Cisco ACI Reviews

It is used in data centers.

It gives us a new way of providing the network.

Building the ACI Fabric is its most valuable feature. 

It needs to be able to function on the cloud.

I am not using it day-to-day at the moment. My impression is it is working fine.

On paper, it scales.

We did the deployment.

Start now with this technology.

The primary use case for this product is to enhance the speed of certain tasks in the network. We get faster deployments of network policies based on applications that we need to provide.

The centralized management of the entire network data center, in this case with ACI, is the most valuable feature. By having access to some powerful APIs you can build your own tool to speak to the ACI controller, then with that, you can deploy things really fast. Having the option to build your own tools and then using the centralized management of the ACI to push the configuration to the network devices is very valuable.

The error messages should be improved. Sometimes we want to remove an error message so we acknowledge an error and we would then like to remove it but there's no real way of doing that. If we need to do it, we need to open a tech case. That could use improvement. 

From my experience, it seems like a really stable product. The only thing that concerns me a bit is the fact that you have a lot of errors. It gives you a lot of error messages and they mostly don't really influence the functionality, so it still works. It just notifies that there is some misconfiguration and I think it will scare people with these kinds of messages that don't really have an influence on the functions. Operating the ACI fabric is a concern I have. 

I have seen the guide for scalability and I think it's great. I have no complaints. 

We had some problems so we opened a tech case and we got help. We could do the things we couldn't do so their support is great.

Everyone is getting faster and if you want to compete with other companies then you have to bring services to your customers that are at the level of the other companies. ACI is a way of doing things faster by automating. That's the reason why we have it in our company. We chose Cisco because it was based on certain conditions that had to be met, and of course, also because of the price. It was the best product in terms of price and what comes with it.

At first, the setup was really complex because we did everything with the GUI first. We had to figure out how to do that and it was frustrating because we had a lot of errors which didn't really tell us anything because we're used to other kinds of messages from the old school networking. That was kind of frustrating but then once we got it, it got easier. Now, there are new challenges that we are facing when we want to do certain configurations but it totally gets better with the help of online communities.

We have someone coming from Cisco once a week. We ask him questions and he helps us integrate this new technology in our company.

I would rate it an eight out of ten. Not a ten because of the error messages. In order to get to a ten, they need to have a better way of telling if something is really important. They shouldn't have the message in the same window or in the same menu, they should be separated. The guys who looks at it should be able to tell really fast if it's a problem they have to look at right away or if it has time. Also, they should have the option to delete the messages if you acknowledge them and don't want to see them anymore. 

Advice I would give to someone considering this solution would be don't be too frustrated about trying to do certain things because it needs time and you need to learn the GUI and what it does in the background. Take the time and ask the community or ask a Cisco employee to help you integrate and then with time it will get better.  

We have purchased this solution for our network, but we have not deployed it yet.

The most valuable feature of the solution is the Call Manager.

Technical support needs improvement. I can get stuck with a rep who will just have me scan the logs to look for the problem. I think that technical support tickets should be escalated sooner. 

This solution is pretty stable.

I would rate the scalability about a ten.

Sometimes I get stuck with somebody from technical support who does not understand the problem. If they are having trouble then they need to get help with it more quickly.

We are still in the pre-deployment stage of this solution.

The only complaint that I have so far is in regards to technical support.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

I worked with this solution in my lab to prepare it for deployment.

I don't use it at the organizational level, but in my lab, it has helped me to visualize everything in one click.

This solution is easy to configure, and it is done in an object-oriented manner.

I would like to see a smoother transition from existing systems. The configuration from what we had earlier, compared to ACI, is completely different. 

The stability of this solution is ok.

Our deployment is very small, so I'm not the right guy to speak with about scalability.

I have not contacted technical support.

The initial setup of this solution is not straightforward. We had our standard configuration running, but when we moved to ACI it was a completely different dimension. It was a slow migration, and you need to completely change the way you think about things. This took me about three months to completely understand.

We implemented the solution in-house. I went through the specifications and documentation and then handled it myself.

Things are moving towards the ACI model, so it is good to try out this next generation solution.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

It is used in our data center.

Automation is its most valuable feature.

• The way the objects are oriented on it are not as straightforward as they should be.
• The learning curve of this product is very steep. It is not what I'm used to.
• I miss having the CLI. I am old-fashioned.

It seems fairly stable. We have not had any major hiccups.

It is pretty scalable.

The technical support is good. We had an issue where we had to talk to Cisco's technical assistance, and it worked out.

The initial setup was pretty straightforward. We just moved from one platform to another.

We use consultants for the deployment, and they were very helpful. They had experience that we didn't.

There was only one logical way to go, and that was with the Cisco ACI.

Just go for Cisco ACI.

We use it in our data center.

The security component is its most valuable feature.

I would like to see more integration with other Cisco products.

It is a very stable product.

I deployed it in a small environment (a lab), so I cannot comment on scalability.

Going from legacy data center stuff to Cisco ACI, I saw the value it could offer the company that I was working with.

The initial setup was a bit complex. ACI was just out at that time, and there wasn't support at that time. This was the first year it came out. The support and deployments in Africa weren't considerable and resources were a problem. I am from South Africa. So, it was something that we taught ourselves.

There is support for it now. 

It was implemented in-house.

We did not see ROI since this was in a lab.

Get more support from Cisco, as far as the product's concerned. Training is a must.

We use ACI with Nexus 9000 in multi-tenancy scenarios.

We can support multiple VDRs of multiple branch offices at same physical location in the same infrastructure.

It offers multitenancy. The opportunity to install it on the same platform with a huge amount of customers.

It needs more features for integrating with third-party vendors.

The product's stability is quite good.

The scalability's capabilities are very good for our needs.

Our initial setup was complex because we have a very complex scenario. We had to put in place a tricky solution in order to support all of our customers' needs. However, we feel confident that it is a good solution for our needs.

We implemented it in-house.

Leverage the multi-tenant functionalities. We have been quite satisfied with the implementation.

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.