Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Reviews

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN is for WAN connectivity only. When customers have a lot of workloads available on cloud and they need use cases like direct internet access, encryption, and better centralized control and centralized management of their complete WAN environment, those use cases generally fall under Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN.

When customers are distributed across different locations, all the management, control and data plane are specific to those branches. From the management perspective, from the life cycle management or upgrade and update, we need to work on each and every branch. Once Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN is deployed, all of that can be done from a centralized location using the different management and control tools that Cisco has. Additionally, from the distributed perspective, if they want to access any application from the cloud, they would have to backhaul to their central data center and then access their applications on cloud. With Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN, direct internet access can be configured and they can reach out to the respective cloud locations directly. Zero-touch provisioning is something that can be implemented where you just create the formats and accordingly provision the new sites with zero-touch. You just bring the device and it will be automatically configured from the centralized management tools. There are multiple such features where Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN solves problems for customers.

One valuable feature is the scale at which it can be deployed for big enterprises. The application-aware routing they provide is another important feature. They have over 4,000 signatures of applications where the system can identify those applications and accordingly create the profile so that those applications can be given the best possible route depending on their requirement.

Since we have a centralized control and a centralized management plane, for a distributed organization that has a lot of different offices, we can have complete visibility from a single point of connect. Accordingly, we can do the provisioning and configuration everything from a central place. This is a very useful architecture for an organization that is distributed or has multiple offices across different geographies.

Having complete visibility into the complete Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN fabric helps not only to troubleshoot but also from a traffic engineering or capacity planning perspective or to ensure that proper uptime is maintained because we can proactively sense the issues in the network. This could be related to any malfunctioning at the product layer or it could be related to the sizing.

All of those things actually add to the operational efficiency where we have vManage, vController, and all these tools to have centralized management, zero-touch provisioning enabled for the complete fabric. This actually gives real-time telematics of all devices. We can have complete visibility into the network on a real-time basis. That way we can ensure that we have better uptime for the overall Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN fabric.

If they can have better firewall features as their competitors have, such as Fortinet and Versa, that would help to place this solution better so that we can address security related things. If they can have all the IPS, IDS, everything built on all the edge devices, whether physical or virtual, that could be one improvement.

Actually, if customers are existing Cisco customers, if Cisco can be more flexible to leverage the existing investment, that could be another important aspect to save on cost and be more competitive from a pricing perspective. Overall, the pricing or the segment that Cisco deals with is a bit premium, which they charge a bit premium against the competition on the licensing, hardware, and services.

The implementation is not straightforward. You need a specialized partner or specialized people who can implement this. It can be simplified a bit from that perspective as well.

Mostly the way we implement the policies for a big environment requires a lot of things that we need to take care of. If that can somehow be improved, because they have different components, like they have vManage, they have vSmart, and vBond and all these components have to work with a certain flow that they need to follow.

I have been using this solution for around 8 or 9 years now.

Once it is set up, as I mentioned there are certain complexities in the initial configuration, but once it is customized or commissioned properly, then it is very smooth. We have a lot of visibility into the fabric and it performs well. For example, with zero-touch provisioning, if we are adding new sites, we can do it with a few simple clicks. That way it is very flexible.

I think recently they have changed their licensing which was earlier on a per device bandwidth basis. Now licensing has gone in the new routing direction. Otherwise, it was a problem where we had to define the bandwidth for every router. I think it is one of the most costly solutions in this segment when we compete it with players like Fortinet. The cost is at the higher side.

Cisco is more advanced since they have more granular based insights of the network. They have a dedicated controller unlike Fortinet where they have the control plan mostly built with the edge devices. That way we have a more granular way to implement the policies than Fortinet. If we are dealing with a very big network, then Cisco has an advantage of managing the big networks.

Cisco TAC is one of the best. They are technically qualified and responsive.

There are many scenarios where we replace MPLS with the internet because now we have the flexibility to migrate to Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN and we do not need private connectivity such as MPLS. This cost optimization on the circuit is one part where we can leverage on all the available bandwidth unlike in MPLS or the traditional way where we have one active link and one passive. Here we can leverage on all the available transport and we can leverage on any type of connectivity because it is transparent to the transport that we are using, whether it is 5G, LTE, MPLS or whatever. Since it has centralized management from the operations perspective, it certainly adds value because now we can manage things from a centralized point. Earlier we were taking days to upgrade and update the edge devices, but from the centralized vManage or vControl, we can do it in a few hours. That way we can capture all these ROIs and can create a matrix and then share or present it to our customers.

All their network products include LAN, WAN, Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN, and firewalls. As a Gold Partner, mostly the controller part is on cloud in most cases, while the edge device is on-premises. We sometimes purchase virtual firewall and virtual router to extend Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN fabric to these hyper-scalers. I would rate this solution an 8 out of 10.

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.

My main use case for Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN is managing and monitoring SD-WAN connectivity across branch locations. I primarily use it to monitor network health, troubleshoot tunnel and routing issues, configure policies, and ensure stable connectivity between branches and the data center. It also helps me quickly identify network problems, reduce downtime, and maintain secure, reliable application performance. In my day-to-day role, it plays an important part in incident management, network monitoring, and troubleshooting.

One example from my daily work is when a branch office reported an intermittent connectivity issue. Using Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN, I checked the tunnel status, link health, and reviewed routing information from the central dashboard. This helped identify that one WAN link was unstable. After coordinating with the ISP and verifying the link was good, the branch connectivity was restored with minimal downtime. The centralized visibility and troubleshooting feature made it much faster to identify the issue and resolve it.

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN is a valuable solution for my organization. It provides centralized management, good visibility, and helps us to reduce issue resolution time and improve network reliability.

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN has had a positive impact on my organization by improving network reliability and simplifying branch connectivity management. The centralized dashboard provides better visibility into the network, allowing us to identify and resolve issues more quickly. It has reduced troubleshooting time, improved application performance through intelligent path selection, and minimized downtime. Overall, it has increased operational efficiency and helped my IT team to manage the SD-WAN environment more efficiently.

Since implementing Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN, we have seen faster troubleshooting and improved network visibility. The centralized dashboard allows us to identify connectivity issues much more quickly, reducing the time needed to diagnose and resolve incidents. We have also experienced fewer service disruptions because traffic failover maintains connectivity when WAN links have a problem. Overall, it has improved operational efficiency, reduced downtime, and enabled my team to manage the network more efficiently.

The features I find most valuable in Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN are centralized management, real-time monitoring, and policy-based automation. The centralized dashboard gives me a clear view of all branch sites, making it easy to manage and monitor tunnel health, bandwidth usage, and device status from one place. Real-time monitoring helps identify issues quickly, while automation simplifies configuration changes and reduces manual effort. These features have improved operational efficiency, reduced troubleshooting time, and helped maintain stable connectivity across the SD-WAN environment.

One additional feature I value in Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN is the centralized dashboard, which gives a complete view of the SD-WAN environment from a single interface. It makes monitoring devices, link performance, and tunnel status much easier. The built-in troubleshooting tools reduce resolution time, and the policy-based management ensures consistent configuration across all branch locations. Overall, these features simplify day-to-day operations.

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN is a strong and reliable SD-WAN solution, but there are a few areas where it could be improved. The user interface could be more intuitive for new users, and reporting and analytics could provide deeper insights with more customizable dashboards. I would also appreciate faster software upgrades, better log correlation for troubleshooting, and more built-in automation features to reduce manual configuration. It is a robust platform that has significantly improved network management and operational efficiency.

Better documentation with real-world examples, improved third-party integration, and more detailed monitoring dashboards would make Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN even more effective.

I have been using Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN for about one year in my current role.

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN is stable in the market, and many more organizations can use it because it is very simple to use and has no complexity for the user. It is very straightforward for both the user and the organization because all users in any organization have few problems with it, and it is more efficient to use and much easier.

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN separates the control plane from the data plane. Its controller architecture is highly matured, making it one of the most valuable and reliable LAN platforms for large enterprises. This is why it has strong scalability. It can also be managed from a single dashboard for all branch locations from a single place. I do not have to travel to the branches for configuration or any troubleshooting steps. All of these steps I can do from a single place and a single dashboard.

Customer support is very appreciated.

We previously used a fragmented, multi-vendor legacy infrastructure combined with traditional MPLS circuits. Previously, we used a 1121 series SD-WAN router, which was impacting my organization's provisioning and management of the multiple branches from a single dashboard and from a single location. It is very amazing and useful, and very straightforward and easier to manage with every employee in the organization.

There is a tangible return on investment, primarily realized through a drastic reduction in network downtime and operational man-hours. The network provisioning and development time decreased by up to seventy to eighty percent. With Zero Trust provisioning via the Catalyst Center and Meraki dashboard, new branch offices are configured in hours instead of weeks, freeing engineering teams to focus on strategic initiatives rather than manual deployment. This is a benefit of Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN and it is decreasing the manual work.

Cisco offers premium enterprise capabilities, but its pricing, setup cost, and licensing models represent the most significant hurdles for IT organizations. Cisco hardware commands a premium price tag compared to competitors like Juniper. Cisco provides good licensing models, and the cost is higher, but the product it is providing is amazing.

We evaluated several industry-leading SD-WAN platforms during our proof of concept.

Cisco's operational efficiency in an IT environment generally involves balancing its strong central automation features against its complexity. Tools like Cisco Catalyst Center, Meraki dashboard, and Intersight offer a unified control plane. They allow network teams to push global policy changes, software updates, and configurations to hundreds of devices simultaneously, instead of managing them individually.

Cisco optimizes the digital experience in hybrid and distributed setups by ensuring application performance, seamless collaboration, and deep visibility. Cisco achieves this optimization through three primary mechanisms. It automatically connects branch offices directly to cloud SaaS applications like Microsoft 365. Cisco SD-WAN routes traffic over the best path based on real-time latency.

Cisco's end-to-end visibility is industry-leading, primarily due to its integration of ThousandEyes and full-stack observability across traditional network silos. Traditional monitoring stopped at the enterprise firewall, but Cisco's ThousandEyes extends visibility across the public internet, ISP, and cloud provider networks like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud. Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN eliminates blind spots, instantly seeing outside the corporate network into the public ISP transit provider and cloud networks. Instead of chasing individual routers, engineers can pinpoint hop-by-hop latency or packet drop within seconds. A shared source of truth aggregates data across the application, security, and network, giving all teams identical metrics. System administrators, network engineers, and SaaS developers stop debating ownership and focus on identifying the problem.

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN has been deployed in a public cloud through Amazon Web Services. I gave this review a rating of ten.

I am using Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN in my company and I recommend it to my customers as well.

The most valuable features of Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN include their support, which is really good compared to other vendors because we do deal with other vendors, and I have seen FortiGate. I don't think they will ever be able to match up to what Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN offerings are, that is for sure.

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN optimizes the experience in a hybrid or distributed enterprise setup, and it is good in enterprise setups as well. We have deployed it for our manufacturing customers and it is pretty stable.

In terms of troubleshooting capabilities, end-to-end visibility affects my organization's ability to detect issues aggressively with their products, especially the software-defined networking stack for the LAN and WAN, where we have seen issues being detected much more aggressively, allowing us to resolve issues faster. Their AI features are really decent, so overall, it is a good solution.

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN is good, but from a cost perspective, they need to think through and see how they can materialize and reduce costs, especially the hardware.

Overall, I would rate Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN good, although they should start innovating more towards the AI landscape where we are seeing very high traction. At the SD-WAN level, they are fine, but they need to catch up, especially HPE post-acquisition of Juniper. When comparing Meraki versus Mist, Mist has better features, so those are some areas they need to catch up.

To make Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN closer to a 10, I think cost is the first primary factor. The support and fundamental help assistance, especially during onboarding, could be much easier to enable small businesses to take it up.

I have been working with Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN for three years.

The product is pretty stable.

In terms of scalability, I would put Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN around eight on a scale of one to ten, as it scales well with the growing needs of my organization. We have used it in multiple diversified topologies and it has remained stable, being tested through time.

From a scalability point of view, I don't see any concerns because we take into consideration their product-wise limitations when we are buying specific modules or things, so I think we are good over there.

I would rate their technical support a ten.

My impression of the end-to-end visibility offered by Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN depends on the channel partner who is providing the support, and their channel partners are pretty stable and quite good.

The initial setup for Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN is very easy and pretty straightforward because their documentation is pretty detailed, so we haven't seen or run into issues.

I see HPE as good competition to Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN.

HPE is cheaper.

To make Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN closer to a 10, I think cost is the first primary factor. The support and fundamental help assistance, especially during onboarding, could be much easier to enable small businesses to take it up.

Go ahead with your questions about Cisco products.

Everything remains as is with these products. No changes.

I purchased my Cisco products directly from Cisco.

I would rate this review a 7 overall.

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN has been in use for a year and a half, which is when we first started deploying it. We are now finalizing that deployment in our environment and are almost exclusively switching over from our old SD-WAN solution to the Cisco-based one.

I appreciate the control that we have with Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN. With the previous solution that we had, we could not build independent tunnels to each SD-WAN appliance, as they were all aggregated. Now we have considerably more freedom. We no longer have to speculate whether one thing going down means we lose an entire region of the firm; instead, everything is site-by-site based.

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN helps us specifically through the control of policies. With Catalyst, we are able to build out these policies at a regional level. Rather than relying on a centralized location, we have been able to distribute this across the country. We are able to target bigger regions and optimize traffic flow for those specific regions instead of being locked into whatever the previous vendor was providing us.

For our environment, there are some bugs with how we interpret data in terms of circuit usage, for example. This has been on our to-do list for a while because it has been broken. We have not been able to get it to work quite right specifically for our environment. We have been trying to get support and push for that resolution because for our metrics, it is valuable. Having a blank screen instead of this data can be intimidating, so we are trying to get that fixed.

I have been working in my field professionally for about three years.

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN has been fine for the most part. We tend to play it safe and use versions that have been tested more thoroughly, rather than necessarily old versions. Issues we might have run into stem from us being out of date, such as wanting to implement and use something that was actually on a newer version that we just had not had time to upgrade to.

I would rate Cisco's operational efficiency in my IT environment very highly. At this point, we are almost an entirely Cisco-based organization, and everything that we operate on for the most part is Cisco-based. We have good support from Cisco, and I think we are happy with how everything is going.

Before, our solution was VMware VeloCloud, which was then purchased by Arista recently, and that is what we are switching away from.

I was not involved with the pricing, setup cost, and licensing too much. We did run into some licensing issues in the beginning, but it was through the vendor and the provider that we were using, not necessarily a Cisco thing. If that had not been involved, the process would have been smoother.

The increased uptime with Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN has been a return on investment.

We have been focusing on fast deployment and then going back to tweak policies and figure out which features we want. I would rate this review a 10.

In my view, Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN would be less effective when it comes to SD-WAN functions compared to Versa.

The overall operability of Versa is better than Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN. As a seller, I still find Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN to be a little complicated.

The ease of use, interface, and implementation are better with Versa.

Functionality-wise, both Versa and Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN possibly would be at par. I would not comment on that for sure, but from the deployment perspective, I still feel Versa has got an easy interface to get things managed.

The integrated threat protection and end-to-end encryption features in Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN are good.

More or less, it's the same with Cisco in terms of complexity and pricing, so there's not much of a difference. They might want to consider incorporating features seen in Versa or other competitors to improve their points.

I would rate the technical support by Cisco as nine out of ten.

That's even a little bit better than what Versa has, because Cisco engineers can be found everywhere compared to Versa. This is an advantage that they carry.

Positive

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN is positioned ideally where customers already have Cisco routers and other equipment, making migration to Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN easier. In these use cases, Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN is very competitive.

When discussing application-aware routing features, this is a standard feature all the OEMs are offering.

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN would be more expensive compared to Versa. I have been a partner and reseller of both Versa and Cisco.

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

The main use cases for Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN are in the retail sector and enterprise. The product is used for Cisco routing, specifically for configuring traffic engineering with protocol BGP.

With Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN, I have centralized orchestration and management. The transport independence of MPLS or connectivity and internet connectivity is another excellent feature. End-to-end segmentation is also provided.

I use the application-aware routing feature. Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN supports dynamic police-based routing decisions based on application type or different performance metrics such as jitter or latency.

The benefit of that feature is that it improves user experience. The principal benefit of application-aware routing is that critical applications are prioritized or routed over the best performing paths to reduce outages and service degradation. There is full visibility of applications.

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN has integrated security features which include base firewall, URL filtering, IPS, and secure segmentation, and it supports integration with other Cisco products such as Umbrella or Snort. This feature is beneficial for the client because the information is secure.

It is important that Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN supports cloud, on-premises, and hybrid environments for my organization because it allows for scalability and faster deployment in the cloud. It reduces operational needs because I don't need to manage physical controller hardware, and updates and maintenance can be centralized and automated.

The zero-touch provisioning feature is very important for the speed of deploying new branch locations. I can deliver the device to the branch, and it is important because simplified deployment makes the implementation start more easily since devices are auto-configured and authenticate without manual intervention.

Cisco can improve Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN by simplifying licensing and platform integration with other Cisco products such as Catalyst Center or solutions with Meraki.

A license needs to be permanent for me. The client feels that it is very expensive.

I have used Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN for two years.

I have experience with the Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance, but I haven't configured it. I am currently working in pre-sales.

I would rate Cisco's support, their customer service, and technical support as excellent. The support of Cisco is very good, and the attention is immediate.

Positive

I have sixteen years of work experience in enterprise architecture with Cisco, including networking, switching, routing, and solution SD-Access.

AWS is the main cloud provider in my use cases.

My company, Sonda, is a Gold partner of Cisco.

I am a solution architect at Sonda.

I rate this solution 10 out of 10.

The main use cases for Juniper vSRX would be primarily for a data center scenario device, and there's a significant focus on the other core elements.

Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN's main use cases for us will be data center deployment for enterprise level.

The most useful feature for Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN is the single pane of glass management because we also use Meraki onsite. It's a standard Cisco solution, and because Cisco is who they are and what they can provide, we use Cisco for compute and network, and we use NetApp for storage, so that's what we generally do.

I have absolutely seen scenarios where the decentralized management capability improved operations and workflows.

There's nothing I could put my finger on right away for improvements in Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN. There is definitely nothing that Juniper does that Cisco doesn't do. Cisco will do everything Juniper does and then some. The negative, or the downside of Cisco is the knowledge base; you need to be a little bit more tech-savvy and network-savvy to work with Cisco, while Juniper is a lot more user-friendly from what I can see, especially in terms of configuration and any kind of roll back. But in terms of market leaders, Cisco is capable of doing anything you want it to do, as far as I can see.

I have just recently been working with Juniper.

I have contacted Cisco support for one-on-one support for a very unique or bespoke configuration where there are a lot of rules and policies going on in the background, maybe some interconnecting or conflicting with one another, but in terms of the actual product or problems with the product, nothing I'm aware of.

I would consider Cisco support a 10 out of 10.

Positive

In my experience, customers are realizing the return on investment with Cisco in 12 months. Within the year, I've done work with customers in the last couple of years that we've upgraded from Avaya six to Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN in a Cisco network environment, and they are now back to do that with the remainder of their company, so they've realized the value in 12 months and are willing to invest in the remainder of their organization.

I am working on the Juniper vSRX solution.

I work with switches, routers, firewalls, and any IT consultant tasks, and I work at the core. I have a CCNA, and I'm actually doing a Juniper certification exam in 3 hours, so I continually work on upskilling, as part of what I do.

If it's enterprise level, you'll deploy your Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN in a couple of hours. You can draw it down there if you've already got a Catalyst or an existing environment. If you are starting up from scratch, it's hard to put a timeframe on it because it depends on criteria, but if you're replacing something with a Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN and you know what you're doing along with using the CLI and your backups, a couple of hours would be plenty of time, a half a day or maybe a little bit more wouldn't hurt.

There are AI features, and I'm not 100% privy to them because I just haven't been involved in that element, but they do exist.

I would rate Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN an eight.

My title is Information Technology Consultant at a company named Island Networks.

The primary use case for Cisco SD-WAN is the standard configuration across all sites, facilitated by templates. This solution helps in the ease of management and compliance configuration, which is deployed everywhere. 

It also simplifies troubleshooting and provides full mesh topology for branch connectivity to data centers. All branch locations, along with central locations, are on SD-WAN and gathered in the data center. Many customers combine it with local Internet breakout for SaaS applications.

The valuable features of Cisco SD-WAN include its security policies and zone-based firewall that are applied to every site, as well as application-aware routing. Security is standard compliant, eliminating config drift that was prevalent before manual configurations. Application-aware routing offers flexibility in using different lines for traffic, depending on the policy implemented.

The main area for improvement in Cisco SD-WAN is the lack of documentation, which often lags behind the software releases. This is especially notable since Cisco acquired the solution and is still integrating it into its overall environment.

I have been using Cisco SD-WAN for the last three years.

I would rate Cisco SD-WAN an eight out of ten for stability. While some software-related issues and bugs were encountered, they did not cause the whole environment to crash. Sites were able to continue functioning, although there were limitations in making changes at those times.

The ease of configuration and features like zero-touch provisioning enhance the scalability of Cisco SD-WAN, especially in disaster recovery situations. I would rate scalability a nine out of ten. The initial implementation faced some issues, but it has improved with newer software versions.

The customer service and support for Cisco SD-WAN are satisfactory, rated as eight out of ten. 

However, Cisco's ongoing reorganizations have affected the quality of technical support, which varies depending on the engineer handling cases.

Positive

Before Cisco SD-WAN, I used traditional MPLS or eVPN, IPVPN networks. The switch was made for easier management and standard compliance, which is enforced by the SD-WAN product itself.

The initial setup involves getting the underlay and controllers in place to migrate from the old to the new network. I deployed in parallel, allowing both networks to coexist, and then migrated sites to the new central control plane.

For a complete project, we had two central administrators and designers, along with three or four teams managing the remote locations. The process took approximately one year to migrate about 280 sites.

The pricing for Cisco SD-WAN is rated eight out of ten, with some variability depending on the reseller discounts and the size of the enterprise. It is also relatively cost-effective for smaller businesses when using the Meraki version.

We evaluated other solutions but chose Cisco SD-WAN due to its flexibility, support for our requirements, and the preference of many of our customers who were already using Cisco-based solutions.

I would recommend working out detailed use cases and requirements before implementation. Cisco SD-WAN is quite flexible, however, without a solid foundational design, users might struggle with too many options, leading to a poor rollout design. 

Overall, I rate Cisco SD-WAN as nine out of ten.

The primary use case for Cisco SD-WAN is to connect multiple offices or branch offices across the globe or within a country securely. It facilitates branch-to-branch or office-to-office transactions and provides easy access to primary data centers.

Cisco SD-WAN is valued for its operational efficiency and ease of operation. It allows prioritization of packages based on production requirements, and integration capabilities provide comprehensive security. Integration with Cisco ISE, Cisco Firewalls, and other Cisco solutions is beneficial. Furthermore, it is appreciated for its insights, visibility, and ease of use.

Integration with other OEMs and the API part needs improvement to be more user-friendly, especially in terms of GUI. Including more features like integrating with Splunk for monitoring vulnerabilities would help eliminate the need for other SOC solutions.

I have been working with the Cisco SD-WAN solutions since 2018.

I have not faced any stability issues with Cisco SD-WAN.

Cisco SD-WAN is highly scalable and can be expanded to more than 10,000 sites, so there are no issues with scalability.

The initial setup is not straightforward, as it requires experienced personnel to size and optimize the solution. Otherwise, it could be costly.

For Cisco SD-WAN deployment, following Cisco's published best practices is advisable, starting with vManage and then adding all devices for better remote control.

Operational ROI is observed by cutting down internet and branch connectivity costs, while securely accessing hosted applications using various types of connectivity like 3G, 5G, or MPLS.

Cisco SD-WAN is a premium product priced on the higher side, however, its pricing is justifiable due to the comprehensive solution it offers.

I have evaluated Aruba and Fortinet SD-WAN solutions.

For enterprise customers with significant security concerns, Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN is a recommended choice. It offers comprehensive integration under a single umbrella, which is advantageous compared to other OEMs. 

I would rate the overall solution as a ten out of ten.