering moving from their current setup to an MPLS VPN...
 

Also Known As

Silver Peak Unity Orchestrator, Unity Orchestrator
Cisco SD-WAN
 

Learn More

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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Doyle Research, Ashton Metzler & Associates
Find out what your peers are saying about Aruba Orchestrator vs. Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN and other solutions. Updated: August 2024.
801,634 professionals have used our research since 2012.