What advice do you have for others considering Cisco SD-WAN?

Overall, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.

Cisco provides the best support, and that's why most people are using it. Cisco is a brand right now that provides a fast solution for networks. Cisco SD-WAN is a cloud-based solution. Users who want the best support can choose Cisco SD-WAN. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

I recommend the solution. Overall, I rate the solution as five out of ten.

Overall, I rate the solution a six or seven out of ten.

SD-WAN has significantly improved our customers' network management. It brings a lot of efficiency, particularly through automation. Instead of manually configuring each device, we can utilize a centralized management platform to push configurations and manage devices. It enhances operational efficiency and provides better visibility into network operations. Additionally, it facilitates the deployment of advanced features, such as gigabit capabilities, which might otherwise be challenging to implement. The scalability and flexibility of Cisco SD-WAN have brought significant benefits to our clients. From a business perspective, it has led to better management and improved quality of service for applications. Optimizing application performance and enabling multiple applications hosting on servers with enhanced quality has played a crucial role in enhancing service levels. The traffic management capabilities play a crucial role in optimizing SD-WAN performance. With different types of circuits like MPLS, Internet, 4G, and 5G, organizations prioritize critical applications for reliable service. It optimizes application traffic across the most suitable circuits. It offers traffic optimization and error correction to enhance throughput and ensure efficient traffic flow even in link quality issues. The integration into infrastructure has impacted IT overhead and costs. While there is an additional pricing model for the subscriptions, its efficiency must also be considered as it adds significant value. It is not a hardware-agnostic platform requiring integration with Cisco hardware. However, since many of our customers already use Cisco products, the migration from non-SD-WAN to SD-WAN was relatively seamless, with minimal problems. Depending on their needs, if routing capabilities are prioritized, Cisco and Huawei offer extensive routing features, making them strong contenders among SD-WAN vendors. However, if security is a top concern, Palo Alto or Fortinet are worth considering. Cisco's solution is particularly robust in routing, boasting a significant market share. I rate it an eight out of ten.

The primary advantage we've observed is the simplification of deployment, leading to decreased IT costs and enhanced operational efficiency. It also optimizes various dependencies from an architectural perspective. In supporting our cloud migration and multi-cloud strategy, Cisco SD-WAN, particularly through Cisco Umbrella, has addressed the critical factor of sustaining user experience during application migration. By facilitating local Internet breakout in remote sites, users can access applications directly through Cisco Umbrella, ensuring a comprehensive security solution throughout the migration process. Additionally, the scalability and flexibility of Cisco SD-WAN have been highly beneficial for our organization. Compared to other solutions, such as VeloCloud, Forty SD-WAN, and SilverPeak SD-WAN, Cisco's integrated approach with Viptela has stood out, offering enhanced software-defined networking features and centralized orchestration. This scalability has allowed us to expand our network architecture globally while streamlining management efforts. Furthermore, integrating Cisco SD-WAN into our existing infrastructure has significantly reduced costs. While I cannot disclose specific percentages, we have strategically reinvested these savings where needed, enabling us to migrate retail access links from MPLS to the Internet while maintaining security and investing strategically in core services. For those considering Cisco SD-WAN, I highly recommend it for its true flavor of software-defined networking in WAN infrastructure. With robust support from the Cisco team, channel partners, and readily available resources in the market, Cisco SD-WAN offers a reliable, advantageous solution for long-term network management and optimization. I rate it an eight out of ten.

Overall, I would rate it eight out of ten.

Take the opportunity to simplify your network while migrating. Since it is a new technology, and you do not simplify your network, you will end up in more complex situations than you were in the first place. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

I would rate the solution a seven out of ten. If you have the money, then you should go for the product. The tool's performance is good.

We have a team of 25 people for the maintenance of the solutions. I would advise others that Cisco SD-WAN security is not highly secure. It is best to use a SaaS solution, such as Prisma SD-WAN and Primsa Access. If cost is not a concern then this is a good solution to use. I rate Cisco SD-WAN an eight out of ten.

I give Cisco SD-WAN an eight out of ten. Cisco SD-WAN is mainly intended for medium to large enterprises as it provides significant benefits for organizations with distributed offices across different regions or countries. I recommend that new users become familiar with all the features that Cisco SD-WAN offers, to enable them to complete their tasks effectively.

I recommend the solution and rate it a seven out of ten.

I would tell potential users that if they are worried about the cost factor or want an easy plug-and-play solution, they can go ahead with this solution. It's straightforward, and you don't need highly technical people to use it. On a scale from one to ten, I would give Cisco SD-WAN a nine.

I rate the solution a nine out of ten and I would recommend it to others.

I would rate this solution as seven out of ten.

Cisco SD-WAN is a wonderful solution, and I would give it an eight out of ten. I recommend it because it is easy to establish connectivity and is an independent solution that does not require you send staff out to a client's location.

I'm a consultant. We are Cisco resellers and partners. For new users, a POC would be required so that they can understand whether it is fitting into their requirements or not. Implementation is not a big deal here. The deal is whether will serve its purpose or not. I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

We are a customer of Cisco. I'd rate the solution seven out of ten.

My advice is that there might be some other solutions on the market that are also pretty good, so they need to understand their market and customer requirements. Think about which solution will be easy to deploy and also how scalable it will be. The strategy should be to understand the solution and have an approach and proper plan and roadmap before implementing the solution. Also, compute the information of the devices before implementing the solution. I would rate this solution as a nine out of ten.

You should prepare to spend a lot of time with the design and implementation of the solution. The design in the cloud is difficult to do because you need to have all the connectivity in place to reach the cloud. It's very easy to spin up an instance of SD-WAN in the cloud, but the connectivity from on-premises systems to the cloud is sometimes difficult to accomplish because of the security features the customers have in place. It's not easy to establish connectivity from the enterprise network to the cloud. On a scale from one to ten, I would rate Cisco SD-WAN at seven. From a network perspective, it's a very good solution, but the security features could be better. It's not easy to manage security using Cisco SD-WAN. It's not clear; the solution is not related to security and is more related to planning and networking.

I rate this solution an eight out of ten. The Cisco brand is strong, and its connections to the government are also strong. Cisco has very good distribution and connections with universities, unlike other equipment manufacturers. In addition, they provide free seminars to government officials and receive allowances in return. Cisco does a great job managing its customers. I believe Cisco and Palo Alto here in Jakarta and Indonesia are very strong compared to Aruba and Citrix. I last heard about Citrix when I worked with Nokia and Motorola ten years ago. Citrix only does password and computer synchronization, which is done from Singapore. Citrix also did not have local support about ten to 12 years ago. Cisco has been around for quite a long time and gives a very good discount to system integrators if they try to sell their product. Although they have high published prices, the price for a distributor or reseller is very attractive with discounts sometimes as high as about 20% or 30%.

I would give Cisco SD-WAN a rating of seven out of ten.

The technical support is good from Cisco. When we have a problem we notify Cisco and within a day or two, they will have solved the situation. They are very cooperative.

I'd rate the solution a six out of ten.

I would rate this solution 7 out of 10. My advice is to identify your real needs for the solution. Do you really need SD-WAN or are you just following the trends?

I rate Cisco SD-WAN a ten out of ten.

I rate Cisco SD-WAN an eight out of ten.

Cisco SD-WAN is a great solution and definitely worth the investment. I rate Cisco SD-WAN an eight out of ten.

Overall, this is a good solution and I recommend it. The only complaint I have is that I would like them to resolve the problems with the licensing model. I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

In summary, this product is very strong when you need complex topologies to match the complexity of your services.

I rate Cisco SD-WAN a ten out of ten. To those considering implementation, my advice would be to understand your current infrastructure better. What exactly is being implemented, currently, and what use cases are you looking at? Having a thorough understanding of the existing infrastructure would really help to decide which option to go with: either the Meraki SD-WAN or Viptela. Have a thorough understanding of how your infrastructure currently is, connectivity, how the architecture is, which applications you use, and which use cases you're looking at. These things are helpful to know before choosing and implementing a Cisco solution.

This is a great solution.

I would rate Cisco SD-WAN seven out of 10.

We're a service partner. As implementors, we install all versions. Usually, however, when we get involved, it's always the latest version that we are installing. I'd advise users to understand what they're getting. It's a good idea to probably do a POC to see it and make sure it meets all the requirements that the company is looking for before buying in completely. I'd rate the solution at a six out of ten.

I would recommend this solution to others. I rate Cisco SD-WAN a ten out of ten.

Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would give this solution a rating of nine. If you're interested in using this solution, first ask yourself how often do you need to change your network configuration? If you rarely have to switch, then you don't need SD-WAN.

Typically, we are technology agnostic, therefore, we can support clients in implementing systems, using different kinds of technologies. Among them is Cisco. We tend to work with hybrid deployments as the major pain point for clients is to harmonize, to have public and private clouds working together. There is no distinction for clients between public and private. Typically, they call us to organize to a single pane of glass, where they can control all the cloud, their network activities in a very simple, seamless way. The difficulty today is exactly putting together to work a very diverse kind of hardware ecosystem ranging from Google Cloud or Amazon Cloud, Azure that is growing exponentially these days, and plus all the enterprise data center, and putting all these elements together. Sometimes after mergers and acquisitions, we have to patch together pieces of hardware from different organizations that are not even compatible. For example, very recently, we supported the MNA integration of two different companies, and they were using two completely different systems. One was based on Cisco, the other one on Fortinet and Palo Alto, and was using lots of data. That is the problem today. Unifying all the settings, all the controls using a kind of centralized control and making sure that public and private clouds are working together in a very seamless fashion. I'd rate the solution at a perfect ten out of ten.

I would advise potential users to try Cisco and see if they offer more for their enterprise needs. I would recommend Cisco SD-WAN to new users. On a scale from one to ten, I would give Cisco SD-WAN a nine.

We're a service provider and a Cisco Partner. We use Cisco technology in implementing the services. I'm not sure or which version of the solution we are using. It's likely the latest, however, I'm not sure of the version number. The solution is deployed both on-premises and on cloud and with Meraki and with Stellar. I would recommend the solution. I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

We are a Cisco partner. I've worked with a variety of different versions of the solution. I'm not always using the latest version. Cisco is a very professional organization. They offer good support. I would rate the solution at a seven out of ten.

My overall advice is that if you already have your network security established, then Cisco SD-WAN is a good, solid solution for the rest of the networking components. However, if you require more of an all-in-one SD-WAN solution that incorporates security from the beginning, you might want to look elsewhere. I would rate Cisco SD-WAN a seven out of ten.

We're partners for Cisco. We're resellers and implementers. For the routers, we are using versions 73.2 and 16.12.3. We use both cloud and on-premises deployment models. Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would rate this product at an eight. We've mostly been quite happy with it.

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.

I would recommend it only if you have the budget to buy and implement a good solution with Cisco. Otherwise, unfortunate for Cisco, there are other vendors. They do the job pretty well. They are able to deliver what you require in the same way that Cisco does, but the price is going to be a little bit affordable for the company. In my company, we don't have any plans of buying anything related to SD-WAN, but, in terms of personal growth, I'm planning to get more information and more knowledge about SD-WAN. There are a couple of courses that I could learn from. I would rate Cisco SD-WAN a six out of ten. It is a good solution with SD-WAN, but it is not the best.

I would rate Cisco SD-WAN a seven out of ten.

I would recommend checking the exact amount of bandwidth that you really need. We have installed double one links for our office, but you probably don't need a gig link or a hundred mega link. I would rate Cisco SD-WAN a five out of ten. I want to be in the middle because it is the first solution that we are testing. I don't know if it is the best or the worst. I have known Cisco, and I am pretty sure it is not the worst. They know what they are talking about. They have been working on networking stuff for a long time. I don't want to give a ten because I don't even have another solution to compare. To get a ten, a solution has to respond to our needs, and it should have good pricing because at the end of the day, in terms of routing and other things, all solutions are almost the same. It is the pricing that becomes the main factor.

With respect to security, we did not use the functionality because we were mainly using it to interconnect offices. Security was not a big concern for us. Had there been a requirement for direct connectivity to the internet or accessing the public cloud, then security might have been needed. We were establishing IPsec VPN, which accomplished this task. This is a product that I can recommend. I am satisfied with it. I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.

Although we are still in the initial stages, I feel that this is a product that I can recommend. In general, we are satisfied with it. I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

I would recommend this solution. It is a great solution, and it is already defined. It is more suitable for medium and large enterprises operating in lots of regions and countries. For smaller organizations, you can use a normal business DSL solution. I would advise doing a VR test to make sure that all settings are correct. We have had issues where the configuration or IP spoofing on the network was not so good. You also need to know the number of tenants that you need. You can set it up on paper, but if you don't test it, you would never know that it is working. I would rate Cisco SD-WAN a nine out of ten. It is the best solution that I ever had, but there might be something better than this in the future.

The advice that I would give someone in the market for an SD-WAN is to look at Gartner and see what Gartner has to say. My information is recent in that the bank that I implemented it in does other business with me and they tell me that everything is working great. They have never had a problem. It is now four years later and it is probably worthwhile taking a look at what the competition is doing — including Cisco Meraki, which is another SD-WAN offering from Cisco. A lot of companies have implemented Cisco Meraki, and Cisco Meraki is a good solution. But there is also Versa which is a good SD-WAN solution. There are at least seven or eight very well-known companies that provide SD-WAN solutions. On a scale of one to ten (where one is the worst and ten is the best), I would rate Cisco SD-WAN as a ten-out-of-ten. For my client, it was certainly a ten between the cost savings of 80% and a performance boost of 400% or so. It worked right from the beginning and saved them a ton of money.

Cisco is a company that has been in this market for quite a long time. They have a stable office, stable software, and all of the features are there. Having the SD-WAN on top of the routers they have has given them an advantage. Plus, they have a wide range of products and there is integration between all of them and SD-WAN. I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

Cisco Meraki dashboard is very good. It's simple, and you can enable and implement everything using this dashboard. Cisco Meraki is for large enterprises. I recommend Cisco Meraki to all my clients who have different locations and want to have a centralized location. Every architecture is moving towards the cloud. Centralized management makes accessibility easier for one person. We can know what is going on at a location and what is going into the devices. Whatever configuration changes are required, we can do them from one place. We don't have to go to the client's location. We also don't have to log in to different devices to do configuration or something like that. We can do it from one centralized management. I would rate Cisco SD-WAN a seven out of ten.

Map out all of the applications that use your WAN today. If you have assets like physical phone systems or dedicated VPN devices that are not ready to be off-the-books, start the project anyway. As contacts and hardware become end of life, onboard those sites. You will have a full mesh in no time. If you wait for all of your existing technology to be end of life, you are missing the point.

This solution is only good for basic routing. I cannot map stuff to a network name because it is not linked to anything else. It is a standalone unit. My advice for anybody who is implementing this solution is to familiarize themselves with the command line. To summarize, the reliability is very high but managing it is a little bit inconvenient. I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

There's not much advice I can give other than to suggest that people get familiar with using the command line. I would rate this product an eight out of 10 because it has good reliability. We've rarely had any problems with it.

I'd recommend the solution. Instead of going to another vendor, it's best to go with Cisco, because Cisco has a level of longevity in the global market. I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

We're a Cisco partner. I would recommend the solution. I'd rate it six out of ten. If it could guarantee better security, we would rate it higher. The cost could also be less.

The solution works very well for mid-size and enterprise-level organizations. I would advise others considering implementing the solution to set aside time to strategize and create a proof of concept before diving right in. This will help a company reveal where the solution is relevant and where it is not. Then, it's important to look at the cost and layout of all of the finances so that the board will have all of the information in front of them. It will help them decide if it makes sense to pursue implementation. The finances and P&Ls must be clear for them. Finally, it's important to find a good consultant to assist in the entire process. I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

I would rate Cisco SD-WAN at an eight out of ten.

We're a Cisco Gold Partner. I'm not sure of the exact version number of the solution we are currently using. Typically, we work with small to medium-sized enterprises. The advantage of SD-WAN is that it can eliminate costly MPLS links. That's the big selling feature for us. I would recommend the solution.I'd rate it seven out of ten. If it was less complicated and offered more reasonable pricing, I'd rate it higher.

My advice for anybody who is researching this solution is to consider the size of the environment. If they have 100 to 150 branches, then they should also look into other solutions such as VeloCloud by VMware. I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

It's important to realize the product has two layers, the underlay, and the overlay. The controller is in the overlay and the underlay is the physical devices. Most of those are on-prem, but the controller is mostly on the cloud. That's what most people prefer. In terms of size, different customers have different migration plans and different approaches. For example, Cisco has the Meraki SD-WAN solution, and then they have the retailer SD-WAN solution. The question is which solution fits the customer best. I would advise them on that aspect first before deciding whether they go for a Meraki solution or a retailer solution. The second aspect, of course, is the budget. How much does the customer want to spend? And the third would be to ascertain their internal skill set on deploying, managing, and operating the SD-WAN solution. If the skill set is in-house then good for them, they can go ahead. But if not then I would propose a managed SD-WAN solution where maybe, for example, our company provides managed SD-WAN solutions for some Cisco products. The third thing I would advise for global customers is to decide if they want to deal with the last mile connectivity themselves or find a partner to do that for them. Security would be a final consideration and that depends on setup and scale. I would rate this product a seven out of 10, it hasn't quite made it for me to be rated higher. I'd like to see some improvement.

This is a good product and I totally recommend it. I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

This is a good solution. It's a new technology that people should look into because it provides for seamless management of the whole network, including switches. That said, there is always room for improvement. I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.