Cisco APIC

I predominantly work on switching and routing, specifically utilizing products like Secure Access, UCM , or something similar from Cisco. Currently, we are working with Catalyst 9000 series for the switches and Catalyst 8000 series for the routers. From the router, we use 8200 and 8300 series, and from switches, all 9200, 9300, and 9500 series. We use Catalyst Center in at least one or two cases.

Sometimes I use Firepower firewalls and sometimes I go for the Cisco ISE  solution, ISE licenses, ISC licenses. We also work with wireless solutions like Meraki as well as Catalyst wireless. I am using Cisco ISE  for network virtualization.

ACI is predominantly on the Nexus platform. We have deployed Cisco ACI  for a couple of our customers where they migrated from the traditional Catalyst or traditional enterprise solutions to a Nexus platform for their data center network. We use Cisco ACI  infrastructure for the SD-WAN and for the data center SDN  solutions.

We have deployed Cisco ACI for a couple of our customers where they migrated from the traditional Catalyst or traditional enterprise solutions to a Nexus platform for their data center network. We use Cisco ACI infrastructure for the SD-WAN and for the data center SDN  solutions.

For Cisco ACI, we predominantly use it for the data center software-defined network, where customers will have more control on their applications and it will have a matrix kind of architecture and it can have seamless connectivity and seamless access to applications without being moving from a traditional architecture of a data center. This is where they will have more visibility into their network and they can add any workloads in their network easily rather than pushing the configurations or doing the configuration from scratch. Configuration templates are already available in Cisco ACI, which we can push to the next workload which is getting connected to Cisco ACI infrastructure.

Cisco ACI infrastructure is predominantly for the server infrastructure. It is not the traditional VLANs or those things getting configured. It is basically the VXLANs and Data Center Bridging solutions would come in. There is a spine-leaf architecture where the spine controls the control plane of all the leaf, and the leaf will connect the nodes or the workloads of the servers to that. For the data center management team or the IT team, it will be easy to deploy any new workloads. Instead of taking days or multiple days for a deployment of a server or application, they can do it immediately within minutes because all the configuration templates are already there in the control plane, which we can push immediately when the new server gets added. This provides operational simplicity and visibility, making it easier for the data center IT team.

Analytics can be used, and AppDynamics can also be integrated into Cisco ACI for application-level monitoring, enabling analysis of applications and determining which application is taking how much of network loads. This kind of integration is possible, and Nexus Dashboard can also be useful in highlighting and providing a single dashboard to view all performance and any issues that may arise, which helps in faster troubleshooting.

Deployment could be made a bit simpler and the licensing part could be a bit easier as well, along with improvements on the costing.

There could be improvements such as a sort of C-worm, which is Cisco Workload Optimization Manager , where if there is a Cisco ACI infrastructure integrated with that, workload optimization could be done and perhaps also integrate security. There have been improvements happening towards that as well.

I would rate stability for Cisco ACI at eight.

Integration with third-party tools like VMware, OpenStack , or Microsoft Azure  is definitely possible.

Cisco has a Customer Experience team and other professional services coming in, so their support seems to be good, and they try to solve issues as early as possible. Support is really good.

We are a Gold Partner for Cisco and a global Gold Partner for Cisco, so we resell Cisco products and have skill sets to provide services for Cisco. We have certified resources across our country and every country, and we utilize them for deployment and other professional services. We don't do marketplace; we go through direct Cisco. We sell directly through Cisco, discuss with the customer, and arrange a back-to-back ordering with Cisco instead of going through a marketplace.

I have seen Arista as one of the competitors of Cisco ACI, and in some places, we have seen Juniper Networks as competition as well.

We are still working with Cisco products. I have not much used Cisco ACI, but we have proposed it to customers. I have been working with Cisco ACI for almost three to four years.

Cisco ACI infrastructure is predominantly for the server infrastructure. It is not the traditional VLANs or those things getting configured. It is basically the VXLANs and Data Center Bridging solutions would come in. There is a spine-leaf architecture where the spine controls the control plane of all the leaf, and the leaf will connect the nodes or the workloads of the servers to that. For the data center management team or the IT team, it will be easy to deploy any new workloads. Instead of taking days or multiple days for a deployment of a server or application, they can do it immediately within minutes because all the configuration templates are already there in the control plane, which we can push immediately when the new server gets added. This provides operational simplicity and visibility, making it easier for the data center IT team.

Automation processes can definitely be done as well. I am totally satisfied with the functionality of Cisco ACI. My overall review rating for Cisco ACI is eight.

We are the user, representing the organization ATOM, a mobile operator in Myanmar. We have several products in our portfolio, including Vertica database, Document Management, Operation Bridge Manager, and IDSM. We are only using Operation Bridge Manager for monitoring, which generates alerts. We have the Network Monitoring Module, NNMi, for network operations management. We are customers with a direct relationship with the vendor.

I can only comment on the IDSM tools and the monitoring observability part, which we find to be a great tool. However, we struggled with support a couple of years back due to external factors, such as sanctions, that caused a delay in receiving support. The support we refer to is technical support, and one of the functionalities missing in the current OpenText  version is AI. Apart from that, it is quite good. The current tool is adequate for day-to-day operations, but we want to explore more on AI Ops and hope future versions of OpenText  can support that.

We are using this for the infrastructure. We are not working with Operations Orchestration . We do not make use of its visibility and analytics features, as we are mostly using it for the networking part only.

Their technical support has been great, and they have a great partner, so there is nothing to comment on regarding the service.

Cost is one thing that could be improved, as it is heavy for an emerging market like ours.

We work with other vendors as well, having a few other suppliers providing support for different solutions. We are not working with them at this moment. We have solutions from different partners, including Cisco, HP, and Oracle for many different solutions, as we are part of the infrastructure team.

I am not responsible for Vertica, as we are not responsible for the Vertica side; it will be handled by a separate team, but we mainly work on IDSM and Operation Bridge Management. The current tool is adequate for day-to-day operations, but we want to explore more on AI Ops and hope future versions of OpenText can support that. In the future, I would like to see more flexibility on the integration with other platforms and greater flexibility for integrations or automations with other platforms. Other platforms such as Microsoft Azure  and AWS  would be beneficial. I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

The main use case for Cisco ACI  is for data center. I use Cisco ACI  for data center services.

The main features of Cisco ACI that I really appreciate are the application-centric and network-centric designs, allowing you to create your network according to your application. That's helpful, and it's good for one-time implementation. The automation capabilities are really helpful. We deployed one data center using Terraform , and after deployment, many automation features are available, which can be very helpful.

Based on my experience, Cisco ACI provides substantial capability; you can design your network accordingly and it's part of the SDN  family, providing many benefits to the organization, especially when moving from traditional network infrastructure. Many organizations are actually using the old traditional Nexus infrastructure or some old data center devices. It gives you significant control and one-time implementation capabilities, and it also provides better performance and security. Functionality-wise, Cisco ACI provides integration using automation. We implemented it through Terraform , which was easy. Those features are available, so I don't think any new features are needed right now; something new could come up, but they have implemented many improvements over the years.

I believe the product is good; right now, I don't see any areas for improvement for Cisco ACI. I cannot suggest any improvements as I might not have used all features to identify improvement areas. Most aspects are good.

I've been working with Cisco ACI for around five to six years.

For stability, Cisco ACI rates a nine or 9.5 because I've seen three customers using Cisco ACI and once deployed, the solution is very stable.

The scalability of Cisco ACI deserves a rating of nine. It has great scalability features.

Expanding your network or your data center with Cisco ACI is not an issue; scalability is a good feature. You can expand it very easily without needing to do much. You just keep adding, and you can add more servers, storage, and everything. There's a scalability limit, but it stretches. You can use the multi-site and multi-pod features, which help you scale the data center over the WAN and create large sites.

For technical support, I would rate them a seven because it's a complex technology and the TAC people sometimes don't have much understanding of the product. When issues occur, the TAC is not able to provide much support, leading to difficulties in finding RCAs.

In my opinion, Arista is the main competitor for Cisco ACI. I never worked on Arista, so I'm not sure which solution is more preferable.

The initial setup process for Cisco ACI is simple; it's not complex. First-time configuration requires a lot of setup, but that's the great thing about Cisco ACI: it's one-time implementation. You create many policies at once, and after that, it becomes pretty easy.

From my perspective, I've procured Cisco ACI in my previous organization. I never did any procurement for other vendors such as VMware or Arista, so I'm not sure how their pricing compares. When procuring everything for the first time, including licenses and hardware, it can be at a higher price, but I believe price-wise it's comparable to other vendors.

In general, Cisco ACI is on the higher side; it's not a cheap solution. Obviously, it's a data center solution, and if it were lower-priced, that would be great for selling to other companies choosing other products due to cost issues.

I have only worked with Cisco ACI in an on-premises deployment; I'm not sure about the hybrid model. I'm not currently working with the analytics part. I haven't integrated Cisco ACI with third-party tools such as VMware, OpenStack , or Microsoft Azure . On a scale of 1-10, I rate Cisco ACI a 9.

We are using Cisco ACI  primarily for data center operations. We are creating different remote channels for segmentation and structuring our network, building routes for traffic management, and implementing micro-segmentation from end-to-end for traffic management.

Robustness is a key aspect. Stability and robustness are what we are banking on. It is essential for growing our data center connectivity and enablement for our customers. It is a must for us. The routing of traffic is one of our main focuses when utilizing Cisco ACI .

We are looking at better synchronization with the cloud and on-premise, bringing in a multi-cloud networking solution. It can be simplified. We need more APIs to capture logs, offer next-level insights for debugging, and performance-based packet tracking. Additionally, some sustainability measures or emissions tracking features would be beneficial.

My team has been working with Cisco ACI for five to six years.

Stability is one of the highlights, contributing to the robustness of the solution.

The scalability of Cisco ACI supports our organization's growth effectively. It is scalable and provides essential support as we grow our data center connectivity.

Initially, we faced challenges in getting technical support. Currently, we have no issues. The technical support from Cisco is satisfactory.

We have experience working with other SD-WAN solutions, such as Cisco Viptela, Meraki, Aruba Central, and Juniper, at the SD-WAN level yet not at the data center level. We use NSX for another customer, however, it is not at the scale of Cisco ACI.

The initial setup was not straightforward. We adopted an agile strategy, starting small and expanding to multiple data centers. The deployment took approximately eighteen months.

We engaged Cisco for professional services during the initial stages, and we collaborated closely with their team to address challenges.

Efficient utilization leads to cost savings and efficiency gains. We achieved ROI within approximately 30 to 35 months, and it has been essential for us.

We have used SD-WAN solutions like Cisco Viptela, Meraki, Aruba Central, and Juniper. Additionally, we work with NSX for another customer.

I recommend Cisco ACI due to its reliable tech support, timely updates for security, traffic management, and ease of management. Enhancements with public APIs and sustainability measures could be beneficial.

Overall, I rate the solution as nine on a scale of one to ten.

I work as an integrator and reseller for Cisco ACI , which helps in network automation and application deployment.

Cisco ACI  was the first product in the market, offering stability with a significant install base. Its features, like easy application deployment, short deployment time for new applications or software, and eliminating the hassle of STP, are appreciated. Additionally, performance capabilities like connectivity of forty gs and one hundred gs and security integration are key benefits.

Cisco needs to enhance their technical support and pay more attention to regional support. They should ensure frequent visits, updates, and client meetings. Their lack of on-ground offices can result in business losses.

The solution is stable.

The solution offers high performance and scalability with connectivity options up to 100 GS.

Cisco's technical support could use improvement to provide more comprehensive assistance.

Before Cisco ACI, we worked with other cloud networks architecture, however, not SDA.

Installation, configuration, and upgrades are easy and straightforward.

I have observed that Cisco ACI minimizes operational costs, however, I haven't made a formal comparison.

Cisco's pricing tends to be on the higher end compared to other vendors.

I did not evaluate any alternate solutions.

I rate Cisco ACI nine out of ten due to its impressive features. However, I recommend they improve their technical support.