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Cisco Secure Workload vs VMware NSX comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Secure Workload
Ranking in Cloud and Data Center Security
8th
Ranking in Microsegmentation Software
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (16th), Cisco Security Portfolio (9th)
VMware NSX
Ranking in Cloud and Data Center Security
2nd
Ranking in Microsegmentation Software
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
101
Ranking in other categories
Network Virtualization (2nd), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (8th), Network Detection and Response (NDR) (8th), Network Automation (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the Cloud and Data Center Security category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure Workload is 18.4%, up from 14.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware NSX is 24.8%, down from 32.6% 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
Discover internal application dependencies and create a dependency map
We actively seek improvements in integrating the Infoblox DDI platform with Cisco Secure Workload. This integration allows Cisco Secure Workload to learn about our networks and network tags, providing valuable insights into vulnerabilities related to the operating system and various applications installed on our servers. Recently, Cisco announced a new product called HyperShield, an AI-based autonomous micro-segmentation solution. While Cisco has not stated that HyperShield will replace Cisco Secure Workload, it represents a natural evolution for the company. HyperShield features dynamic policy discovery and enforcement; however, once policies are enforced, they do not change until a discovery occurs, requiring a re-enforcement process. This new platform operates autonomously, minimizing the need for user or security engineer intervention. I would have expected Cisco to incorporate more automatic discovery and enforcement features within the existing Cisco Secure Workload product. Instead of enhancing the current product, they have introduced a new solution. Cisco plans to honor existing Tetration licenses, allowing users to transition to HyperShield without additional costs, reflecting the investment enterprises have already made. From Cisco’s perspective, this represents a natural progression in their product line. While the product name changes, it seems more of a rebranding effort. The enhancements are greater autonomy, improved discovery, and automatic enforcement, which are now being introduced in HyperShield. Cisco Secure Workload offers automatic policy enforcement but cannot adjust policies dynamically as the application needs to change. Having used the platform for the past five years, the recent announcement has been reassuring. Cisco has confirmed that our investment in the platform will not go to waste. They will honor our existing licenses, providing a natural migration path to the new solution without any disruption
Santi-Lara Garcia - PeerSpot reviewer
Integrates perfectly but must be purchased as part of a bundle package
The solution is only sold as part of a bundle and not as an individual product. Some customers only need vSphere or NSX for their use cases, but account executives focus on bundles so this is a problem. Account executives need to talk with both systems and security staff to get a full picture of the environment's requirements. For example, systems staff have no need for the solution so they will never deploy it.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature of the solution is that we don't have to do packet captures on the network."
"Generally speaking, Cisco support is considered one of the best in the networking products and stack."
"Scalability is its most valuable feature."
"The most valuable feature is micro-segmentation, which is the most important with respect to visibility."
"The product offers great visibility into the network so we can enforce security measures."
"The product provides multiple-device integration."
"Instead of proving that all the access control lists are in place and all the EPGs are correct, we can just point the auditor to a dashboard and point out that there aren't any escaped conversations. It saves an enormous, enormous amount of time."
"By using Tetration insight, we are able to get the latency on our level accounts and we can determine whatever the issue is with the application latency itself."
"VMware NSX offers some of the best features for security, such as micro-segmentation."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"The most valuable feature of VMware NSX is the ease of use and its user friendly. For example, it is simple to change the subnet masks."
"The installation is straightforward, it took a couple of hours."
"I am impressed with the tool's protection."
"The most valuable feature of VMware NSX is the load balancing and routing of firewall rules. Many of the features are beneficial."
"From a security standpoint, the customer was able to better secure critical workloads while routing L2/L3 worked normally, giving them more confidence that they would be ready for any potential security incident mitigation or outage (DR)."
"During our experience, the solution has been stable."
 

Cons

"Secure Workload is a little complicated to use, and the dashboard isn't intuitive, so it takes a while to learn how to use it."
"The multi-tenancy, redundancy, backup and restore functionalities, as well as the monitoring aspects of the solution, need improvement. The solution offers virtually no enterprise-grade possibility for monitoring."
"It is not so easy to use and configure. It needs a bunch of further resources to work, which is mainly the biggest downside of it. The deployment is huge."
"The interface is really helpful for technical people, but it is not user-friendly."
"There is some overlap between Cisco Tetration and AppDynamics and I need to have a single pane of glass, rather than have to jump between different tools."
"The product must be integrated with the cloud."
"It has an uninviting interface."
"They should scale down the hardware a bit. The initial hardware investment is two million dollars so it's a price point problem. The issue with the price comes from the fact that you have to have it with enormous storage and enormous computes."
"I have no complaints regarding the user interface or any technical issues."
"The integration with other brands is not the best."
"Lacks integration with other solutions."
"They have to work more and more on the integration for public cloud services and have cyber security platform integration."
"In the future, the solution should be compliant with internet NIC."
"The setup is complex and should be made easier."
"I would like to see automation capabilities in the deployment process."
"This solution is really unusable from my perspective at this point. Overall, I would rate the solution a one of ten."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is not cheap and pricing may limit scalability."
"Pricing depends on the scope of the application and the features. Larger installations save more."
"The price is based on how many computers you're going to install it on."
"The pricing is a bit higher than we anticipated."
"The cost for the hardware is around 300k."
"Regarding price, Cisco Secure Workload can be expensive if you don't have a budget. If you're not doing micro-segmentation, every extra security measure or enforcement you're putting on top of your existing environment will be an extra cost. It's not a cheap solution at all. But from my point of view, if you need to do micro-segmentation, this is one of the best tools I've seen for it. I can't compare that to Microsoft's solution because I haven't looked into it. I've looked into VMware and Cisco. Those are the only two that I know of. I didn't know that Microsoft could do micro-segmentation at all. Maybe they can, but I haven't heard anything about it."
"The price is outrageous. If you have money to throw at the product, then do it."
"The tool's pricing is reasonable."
"The price of VMware NSX is optimal. Additionally, the price of the solution can be negotiated with the vendor. Many areas of the solution can impact the cost, such as features, time for onboarding, and support needed."
"I would rate the pricing of VMware NSX as seven out of ten"
"The cost of the solution is a bit high."
"Our customers have definitely complained about its cost. It's expensive. I'd rate it a nine out of ten in terms of pricing where ten represents a high price. There are other products out there that are equally expensive."
"The price is pretty high."
"We haven't had to hire a dedicated network engineer because NSX handles 90 percent of it. The reduced overhead in terms of managing networks has been the biggest plus."
"The solution is reasonable at the local level."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
28%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco Secure Workload?
The product provides multiple-device integration.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Secure Workload?
CloudStrike offers antivirus capabilities and firewall features for servers and VDI but lacks automatic policy discovery. This raises questions about the resources required to discover and write po...
What needs improvement with Cisco Secure Workload?
We actively seek improvements in integrating the Infoblox DDI platform with Cisco Secure Workload. This integration allows Cisco Secure Workload to learn about our networks and network tags, provid...
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 VMware NSX?
The product has valuable features for security and network extension.
 

Also Known As

Cisco Tetration
VMware Nicira, Lastline Defender
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ADP, University of North Carolina Charlotte (UNCC)
City of Avondale, Lumeta, Kroll Ontrack, Heartland Payment Systems, Baystate Heallth, Exostar, Tribune Media, iGATE, NTT Communications, Synergent, California Natural Resources Agency, Bloomington Public Schools, Columbia Sportswear, Join Experience S.A, Schuberg Philis
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Workload vs. VMware NSX and other solutions. Updated: November 2024.
823,795 professionals have used our research since 2012.