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Cisco ACI vs Illumio comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.8
Customer service for Cisco ACI is mixed, with good responsiveness overall but inconsistent support and regional variations.
No sentiment score available
 

Room For Improvement

Sentiment score
3.9
Cisco ACI needs better training, intuitive setup, improved GUI, enhanced security, flexible policies, and better tech support and integration.
No sentiment score available
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.7
Cisco ACI is highly rated for scalability, ease of expansion, flexibility, centralized management, and adaptability for medium to large enterprises.
No sentiment score available
 

Setup Cost

Sentiment score
4.0
Cisco ACI is costly but valued for quality in data centers, with mixed pricing opinions and concerns about licensing costs.
No sentiment score available
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.9
Cisco ACI is considered highly stable and reliable, especially from version 4.2, with minor, manageable bugs and high user ratings.
No sentiment score available
 

Valuable Features

Sentiment score
8.4
Cisco ACI enables centralized management, streamlined configuration, and seamless VMware integration, excelling in scalability, automation, and low latency.
No sentiment score available
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco ACI
Ranking in Cloud and Data Center Security
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
99
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
6.3
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (14th), Microsegmentation Software (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Cloud and Data Center Security category, the mindshare of Cisco ACI is 10.9%, down from 11.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Illumio is 23.0%, up from 15.7% 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.
Vincent TOH - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers real-time application dependency mapping that is useful
The product's initial setup phase is not difficult. We are using a cloud version of the tool. Picking up the PC for the setup was difficult because Illumio's service provider took care of it. In our company, we only installed the tool on our devices, so it wasn't much of a difficult process. On a scale of one to ten, one is difficult, and ten is easy, I rate the setup phase as nine. I didn't deploy Illumio. My company uses the cloud version of the tool. I created my account and paired my device, which was all that was required.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
24%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
16%
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?
The product's pricing is around 10,000-15,000 USD. The pricing is on a yearly basis.
What needs improvement with Illumio Adaptive Security Platform?
The log collection part needs improvement, and the tool should offer more details about the logs. We need more details on areas where there is an error or a traffic blockage. I would like the tool ...
 

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: October 2024.
816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.