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Cisco ACI vs Illumio comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Cisco ACI
Ranking in Cloud and Data Center Security
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
101
Ranking in other categories
Network Virtualization (1st), Software Defined Networking (SDN) (2nd)
Illumio
Ranking in Cloud and Data Center Security
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (14th), Microsegmentation Software (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Cloud and Data Center Security category, the mindshare of Cisco ACI is 11.2%, down from 11.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Illumio is 23.9%, up from 16.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud and Data Center Security
 

Featured Reviews

Raj Metkar - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides scalability, ease of migration for future DC moves, multi-tenancy and programmability
Cisco's MSO (Multi-Site Orchestrator) or NDO has room for improvement. Cisco monitors ACI through a product called NDI. I find it very frustrating that Cisco has multiple monitoring platforms. It has DNAC for monitoring Cisco NX-OS, campus switches, and any other routers and switches you would have in the environment. That same thing does not work for Cisco ACI monitoring. MEraki cloudbasd platform for Meraki which will get extended to Campus monitoring, to be honest Cisco never got Monitoring 100% right from days of CiscoWorks to Prime to current platforms. To monitor and manage Cisco ACI, you need to have another platform called NDI and Cisco Dashboard Insights. What frustrates me about Cisco is that it never has a central, single pane of glass platform for all its solutions. It has one thing for Cisco ACI and another thing for campus switches. I would really appreciate it if Cisco came up with something centralized to monitor everything. I haven't thought about anything since the Cisco NDO is quite advanced, and you can deploy your cloud networking through it. I don't know how many people use it. I might explore it as my cloud orchestration tool in the future. We do a lot of cloud automation using our scripts like TerraForm, but I would like to see people using NDO more. We could have more case studies on how many people use NDO for their cloud orchestration. That might be a much easier journey for people when they move from an on-premises data center into a cloud and move from one cloud to another cloud. That is where I personally see an orchestrator being effectively used for multiple deployments.
Alark Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
Visual traffic interface aids in network micro-segmentation while a streamlined update option enhances process efficiency
The strongest aspect of Illumio is the visual traffic interface, which allows us to see all traffic that communicates with our servers and allied companies. We can write rules that can be embedded into the IP table, making it easy to handle. Illumio enables us to see network flows, traffic sources, and destinations. The policy generation and enforcement capabilities are valuable, allowing for selective enforcement. Illumio helps in audit purposes by saving data and showing blocked traffic, ensuring no outside traffic is allowed.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The centralized management of the entire network data center, in this case with ACI, is the most valuable feature. By having access to some powerful APIs you can build your own tool to speak to the ACI controller, then with that, you can deploy things really fast. Having the option to build your own tools and then using the centralized management of the ACI to push the configuration to the network devices is very valuable."
"I have found the SDN features to be the most valuable."
"We get a full holistic view of the ecosystem."
"Having a lot of racks and switches with a single point of configuration which can be done with automation on one platform using one API. This makes everything work faster."
"It's improved the static configuration of our data center switching environment. But it's added some challenges to our ability to operationalize it and make it easier for people to manage."
"We are doing automation from ACI and we have integration with Azure. With the Azure stack integration we can have total automation. We can configure the EPGs from there, and we can configure load balancing functionalities from there as well. The most useful feature is that you don't need to configure anything on ACI itself. You can configure on Azure and it will provision your application."
"I like using WebEx Board."
"Cisco's technical support team is very good."
"The dependency map is most valuable feature."
"The flexibility of the solution is its most valuable feature."
"The Explorer allows you to know the traffic between source and destination."
"The features that I have found most useful is the ability to centralize all the rules and then distribute them across various locations. However, I've encountered challenges related to tagging policies, which can be complex to devise. It's a matter that requires careful consideration and stakeholder involvement before implementing such policies."
"The product provides visibility into how the applications communicate and how the network protocols are being used."
"Customer support is excellent."
"The strongest aspect of Illumio is the visual traffic interface, which allows us to see all traffic that communicates with our servers and allied companies."
"The most valuable feature of Illumio Adaptive Security Platform is monitoring. When I have no requirement from the other application, I can use the web block traffic to build."
 

Cons

"Customer support for ACI needs improvement. Many customers prefer HPE because their internal support is different and easier to integrate with existing networks. This lack of awareness of ACI's capabilities makes customers stick to traditional networking."
"Cisco ACI, segmentation-wise, could be more flexible, which is an area for improvement. The solution could be improved in terms of macro or micro-segmentation for many access lists and contracts. The process becomes very messy in the end."
"Since it is a new technology, Cisco moved all the menus. This made it tricky to use."
"My complaint about this is: We purchased the ACI gear, but to do monitoring, to do stats, to do telemetry statistics, etc. we have to purchase another product from Cisco."
"It needs to be able to function on the cloud."
"I would like to see more troubleshooting apps."
"I would like to see the data center unification of Cisco ACI with Cisco DNA into a single platform to deliver the data center and campus sides."
"The integration has room for improvement. There should be a drag-and-drop interface for configuring the integration where you connect some arrows to boxes, and the system takes care of the configuration. Right now, they have something similar, but it's limited. You have to take care of some things yourself. That is one area that the solution can work on. It's easy now, but it's much easier in other solutions."
"I would like to see better data security in the product."
"The product’s agents don't work very well in OT environments."
"I have not had the chance to experiment deeply with it."
"The customer service is lagging a bit. It could be better."
"The solution is very basic and doesn't do anything other than the orchestration of layer four endpoint firewall rules."
"The interaction we've had with the support team hasn't been ideal. Technical support should be improved."
"Illumio Adaptive Security Platform could improve by supporting more operating systems. For example, Cisco and Apache appliances."
"Some of the features that can be improved is offer additional guidance on creating an effective and risk-free tagging policy would be highly beneficial."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Once you sign for the start kit implementation, you have to go all the way through to the implementation, even if you are experiences issues."
"The good thing about Cisco is that you can trade in your old products to replace them with ACI."
"Cisco's pricing is very expensive."
"Pricing for Cisco ACI could be expensive if you're not a gold partner. If you're a gold partner, you'll get reasonable pricing, but to become a gold partner, you must cross several layers. For example, at least twenty engineers within your organization have to be certified, with each certification priced at £2,000 minimum, so this would make some companies think twice about the product. If you're going for Aruba and Juniper products, on the other hand, you can quickly get the partner status, and you can start selling the product. As a gold partner, you can get up to seventy percent discount on Cisco ACI, for example, while an ordinary partner gets ten percent off. Cisco ACI is expensive for both customers and partners, but I'm rating pricing for the product as four out of five because even if the price is costly, you get a lot of benefits from the product. Cisco ACI isn't the best, price-wise, but it's still a good solution. If you're in a small organization, you may be unable to afford it. Cisco ACI is best for enterprises but not SMBs because Cisco ACI and its required resources are expensive."
"Cisco is much more expensive than other vendors, especially when it comes to the licensing."
"The product is not cheap."
"If you compare the licensing and total cost of ACI, it's cheaper than NSX because of the licensing fees. If you are going for full NSX features it will be too expensive, especially the next-generation firewalling feature."
"The licensing cost for ACI is expensive - I would rate its price 2.5 out of five."
"There is a subscription needed to use Illumio Adaptive Security Platform and we pay every three years. Overall the solution is expensive."
"The product's pricing is around 10,000-15,000 USD. The pricing is on a yearly basis."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
23%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What are the biggest differences between Cisco ACI and VMware NSX?
There are some very major differences between both the Products and to name a few. -Cisco ACI have physical network gear (9K Switches) where the Code runs in ACI Policy Mode & the UCS server wh...
What are the biggest differences between Cisco ACI and VMware NSX?
Once you know your way around the Cisco ecosystem, using Cisco ACI is not so difficult. It is a global product, so when you change one interface, changes are automatically reflected on every switch...
What do you like most about Cisco ACI?
The flexibility of adding new components with minimal impact on existing services running in the data center is a key benefit of this ACI-based solution.
What do you like most about Illumio Adaptive Security Platform?
The features that I have found most useful is the ability to centralize all the rules and then distribute them across various locations. However, I've encountered challenges related to tagging poli...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Illumio Adaptive Security Platform?
I do not have specific knowledge about pricing details as it is handled by upper management. I know that Illumio is the cheapest solution in the security area.
What needs improvement with Illumio Adaptive Security Platform?
There should be an option to upgrade from the console to the latest version instead of performing manual upgrades. This would be more helpful to streamline processes.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Illumio Adaptive Security Platform, Illumio ASP
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Bowling Green State University, du, Qatar University
Plantronics, NTT Innovation Institute Inc.
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco ACI vs. Illumio and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.