Share your experience using Hitachi JP1 Network Node Manager i [EOL]

I have used Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN as a customer. I am a customer of Cisco, and I have been a customer rather than a partner of Cisco.

The features are useful, but it is more about how insightful these features are and how easily you are able to understand the flow and mitigate a threat. Although those features exist in Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN, the lack of visibility makes it very difficult to find out what precisely is being monitored through the advanced threat prevention features of Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Viptela solution. The features are undoubtedly useful, but at the end of the day, it boils down to how easily you can see the insights provided by the solution. I feel Cisco slightly lacks in that aspect. It could be because the hardware itself is a router with added security functionality, while in Fortinet or Palo Alto, those systems are intrinsically firewalls with security capabilities built-in, and routing added on top. Hence, the visibility part in those solutions is better compared to Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN, since it is not a logging device.

I have found some other solutions more insightful and user-friendly as compared to Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN, but the basic SD-WAN functionality is good enough. I am using it only because it was done as a pilot project, specifically for my 60 to 70 sites. For the majority of the sites, I am using Fortinet's Secure SD-WAN solution and I found that more viable and more in alignment with my requirements.

For example, there is not any Internet Service Database available in Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN intrinsically. If I want to write a policy based on applications, I am not able to write it, at least in Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Viptela deployment that we have done, and that is fairly easy to do in Fortinet. The second issue is the logging capability. I think the visibility that Fortinet Secure SD-WAN has is not even comparable. Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN does not provide that sort of insight or control as far as traffic steering is concerned.

With respect to the SLAs, I barely know which sort of SLAs are violated in Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN, so I do not have clear visibility on where the traffic is moving from at my spoke or hub locations. I believe Fortinet gives me a very clear picture of where the traffic is going. Overall visibility, whether it is data traffic or logs, is much better in Fortinet compared to Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN.

The complexity of Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Viptela is noticeable and quite complicated to configure. If something breaks, you have to involve TAC and others to fix it. On the contrary, you can work with underlays. Even if your IPsec overlay tunnel is down, it does not impact your production. Thus, we find Fortinet's solution significantly better than Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN solution.

I have used Application-aware Routing in Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN. However, I found it to be very complicated, especially regarding policy writing. For my breakout of VC traffic, we had to write a bunch of IP addresses for Zoom, Webex, and others. Presently, it can only identify Webex as an application, and I highly doubt whether there is any application identification for Zoom and other platforms, as we were not able to find it during our implementation. It is done through static whitelisting of the IPs, which is not a scalable solution since IPs can change at any time. Overall, the application-aware routing policies are not as flexible and scalable as the Internet Service Database feature of Fortinet provides.

The struggles encompass policy writing, logging capabilities, traffic visibility, and complex configuration. There is also the issue of load balancing. We have faced considerable challenges with traffic load balancing between the links. Although the SLA targets are configurable, understanding how traffic flows is challenging, making troubleshooting exceedingly difficult. Overall, I find it a quite complicated solution with not that much operational usability.

I have been working with Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN for close to two and a half years now.

The basic functionality and the control connections created are complicated, and a simple issue in the control connections between the fabric causes numerous complexities that demand extensive troubleshooting time.

It is done through static whitelisting of the IPs, which is not a scalable solution since IPs can change at any time.

The complexity of Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Viptela is noticeable and quite complicated to configure. If something breaks, you have to involve TAC and others to fix it.

Positive

We are using Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN infrastructure primarily because we have invested in it after using ISR 4K routers and the legacy IWAN solution, which is the predecessor of SD-WAN, Intelligent WAN. Since the devices still have an operational life left, we want to leverage that.

I have already settled with Cisco ISE after visiting the website a few months ago where I researched Cisco ISE and other Cisco products. I have already procured the Cisco ISE solution. There are some other products as well. We are using Cisco ACI as well. Cisco ACI stands for Application Centric Infrastructure. Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Viptela is also being used and we are using Cisco ACI as well. I am not sure how Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN supports cloud environments because our deployment is on-premises. Therefore, I cannot comment on the vAnalytics and other solutions that could enhance security or visibility since I have not used them myself. My overall review rating for this product is four out of five.

Fortinet FortiManager is primarily used in the government, education, and oil and gas sectors.

Fortinet FortiManager includes important monitoring, analytics, and AIOps technology with a license.

I have utilized the centralized policy management with Fortinet FortiManager. The centralized policy management helps with the creation of policies because it is easy to monitor and facilitates installation.

I use Fortinet FortiManager's automation features for monitoring, which is very important for company use.

The benefits I see from using Fortinet FortiManager are very important for the company because it uses tools for monitoring, for EI, and for predictive faults.

The logging and reporting capabilities of Fortinet FortiManager are very important because they are for utilization, for dashboards, and for reports for clients.

Fortinet FortiManager can improve, but there is not much to mention. The improvements are very few, mostly in the production area. It would be nice to have a virtual appliance as well.

Fortinet support is very good, and I rate it on a scale of one to ten. The support is very complete, the people are very good, and they are very attentive. I would score their support a ten.

Positive

I used a different solution before Fortinet FortiManager. The experience with Fortinet FortiManager is very different with respect to Cisco because Fortinet has a very advanced developer in security and is recognized as a Gartner leader in security, making it better than Cisco.

I have experience with Fortinet FortiManager. Fortinet FortiManager is very well-known to me.

I have experience with Fortinet FortiManager, particularly in architecture and design, not technical, and I think it is a good solution.

I use Fortinet FortiManager along with AWS and Azure as cloud providers.

My thoughts on the pricing of Fortinet FortiManager are that the calling is the...

We purchased Fortinet FortiManager through two forms: the FortiManager appliance, which consists of physical servers, and we also bought it in the AWS Marketplace and other areas.

My overall rating for Fortinet FortiManager is seven.