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Cisco ACI vs Omada Cloud SDN comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 Software Defined Networking (SDN)
2nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
101
Ranking in other categories
Network Virtualization (1st), Cloud and Data Center Security (4th)
Omada Cloud SDN
Ranking in Software Defined Networking (SDN)
4th
Average Rating
0.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Software Defined Networking (SDN) category, the mindshare of Cisco ACI is 13.8%, up from 5.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Omada Cloud SDN is 11.6%, up from 10.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Software Defined Networking (SDN)
 

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.
Gavin Cotton - PeerSpot reviewer
Reasonably priced, easy to deploy, and enables remote monitoring
The implementation is quite straightforward. It works every time. The setup is very easy. I rate the ease of setup a ten out of ten. The deployment can be done very quickly. The time taken for deployment depends on the setup. Generally, it can be up and running in a few hours.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Automation features have been most beneficial for managing complex networks."
"One significant attraction for clients in Iran is the robustness of multicast solutions, which has been a major driver for them to migrate to Cisco ACI."
"The most valuable feature is the unified fabric."
"Cisco ACI's best features include its network-centric approach and micro-segmentation."
"The operation and maintenance costs have been reduced. It is also simple to deploy any deployment. Any configuration can be easily done."
"The biggest benefit has been that it has improved communication between my endpoints in the data center."
"The initial setup was trivially simple and easy. It builds itself because it is automation. You don't have to do too much."
"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."
"The solution enables us to monitor and help our customer with their connectivity remotely."
 

Cons

"We are looking at better synchronization with the cloud and on-premise, bringing in a multi-cloud networking solution."
"The product needs to be more visible on the Internet and have the ability to be integrated into more software developments."
"We would like to have faster services and problem monitoring for our customers."
"It would be good if Cisco ACI had some cross-domain orchestrator that could rule all the pillars in the customer network or interconnect more easily with the compass environment."
"There were issues when upgrading venues and registering devices."
"So far we've had very few issues, a couple of routing things that were glitches within ACI."
"From my point of view, troubleshooting issues relating to ACI can be a little bit complicated to perform."
"Where there is room for improvement from ACI is for Layer 2 and Layer 7 packages. Normally, when you're updating your ACI fabric or you're introducing new Layer 4 to Layer 7 devices, there are some constraints, there are some limitations... When you are doing device packages you will not have the functionality of ASM. It's like WAF, web application firewalls. So you need to configure it manually."
"The product must provide access points that can be plastered into the ceiling."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This is an expensive solution."
"The thing that I like the most from Cisco is the support and all the documentation that they have. We do have to pay for it though."
"It is quite expensive. It is not at all on the cheap or medium side."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
"We used Cisco Professional Services for the deployment. They were outstanding, but very expensive."
"The cost is fine."
"It's expensive but the product is very good. I have never found another partner like Cisco with a solution like this and with great support."
"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 tool is reasonably priced."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
23%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Government
9%
Educational Organization
8%
Energy/Utilities Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Omada Cloud SDN?
The tool is reasonably priced. There is no licensing fee.
What needs improvement with Omada Cloud SDN?
The product must provide access points that can be plastered into the ceiling. The tool should not be visible on the ceiling.
What is your primary use case for Omada Cloud SDN?
We implement the solution for our clients so that they have Wi-Fi in their villas. We manage the tool for them.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Bowling Green State University, du, Qatar University
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Aviatrix, TP-Link and others in Software Defined Networking (SDN). Updated: January 2025.
832,138 professionals have used our research since 2012.