Cisco ACI Valuable Features
My company bought Cisco ACI for data center extension between two geographical spots, and it's working well and stable.
Cisco ACI, networking-wise, is amazing. It's made for networking—all networking features work. The solution is easy to extend with VXLAN, and you can have the same security features between the data centers if you wish. It's straightforward to move the VMware server from Montreal to another place, for example, from Toronto to the West Coast; it's not a problem.
I also like the newer version's central management and troubleshooting configuration, as it's not complicated.
I especially like the host-based routing feature of Cisco ACI because it's straightforward to do it on different data centers.
Another valuable feature of Cisco ACI is that its management controller works very well with no issues.
View full review »The most valuable features of Cisco ACI are micro-segmentation, the VXLAN, and the ACI flattening services. The solution's policy extension or unified policy within each remote site is homogeneous to the entire environment.
View full review »RK
RaviKumar4
Senior DGM at Bharat Electronics Limited
ACI's most valuable feature is sizing - you can easily find the sizing of the data, which means the data speed, CPU, and virtualization can be determined.
View full review »Buyer's Guide
Cisco ACI
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about Cisco ACI. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.
ACI's most valuable feature is its SDN capabilities. Everything is on your software design controller. Everything is blocked by default until you allow it.
SG
Sanjay Gaiswal
Post Sales Manager at Vcom Teachnologies
In legacy networks, managing changes requires individual tickets for each device. ACI's single pane of glass management through APIC is a big advantage.
So, single-tenant management is a plus.
View full review »I really like the usage of the application. It offers a good focus on applications and has a driven policy model. It is capable of automation and application-driven. Customers can focus on the applications, and this benefits the end customers.
We really like the GUI and the visibility we get in on the dashboards. You get real-time details on performance.
The DevOps teams can integrate their own software in ACI.
We can monitor which areas are working well.
It can be used with Kubernetes.
We get a full holistic view of the ecosystem.
View full review »AS
AbhinavSingh
Technical Marketing Engineer - Hybrid Cloud Infrastructures at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
I like features like policy control and micro-segmentation.
View full review »MK
Mohamed Kamel
Datacenter & Infrastructure Senior Engineer at BMB
The most useful feature in the ACI is a feature called Service Graph. Service Graph is a part of the ACI fabric and is used to redirect traffic through various network services, such as firewalls, without the need for complicated network configurations.
You simply create a policy and redirect the traffic to the firewall and then back to the ACI. So the Service Graph feature is the most powerful feature in the ACI and can be used to deploy the firewall as a service template for any type of traffic. You can direct the traffic to go through the firewall and then back to the ACI. I think it's the most important feature of the ACI.
View full review »VN
Vahid_Nazari
Data Center Consulting Engineer at Techrun Stock Exchange
Our clients find several features of Cisco ACI particularly valuable, like the ability to create Service Graphs and employ Policy-Based Routing in an Application-Centric manner. One significant attraction for clients in Iran is the robustness of multicast solutions, which has been a major driver for them to migrate to Cisco ACI. It's worth noting that in Iran, the predominant IT infrastructure is on-premises, with limited usage of AWS or hybrid solutions.
View full review »The most important aspect of Cisco ACI in my opinion is the ease of management. Other solutions, like traditional solutions and pricier solutions—or even fabric and PAT—you have to do many configurations on a box-to-box basis, With Cisco ACI, you go on the AP and do some "next, next finish" installer. Everything is done without having to know about the VXLAN, AVPN, MP-BGP, or ISI. In previous solutions, you had to know all these things and deploy all of them yourself, so you needed a deep knowledge of VRF and all the other BGP things. You would have to remember everything about the detail configuration, but now we just do some clicks and everything is there.
The other benefit to me is the white-listing solution that the ACI can handle. It's important to have a good knowledge of IPS and DDoS things. I always prefer to stop traffic mid-way instead of putting everything on the firewall and blocking it on the firewall. In my opinion, a firewall has very limited resources and it is possible to run out of resources easily with a simple attack, like HPing. But when you do white-listing, you just greenlight your needed traffic, not all the traffic. So this is a very big difference. And also of course, nowadays everyone is talking about the ACR tool Heat that allows customized configuration to style. These are the major things and some other things like very low latency and few hops.
JM
reviewer2109174
Network Architect at a government with 10,001+ employees
We currently use the smooth upgrade process available in Cisco ACI, and it's really useful. I also like the augmentation of the bandwidth available in the platform with 10 and 40 GB interfaces.
Cisco ACI helps us better secure our infrastructure from end to end because we can use a contract to secure flow between endpoints in the data center.
Because we can use automation processes with this platform, we have been able to free up our IT department's time.
We can deploy applications quickly with automation, and we have been able to save time overall as an organization as well.
View full review »AL
manager813261
Manager at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
The basic functionality that is the most useful is creating a virtual network on a physical device. We use it for Software-Defined Networking where we have a centralized controller, and the rest of the switches are just for packing traffic. When you have a centralized controller, it's easy to manage.
View full review »DT
Dinesh Thathanath
Sr Manager at Cognizant
The most valuable feature of this solution is the single pane of management. You can have various API integrations and you can have software-defined scripts.
Cisco ACI can build things for you which was not possible on legacy networks.
View full review »LS
MajorCha1741
Major Change Supervisor at Vodafone
The straightforward migration of all of the applications and loop balancing are the two most valuable features. Also, the measurement of their customer-wide sources is very straightforward. It's another dimension of the networks.
View full review »VP
Vijay-Pandey
Network Architect at Neev limited
What's most valuable in Cisco ACI is that it isn't like the legacy infrastructure where you have a lot of complexity in a TTR architecture.
What I like most about Cisco ACI is that you can control those devices from a single console, even if you have three hundred devices. You can manage the entire infrastructure from a single point of contact, so Cisco ACI is a time saver.
Another exclusive feature of Cisco ACI is its API interface that lets you enhance automation within the environment.
You can manage your entire data center from a single interface through Cisco ACI. If you want to upgrade three hundred devices in one click, you can do that, and within one hour, all three hundred devices will be upgraded.
I also like that Cisco keeps enhancing the product by adding different features, so there have been five major releases of Cisco ACI.
Another valuable feature of the solution is that it's more user-friendly than Aruba and Juniper.
View full review »NS
Navee Srichaiyanont
IT manager at IRPC PCL
Micro-segmentation is the solution’s most valuable feature.
View full review »The solution is valuable because it configures from a single point, from APs, and also all routers. Commands don't need to be configured on the spine and leaf side. You can control and manage the fabric from a single point. If you have serial numbers for your devices, they can all be registered with scripts. As a network engineer, you can configure and manage the fabric very easily. From the CLI side, it's really easy to configure from the GUI.
View full review »JS
John Sweet
Network Manager at California Department of Corrections
The most valuable features are the ease of setup for redundancy, as well as centralized control.
View full review »KL
reviewer1614012
Solution Consultant at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
The solution has all of the baseline functionalities for any sort of SDN capability.
The stability is quite good.
The initial setup is straightforward.
View full review »The best part of Cisco ACI is the server deployment and integration.
GR
Gael Ravot
Network Engineer at Direction des Systemes d'Information, Etat de Vaud
The centralized configuration is its most valuable feature.
View full review »Cisco ACI's best features include its network-centric approach and micro-segmentation.
View full review »MR
Michel RASIAH
Network Engineer at Societe Generale
- Its resilience
- It easy to configure.
NF
NIBRAS FARES
Networking Specialist at Saudi Business Machines - SBM
The flexibility of adding new components with minimal impact on existing services running in the data center is a key benefit of this ACI-based solution. Customers appreciate the unified control and management provided by ACI, allowing them to oversee the entire data center centrally. This solution facilitates seamless communication between various services and ensures future scalability with minimal configurations and operational effort. The cost savings for customers are notable, particularly in instances where adding ports or making operational adjustments is a straightforward process, requiring minimal resources. ACI stands out as a state-of-the-art, high-performance, and highly scalable solution.
View full review »FJ
reviewer1539390
Chief Security Architect at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees
Virtualization and integration with VMware is the most valuable feature.
View full review »RD
Ruben Del Monte
Network Consulting Engineer at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
You can do a lot of things with it because it is a very flexible solution.
View full review »MH
Mark Hayden
Lead Network Engineer at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
The good side of it is being able to control your network switching and routing in the data center from a single control point.
View full review »I have found the SDN features to be the most valuable.
View full review »I like using WebEx Board.
View full review »GR
George Ribarski
Information Security Architect at Progress Software Corporation
Automation is its most valuable feature.
View full review »IA
Imran Alvi
Network Consultant at Onstack Inc
The best part of ACI is that it can integrate with a lot of virtual environments like VMware, Hyper-V, and KVM. That's the best feature that sticks out in my mind because I have worked with customers who were looking into different solutions. The biggest selling point for them, which finalized their choice of ACI, was because it supported both Microsoft and VMware.
View full review »SA
Director6a4a
Director Design, Architecture & Security at Syntax Systems GmbH & Co KG
We have the flexibility to bring an application from wherever it is located from one end of application to the other. It has overlay at the end.
View full review »PK
reviewer1887492
Assistant Vice President at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
We use all the features provided by Cisco ACI including orchestration to layer seven, service training, load enhancements, and firewalls.
View full review »LC
reviewer1334937
Consultant Engineer at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
One of the most valuable features is centralized management. The other is the ability to create policies by routing.
View full review »PI
PaulIlavarasu Balasekar
Technical Lead at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
The most valuable features include
- microsegmentation
- L3 Out features
- the common tenant and tenancy model.
Regarding microsegmentation, generally, in Layer 2, there are restrictions between VLANs. When you do microsegmentation, by name, by IP address, or MAC address, you can create a microsegmented EPG and you can group within an EPG. Generally, all the endpoints that are part of an EPG can talk to each other. But when you create a microsegmented EPG you are creating restrictions.
Regarding the tenancy model, when you have a host data center and multiple customers and you want to build a dedicated infrastructure for a customer, you have to physically suppress the devices and you have to think a lot about security features. But with ACI, you don't need to buy a dedicated setup for each customer. Using one setup, you can create multiple tenants, and each tenant represents one customer. There are common services that are used by all the customers, like a DNS server or any web servers. You can keep the servers on the common tenant. In that way you can use the tenancy model efficiently.
FN
Federico Nicolelli
Network and Security Manager at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
- Its simplicity
- It can be automated.
AD
ITNetwor78fd
IT Networker Engineer at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees
The most valuable features are the automation with the different systems for the software development and the ability to provision switches in hours rather than days.
Automation is the main criteria why we chose to go with this solution.
View full review »DB
Dash Brousseau
Network Engineer at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
The most valuable feature of the solution is having a central point to log in. I have a simple dashboard that has all my devices connected. That is what I'm looking for.
View full review »BJ
Bojan Jambresic
Senior Network Engineer
Automation is its most valuable feature.
View full review »MB
NetworkAc25c
Network Architect at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
The valuable feature is its configuration policy. We can configure it because the policy is used for all the switches. We do not have to implement all the configuration on every switch.
Also, it fully integrates with most of our other tools, like Infoblox or vCenter, as its very powerful.
View full review »SS
SeniorNe9978
Senior Network Engineer at a pharma/biotech company with 1,001-5,000 employees
The fact that it's modern and that it's easy to configure are the two most valuable features.
SA
Syed Ali Wajahat
IT Solution Architect at a media company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Among the valuable features are the integration with VMM domains and their Layer 4 and Layer 7 devices, like device packages for F5, Palo Alto, and ASA.
We are also doing automation from ACI and we have integration with Azure. With the Azure stack integration we can have total automation. We can configure the EPGs from there, and we can configure load balancing functionalities from there as well. The most useful feature is that you don't need to configure anything on ACI itself. You can configure on Azure and it will provision your application. This is the highest level of automation in Microsoft.
In the second level of integration, you create the EPGs and the gateways on ACI yourself. Then, it will be configured on a SCVMM and you tag the VLANs there. It removes the hassle of configuring code groups and VLAN tags on the VMM, the virtualization domain, on the virtualization platform. You configure within ACI, and it will be visible there. It removes the networking administrative part from the system side, and you have complete control there.
You can also have microsegmentation. You can have isolation for a certain part of the EPGs.
In addition, you have a complete fabric you can connect to and you can have a static binding all over the fabric. You don't need to configure specific VLANs or run different cables. All of switches are connected to the spine, so you have complete reachability all over the fabric. You can have multi-tenancy. You can have multiple fabric configurations for different types of connectivity. You would not have this on normal switching fabric.
View full review »DG
DarrylG
Technology Support Specialist at Fujitsu
It adds a layer of complication but one area where it has an advantage, a benefit, is that you're able to reuse a specific integration. If you add another server, you can use a specific integration and assign it to another port.
You can back up the configuration, restore a configuration. It's easier compared to the traditional way of keeping a text file of the configuration. With ACI the management itself has been improved since you can manage it using the graphical user interface.
There a lot of integrations that can be done. VMware can be integrated with ACI, that's another advantage, although we did not use it as much because the client also has its own virtualization software.
View full review »MD
NetworkE88af
Network Engineer at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees
- Software-defined
- Ease of deployment
- Ease of change
- Ease of segmentation
- Scalability
AJ
NetworkE67f2
Network Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
It can easily do a snapshot before you do any change, and if something goes wrong, you can just rollback. It's pretty smooth, and it helps.
The UI is quite intuitive.
View full review »OB
Platformbd19
Platform Engineer at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Its programmability: You can do stuff to policies to make them more flexible, allowing you to connect devices in new ways.
View full review »BH
Byron Hooper
Senior Network Engineer at a insurance company with 501-1,000 employees
The features we find most valuable is the integration with the virtual switches of our UCS platform. It gives a lot of visibility right from the ACI console, the ability to channel out the traffic and segment it without having to get into separate physical hardware or trying to figure out VDCs manually. So far that's been really powerful and extremely useful for us.
View full review »BB
NetworkEc10c
Network Engineer at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
The ability to integrate with other systems is the most valuable feature.
View full review »CB
NetworkA270c
Network Architect at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
The automation is its most valuable feature.
View full review »- Its provisioning.
- It has the fastest automation. You can move and deploy services in just a couple of minutes.
TB
Tabbrez Balbbale
Security Advisor at https://globalqart,com
The ACI fabric supports more than 64,000 dedicated tenant networks. A single fabric can support more than one million IPv4/IPv6 endpoints, more than 64,000 tenants, and more than 200,000 10G ports.
The ACI fabric enables any service (physical or virtual) anywhere with no need for additional software or hardware gateways to connect between the physical and virtual services and normalizes encapsulations for virtual extensible local area network (VXLAN)/VLAN/network virtualization using generic routing encapsulation (NVGRE).
View full review »GC
DataCent582b
Data Center Implementation Engineer at a consultancy with 1-10 employees
In a very general way, the ease of access, ease of use, and ease of connecting the system is a valuable feature in itself. The solution doesn't really increase detection rates as that is not what it was created for. Threat prevention comes from other devices that might be connected to the Cisco ACI that monitors external traffic. The ACI solution maintains what end-of-life products would be doing and offers other opportunities to unify solutions.
AD
ITEvolutd7ab
IT Evolution Manager at a aerospace/defense firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
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.
RK
RaviKumar17
Solution Architect
The most valuable features of Cisco ACI are the EPGs and the micro segmentation.
View full review »EG
NetworkEb520
Network Engineer at a hospitality company with 10,001+ employees
The most valuable feature is the unified fabric.
View full review »KC
NetworkEec9b
Network Engineer at CS Computer Systems
It eases our deployment. Now, we use service requests when there's a project and we have to deploy it. So when the networking team gets a service request it'll be two clicks, anyone can do it. It will be less of a job, and it will be easier and faster. The main benefit is the simplicity of the deployment. On the flipside, it's also a drawback because if only one person does it and if he does something wrong, the whole system can stop working. If ten people are doing ten different things and one person messes up, it's only one error and it's easier to isolate the problem and fix it. A customer is going to deploy something on their own and more often than not, they don't have the knowledge and experience to understand what can go wrong, so they might accidentally clog the network.
View full review »HS
reviewer1494225
Network Architect at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
It is very easy to do the configuration after you know how to work with the product. It is global, so you change one interface, and changes are reflected on every switch.
View full review »MW
Assistan77f2
Assistant Director IT at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
The most valuable feature at this stage is that it can do segmentation without running everything through a firewall. You're able to do segmentation without having firewalls in the middle of all your connections. It is extendable to other data centers. You can extend your Layer 2 VLANs over Layer 3, using VXLAN.
View full review »DG
Director5596
Director of Network and Security at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
The most valuable feature is programmability, where we can manage a network via APIs and software, as opposed to having to manage complex hardware.
View full review »JB
SystemsNd760
Systems Network Manager at a non-tech company with 1,001-5,000 employees
This is a modern, next-generation solution, and it is where the platform is going.
I have been told that this is an easy solution to configure, but we are just starting to deploy it, so that is to be determined.
View full review »PC
PedroCardenas
Sr. Voice Engineer at SGWS
This solution allows you to do everything quicker and more efficiently.
View full review »RV
Razvan Valceanu
Systems Engineer at a tech services company
- It scales very well. When you increasingly scale with it, it makes the product easier to work with.
- You can automate it.
- It has a lot of insight into monitoring and traffic. However, this could also be improved.
PS
Pau Sastre Vazquez
Network Engineer at a pharma/biotech company with 1,001-5,000 employees
- It is resilient.
- It is the future solution for data centers.
AW
Anders Westermann
Network Specialist at a comms service provider
- Telemetry
- Analyzing the environment.
ML
NetworkE623b
Network Engineer at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
The most valuable feature is that we have centralized management and control of pretty much the entire data center and the architecture of it. It gives us a genuine single pane of glass to look through to manage all of our devices.
We're still in the process of doing the migration. We haven't migrated completely all of our applications out of our legacy into it yet. It was challenging at first, but getting easier now that we're starting to get into it.
View full review »BE
NetworkM787d
Network Manager at a university with 501-1,000 employees
The most valuable feature is the integration with vCenter, as it makes it easier for the systems and network to interoperate.
View full review »NK
SrNetEng2781
Sr Network Engineer at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
There are many features which are useful, like the automatic completion of the VXLAN. We don't need to configure any part of the VXLAN, which is tedious to do.
View full review »GD
Grzegorz Dygon
Specialist Lab Network at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
There's a lot of units in the lab and a lot of templates that go to the lab. That is the most valuable feature.
View full review »It simplifies the utilization of the network.
View full review »MD
Marcin Dobrzynski
ICT Expert at Orange Polska
- It is popular.
- It is simple.
- It works 100 percent of the time.
JP
Integratdbf1
Senior Network Security Engineer at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
The most valuable feature is the data center communication.
View full review »TM
Infrastr4106
Infrastructure Engineer at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees
Cisco ACI can separate networks with a buoy interface. That is the most valuable feature.
View full review »DR
NetworkA92ac
Network Architect at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
It improves security and automation. It is stable and provides flexibility with different workloads. It is also more powerful from a security point of view.
View full review »TM
reviewer1307187
Technology Consultant at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
The most valuable feature is the throughput that it offers.
View full review »EK
NetworkE6ce9
Network Engineer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
The centralized management is its most valuable feature.
View full review »PJ
NetworkE663b
Network Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
We can support policy based on our intent, then that gets rendered into the policy that we will be using for Fabric.
View full review »It's fully-integrated into vCenter, so we can see everything, like vMotion, and can manage fully with vCenter, as well as manage the whole network.
View full review »You can integrate Cisco ACI well with VMware.
View full review »NP
NetworkE1539
Network Engineer at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
The most valuable feature of Cisco ACI is that it is easy to manage. We can automate and it can be scripted. Virtual ACI is very good.
View full review »MC
Mathys Chauvain
Network Engineer at BPCE Infogérance & Technologies
It is easy to use because you have all the information coming from the same technology.
View full review »RG
NetworkE486a
Network Engineer at a tech services company with 5,001-10,000 employees
- Automation
- Developing
VD
Presalesd6c5
Pre-sales Engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Building the ACI Fabric is its most valuable feature.
View full review »DK
ITNetwor4773
IT Network at a healthcare company with 201-500 employees
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.
View full review »AH
Collabor130b
Sr. IT System Administration at a government with 10,001+ employees
The most valuable feature of the solution is the Call Manager.
View full review »SP
Principa2c58
Principal Engineer at a tech company with 10,001+ employees
This solution is easy to configure, and it is done in an object-oriented manner.
View full review »AH
NetworkE07e9
Network Engineer at a political organization with 10,001+ employees
Automation is its most valuable feature.
View full review »PM
NetworkAc8df
Network Architect at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
The security component is its most valuable feature.
View full review »AM
Andrea Margheritini
Project Manager at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
It offers multitenancy. The opportunity to install it on the same platform with a huge amount of customers.
View full review »AS
CloudAdva9fe
Cloud Advisory Consultant at Accenture
The flexibility that you can install it everywhere.
View full review »Buyer's Guide
Cisco ACI
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about Cisco ACI. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.