Cisco ACI Reviews

We have it as a data center fabric, so it is layered to Fabric installation.

Having a lot of racks and switches with a single point of configuration which can be done with automation on one platform using one API. This makes everything work faster.

The centralized management is its most valuable feature.

With the first setup, it was complex because of the terminology. We were clicking around because we did understand the API console. The hardest part was to make something scalable and easy to use in the future without having any prior knowledge. It was hard, which is why we used consultants with the setup to provide us advice.

We did have problem with APIC, but we didn't even notice it. We changed it with no impact.

We are waiting to see what happens with the cloud. We want to see if it will scale better. Also, we want to see how they will be moving to the cloud. At this time, we don't know.

It is quite stable. We have not had any problems. I believe it is because of the way it is built. 

So far, the scalability has been good. It has been better than other products.

The technical support has been okay for what we are doing. We haven't done anything very tricky. However, what we are doing has been out of the ordinary scope of networking. 

We have everything we need in terms of support. The technical support has been helpful.

We previously had two different solutions. We switched because wanted a more modern, scalable solution with a bigger infrastructure, so we went with Cisco ACI.

The first setup was complex, but the second one was easy.

The setup was done by a few consultants and us. The consultants were helpful because when we started, we had no idea about Cisco ACI. The experts helped by saying, "Do this and that."

A big company can automate it themselves or spend a lot of money and buy it.

We also consider Juniper, but we decided on Cisco because Juniper's system scalability and stability are not good.

We use it for virtual automation and virtual networking in our data center. It is for virtualized networks instead of physical elements.

It has centralized our projects.

It is easy to use because you have all the information coming from the same technology.

The ACI user interface is complex and Cisco should improve it.

We had to take time to learn the product, as it is quite complicated to understand.

The product is stable. We use it all day.

We have technical support with Cisco, and it is great. They are easy to reach. We are big client. They generally solve our issues.

We were previously using Cisco NX-OS products, which are physical, but we needed to install virtual. 

We have large data centers which need to be integrated with vRealize.

At beginning, it was not easy to set up, because it is a complex project. However, the initial setup was easy overall.

The primary use case is for our data centers. It has performed quite well so far. We interconnected it with our legacy infrastructure. We are now considering moving everything into the new environment, and hoping for the best.

It improved the speed of the daily business. With the preconfigured workflows, daily business task are now done more quickly than in the past. 

Automation is its most valuable feature.

I am still not quite happy with the APIC GUI, since I am more of a CLI guy. I don't really use the GUI a lot. It would be better to introduce some wizards to guide you through the whole configuration process instead of clicking through a bunch of menus with no concrete path. It is too easy to forget one or another if you configure it this way. A wizard would be a great help.

We are still struggling with some design issues, but most of these issues will be fixed in the next release.

The stability has been good so far. We still haven't brought our entire workload into ACI. We just have particular systems running on it, but they are perfectly stable. However, there is still the question mark of what will happen when we bring all our data into the new environment, and If it can carry it.

The scalability has been great. It is very easy to scale. We are quite a big customer, so we had some scalability issues with the older, multi-part environment versions of Cisco products.

The technical support is good. Though, I am not that experience with them, as I try to resolve issues on my own.

We switched to this solution to be able to automize. We were starting to migrate our old legacy network from user campuses, backbones, and data centers into SDN technology, and automation was a requirement for the new solution that we chose.

The setup was quite straightforward. Building the Fabric with the automatic discovery process doesn't require you to do a lot compared to the old legacy networks.

We used Cisco for the deployment.

We have saved time on the provisioning and configuration.

Because of timeline issues, we were focused to use Cisco products and did not consider any other vendors.

If you are still using the finger-defined networking approach, I would recommend trying this solution.

We are happy that spanning tree feature was not included in the new design.

Right now, we are using ACI Fabric to replace legacy equipment.

The customer is in a phase where they are building all the Fabric and moving everything. Therefore, it is early to discuss the use case. In the short-term, they plan to use ACI Fabric  to replace everything (their entire infrastructure) that they have at the moment. 

You can do a lot of things with it because it is a very flexible solution.

There is quite a learning curve at the beginning.

I haven't seen any major issues with stability.

The scalability is great. This is the greatest feature of the technology. It is a great improvement in scaling out. It can greatly increase the overall scalability of the Fabric with multi-port and multi side, making it a great product.

There is a dedicated support team inside the Cisco, except (instead of them) we are doing all the day-to-day, standard support activities for our customers.

The ACI setup is in its initial phases is difficult. The learning curve at the beginning is higher than a normal setup. However, there is a point in which you have all your objects setup,  policy, etc., then you can reuse them, which is faster compared with a more traditional software, e.g., Nexus 7000 or Catalyst. Once you overcome the learning curve, you can move on with the rest of it.

Cisco ACI is a good solution, so I would recommend it.

We use it for data center management and multitenancy.

We are service providers. It has allowed us to serve some of our outsourced customers better than the previous generation of products.

The automation is its most valuable feature.

The product needs to be simpler. There is too much complexity in ACI. 80 percent of its features are of no use to us. We could do with a simplified version.

I would like to see some of the roadmap products remotely working to satisfaction where we could actually deploy them for our customers.

The stability is generally very good, but not perfect, because it has let us down before.

Scalability has mostly been perfectly adequate for what we have needed so far. We have not hit too many limits.

The technical support has been excellent. We engaged with Cisco Professional Services to help us get set up and their support has been outstanding. We have had our questions answered. New software and code has been provided when needed.

The desire to automate was a big driver for us to use this solution.

The initial setup was trivially simple and easy. It builds itself because it is automation. You don't have to do too much.

We used Cisco Professional Services for the deployment. They were outstanding, but very expensive.

It is an outstanding product.

We use it to design and manager our network. There are a lot of places inside the building, and we have to bring the new network everywhere to help us.

We use Cisco everywhere in our network, so it makes sense from a compatibility point of view.

The stability is perfect. We have had no problems with Cisco ACI.

We have not thought about scaling at this time.

As the project manager, I don't call the technical support.

We did not use another solution before Cisco ACI.

The initial setup was a bit complex.

Cisco helped us in the beginning.

Price is always an issue.

Our network is entirely Cisco, so we did not consider any other vendors.

Talk with Cisco partners and Cisco. When we needed to find a solution, they helped us to create the network.

We are using it for application centric infrastructure (ACI). It is the evolution of the current data center setup from the legacy design to something programmable with some automation features which are missing today. The key challenge is to set up a new data center, then move all the legacy stuff into the new design. 

We need to understand how to do it, as are already under way. We already have products, but we need to go farther in the design and development of the platform.

Financially, it should be an improvement because we expect everything will converge in the tool. Therefore, we can change the way that we invest money in resources. Today, we have to keep a very wide range of skill resources in the company. Going forward, we will be able to focus in more specific skills that will allow us to keep the new tool up and running. It's a big change of approach, but in the long run, it will provide us a lot of benefits. The benefit is the finance of our IT will change.

Once we have it running, it should be easier for us to program our IT rather than going case-by-case, by switches and different elements, or program it by hand. 

Interoperability with third-party products always seems so straightforward, but every time you need to invest a lot to add an external element to the ACI Fabric technology. A good improvement would be to have an easier integration with external building blocks in the customer's environment.

Biannually, there is a new design delivered by Cisco. Thus, you are always running behind the new design, and it never stops. With Cisco ACI, this has been a nightmare. I recommend that they provide more customer focused blueprints to fix this. They should try to learn and understand what are the real needs of each customer.

Now, we are running behind releases. However, with each new release of a new design, you have to test it and validate it. So, we aren't going operational, which is not good. This support was not offered to us with the product.

I would not want to see any additional features at this point. We have had enough additional features. We still have a lot to learn and don't want anything extra.

The hardware is not stable. We have switches failing.

We are not that big to reach the limit (or edges) of this technology. Its scalability is fine. It is very easy to scale. 

Today, doing changes to the infrastructure is a nightmare. Every single device has different programs and programmatics. However, with this tool, you simply plug and play. When you want to scale, you add one piece, and it's done. It works.

We are buying support services from a Cisco partner, and they have not always worked perfectly. Sometimes, we have to open many types of tickets. We have to make them very clear what we need and just exclusively ask them to forward a request to Cisco. Once we get to Cisco, the support works.

Since the product is new, it is difficult to get the partners onboard. Other companies are not able to provide effective support for this technology yet.

We switched to ACI because there came a time to make the decision to either stay with another 10 years with the technology that we had in place or go through this challenge and bet on the future with better, new technologies (and also new skill sets and new setups for our teams). We also try to resell internally to our internal customers and other departments. We help them find new ways to facilitate their core business. We do IT for them, so they need the best possible solutions from us to make their lives easier.

Today, it is sort of a nightmare for them too. Every time we have to do maintenance, for instance, on the infrastructure, we have to break their business continuity, which is not always good.

The initial setup was easy. At the time that we did our setup, the design was easy. The original design was easy to set up. Then, Cisco changed it, and it was more complex. They should not have changed it.

Cisco's partner did the implementation. The experience was great. They came and helped us to do a zero day setup. In a few weeks, we were up and running with the pro console.

The business case is not a complete success today, because we still have the two environments running. We want to switch down the first environment while we have everything up and running on the new one, but it's taking ages. This is a big challenge.

We bought a package for hardware, software, and support. At that time, Cisco was simply selling that package to distributors, then we opted for it directly.

VMware is one of ACI's competitors. We considered VMware because we also have it in our infrastructure.

We chose Cisco ACI, because VMware is just focusing virtual infrastructure and microsegmentation. The idea was to use Cisco for the physical infrastructure and integrate with VMware for the virtual infrastructure.

I would recommend the solution to anyone with a similar use case, though try for a greenfield solution or project instead of migrating your previous infrastructure.

In principle, what we are looking for is to have one gigantic tool which can be programmable, making our lives easier in terms of troubleshooting and management.

It is installed in the data center, and it works well.

We see it is faster, but still needs improvements.

The flexibility that you can install it everywhere.

It needs more integration with public clouds, like Azure and AWS.

There are some setup issues that need fixing.

The stability is good, but it is not the best. New releases keep coming out all the time.

The scalability is perfect. It is one of the main reasons that we install it.

It is standard Cisco technical support. We have not experienced any specific issues nor benefits.

We are a consultancy company. It was mainly the customer who decided to go with Cisco ACI. The decision, however, was based on the benefits from an investment perspective.

The initial setup wasn't straightforward. We experienced some issues.

I am the integrator at Accenture.

You need a lab to start the test phase before going to production.