Cisco SD-WAN Valuable Features

ER
Executive Vice President Operations and IT at Sterling National Bank

Because our client uses two different ISPs at each location, the service is always up. The chances of Comcast going down at the same time that Verizon Files goes down is very, very small. The result is that the client's services are always up with much higher speeds and much lower costs. I think that those benefits are the ones that people are primarily interested in and that is what SD-WAN allowed us to achieve.  

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Suraj Krishna - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Consultant at Orange

The most valuable features of Cisco SD-WAN are reliability and scalability.

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Samuel Romero - PeerSpot reviewer
Field data engineer at a energy/utilities company with 501-1,000 employees

Cisco products are rated to handle the heat and are very rugged, making them a good corporate standard. They are slightly more expensive than some other products but are still an affordable corporate-grade solution. We have had some issues with the ISO versions of the SD-WAN, but the FlexVPN solution has since resolved them. Cisco SD-WAN is a good, solid product, but requires a certain skill set to use. We cannot simply switch from Peplink to Cisco as the two are different. The upgrade to iOS 11 has fixed any issues we had with the product, and it has been reliable for the past four years.

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Buyer's Guide
Cisco SD-WAN
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about Cisco SD-WAN. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.
MOHAMEDELSHERIF - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Technical Consultant at International Turnkey Systems - ITS

The solution provides good consolidation, centralization, and manageability for edge routers. 

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RuiAraujo - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Presales Consultant at Sysconnect Lda

The solution sufficiently provides ISPs. 

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DeepakSinghal - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager at Ernst & Young

The most useful features will depend on the clients' requirements.

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VIJAICYRIAC - PeerSpot reviewer
Director at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

The most valuable feature of Cisco SD-WAN is its compatibility and integration with the rest of the infrastructure.

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DarrinBryant - PeerSpot reviewer
AVP Technology Network Engineer at LPL Financial

It is very simple to deploy. It's a point-and-click type of deployment, so it's fairly simple.

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LD
Head of Network Service, Information's Communications Technologies and Development at a transportation company with 1,001-5,000 employees

The solution is excellent mainly for supporting our two WAN ports. We can dedicate which WAN is taking over and which one is available or not. It's great that we can also connect them to the internet. We can have a third line to connect to the internet providers for our internet solution. Everything is redundant and everything is working so far.

Overall, it's been working well for us.

The solution is great at aggregating the traffic and then sending it in one direction.

We have a good knowledge base in-house and good support in general and therefore we have continued to use it over the years.

The product can scale well.

The solution is very stable.

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IbrahimAlsharif - PeerSpot reviewer
Director of IT at CITG

The availability of services and combining different connections is most valuable.

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Upinder Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
Presales Solutions Architect at Orange

The product is very good. The information is accessible, and the integration is also easy.

It is stable.

The solution scales well.

It has a very good GUI.

The interface is straightforward. 

We find it very simple to deploy.

If a user needs documentation, it's readily available. 

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UR
Consulting & Solution Integration at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees

One of the most valuable features is that they have multiple SD-WAN options: you have Meraki for simple management solutions, you have Viptela, and you have the option of having any type of WAN interfaces. Presently, you can also have a single combined solution for both WAN as well as for voice, so you can have a voice bundle as well. These are major unique points of this solution. 

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SN
Sr Manager Infrastructure at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees

Cisco provides visibility. We can see the performance of the branch. Troubleshooting is swift, allowing for fast turnaround times whenever we encounter an issue.

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SI
Tech Specialist, Client Network DeliveryTech at AT&T

I like creating policies. This way, we can better utilize our WAN circuit and get better rates. Its GUI is user-friendly, and the CLI is also great.

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UH
Pre-sales Manager at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees

The most valuable features of Cisco SD-WAN include the DIA and its integration with Cisco Umbrella for DNS security.

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VENKATESHREDDY - PeerSpot reviewer
Associate IT Director at a tech services company with 201-500 employees

The solution has helped us to lower expenses.

The initial setup is quite straightforward. 

It is very stable. 

We can scale the solution. 

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Ehsan Emad - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of IT at Synnapex

The best feature is SD-WAN's automation capabilities. I believe many customers don't care whether we use VPN, or that use color or mGRE. When you're talking about management of, for example, a DMVPN solution or MDI solution, what is the option? So we have to go to a bug-by-bug report, like for example, NSRP to show these things. With vManage, we can see everything. We have a graph that we can click on and it helps us to remember better. 

Another good feature in the HCI is the integration of a health monitoring system. Other solutions like SDx are all the same. They have an integrated health monitoring system. So if you are deploying a data center, the options aren't really that great. But this integrated health system in HCI in vManage or even SD-WAN in the vManage is helping a lot. And also 

Customizing SD-WAN is very easy because you can define two colors. You can define two different operators. You can deploy a partial mesh, a full mesh, or hub-and-spoke totally differently. If you want to do this on a DMVPN solution, that's really hard. Also, things like Quality of Service in mGRE environment, in my opinion, are very hard because when you are dealing with mGRE, you have one tunnel at the hub and a different tunnel at the spoke. So what if I want to limit the traffic in my hub at the spoke? Because I have one tunnel, all the branches will be affected if I implement a limitation or restriction. So that's why we have advanced technology, like adaptive quality of service. With SD-WAN, the QoS is much easier because it is separate from the VPN.

The very beauty of SD-WAN is the separation of the plane. Right now, there are different planes. Compared to other solutions, the whole thing is totally changed. Rebound and vManage came into play as well as the new protocols like PnP. I started to convert most of the solutions from regular DMVPN into SD-WAN because we have the capability to define our VPN or define our color and customize by making a full or partial image. 

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HL
Solutions Architect at Comstor Brasil

The most valuable features, application awareness, and failover resilience, stand out as key considerations for users.

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EricBiederbeck - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Projektmanager at Telekom Deutschland GmbH

The integration of Layer 3 and application routing is great.

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Suresh Vijayen - PeerSpot reviewer
Product Manager at IX Telecom

The connectivity is great.

The dashboard is excellent.

It's a scalable solution.

The product is stable. 

Technical support is very good. 

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Malith Chandrasekara - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of Enterprise Business at VSIS

From my observations, Cisco has been rolling out new features every other day, so I would say their speed of innovation is one of the most valuable aspects for me.

I would also point to their superior features when it comes to general connectivity, configuration, and reporting.

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Javed Hashmi - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Technology Officer at Future Point Technologies

When considering the most valuable features of Cisco SD-WAN, the decoupling of self-monitoring stands out significantly. This feature enhances operational efficiency by centralizing control plans and policy management, making applying SD-WAN features across numerous devices easier. The central policy enforcement feature is also highly beneficial, particularly regarding network security. With this feature, security policies can be defined centrally, streamlining security management across the network. Another valuable aspect is the improved link utilization, which previously took a lot of work to implement. It enables granular control over link management, quality of service, and application prioritization, enhancing overall network performance. Furthermore, integrating APIs facilitates automation and simplifies routing, a previously unattainable capability.

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HN
Principal Solution Architect at Criterion Networks

The cloud environment, including cloud security integration, is very valuable because of the many API integrations with the SD-WAN. This includes monitoring tools, ThousandEyes, and the programmability aspect.

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GulfrazAhmad - PeerSpot reviewer
Division Head Enterprise Infrastructure (SVP) at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Cisco SD-WAN's best features are the development of network links, application control, and bandwidth monitoring.

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AV
Network and Security Engineer at FrieslandCampina

The load sharing in the fabric and the cloud connectivity are both pretty flexible. The solution offers us the correct field mechanisms.

The solution is stable and reliable.

It can scale according to our needs. 

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AS
Senior Engineer at Totalplay

The solution works well in big environments. It's excellent for large enterprises with a high number of users.

The deployment is quite simple and straightforward.

The solution is stable.

Technical support has always been quite helpful. We are very happy with their level of service.

It's possible to scale the solution.

We've looked into the existing documentation and found it to be okay. It varies, however, they do offer documentation for their products.

Overall, I really like the whole technology.

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Kristof Spriet - PeerSpot reviewer
Products & Solutions Manager at Proximus

The first part that we like is that we can reuse certain hardware, which is a valuable asset. You can use hardware SKUs that already exist in the network.

The second part that we like is the integration with the cloud and the measurement of the cloud's quality. These are the two values that this solution gives as compared to other implementations that we have seen.

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Farhan-Mohamed - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead Solutions Architect at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees

I'm focusing on using the application ware routing.

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AQ
Senior Manager at Systems Limited

Cisco SD-WAN has separate OMP routing. 

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FD
Senior Product Consultant at Entel Chile

When we talk about SDN technologies, we are referring to user experience or customer experience. The complete solution is designed based on the services and the experience that we need our users to have with them.

This product offers the ability to utilize all of the access available in the market. Importantly, it does not affect the quality of the application. The best feature of this technology that is available to us is the ability to do better load-balancing. This is thanks to the deep inspection of the packets and of course, the forwarding of packets based on the application.

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FD
Senior Product Consultant at Entel Chile

Being able to see the traffic in real-time and know what application you are consuming, together with the possibility of taking your requirements directly from the cloud, has been useful.

Load balancing is a feature that allows us to take the best of our links and distribute the load intelligently, always with an eye on the end-customer experience.

Being able to prioritize, according to the applications, the exit and entrance of the traffic in a dynamic way, unlike the current quality of service that is rigid and static, is a tremendous advantage as it is done according to demands in real-time, so the customer experience is always the best.

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DA
Solution Director at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees

Cisco is an industry leader, so customers have a high level of trust with the brand more-so than with some newcomers that might have some more revolutionary solutions, but no name recognition.

The solution appeals to big companies that are keen on selecting a major vendor rather than an emerging one as there's an assumption of reliability.

Cisco's technical solution in itself is very reliable. From a purely technical point of view, this is one of the best options.

Overall, the solution is very advanced in network configuration and offers excellent automated routine features.

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Jeffry Miguel De Los Santos - PeerSpot reviewer
IT manager at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees

The most useful feature is centralized telephony.

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Magdy Raafat - PeerSpot reviewer
Presales Consultant at Orange Business Services

The scalability is the most valuable feature.

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Alex Shengelevich - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief technology officer at Winncom Technologies

The solution is stable.

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Roland Hambleton - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Director at Optko

We looked at an SD-WAN service and Cisco was a vendor that provided termination of those services. We bought it and it met the specification. Cisco Viptela solution met the specification for our network.

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AN
Technical Architect at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees

This solution comes with comprehensive technical support. 

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SN
Sr Manager Infrastructure at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees

The best feature about SD-WAN is the ability to consolidate the links to the branch and load-balance the traffic.

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Igor Bobrov - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of Cisco Department at MUK

The segmentation, high security, and flexibility of the Cisco SD-WAN are the most valuable features.

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SD
Director at Globe Internet Limited

With other routing protocols, we have had to send team members to perform installations and configurations. There is a lot of work involved. However with SD-WAN, once it is installed it is fully automated, and we can do all other tasks remotely. We don't have to send staff out to the client's location.

It's very independent, and we can establish SD-WAN connectivity easily. It is secure as well.

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DR
Vice President Of Services at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

All the features that they have in there have been great. The solution offers good quality of service, visibility, connectivity, and security. It's all of that stuff that makes it good. That is what's required.

Cisco is finding its footing in that area, and they're getting better.

For our team, the installation is pretty straightforward.

The solution can scale. We haven't had any issues doing so.

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it_user1232472 - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Security Associate at VPS

The centralized management is the most important feature. We can monitor what is going on at every location in our network through just one center.

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DO
Chief Digital Officer at a consultancy with 11-50 employees

In terms of technology, we are completely agnostic. In many cases, we deal with Cisco simply due to the fact that the client already has a Cisco implementation. Most of the clients started their corporate deployment 10 or 15 years ago, and therefore there are legacy systems. Some of them are built on Cisco and we found that their systems are already implemented. 

I evaluate new technologies continuously each month and we deploy, as I told you, across geographies in multiple companies. Cisco is definitely cutting edge, absolutely cutting edge in terms of robustness on the capability of the network to be very stable with very low delay. It is a proven, tried, and tested technology. It is very reliable software. It is rock solid and very stable with respect to delivering top-performance networking functions. 

It is very stable with very good firmware. In terms of traditional functionality, it's unbeatable as an offer. I would say 10 plus as a vote in terms of traditional networking.

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Premnath Jaganathan - PeerSpot reviewer
Product Manager at a educational organization with 51-200 employees

Cisco SD-WAN's most valuable feature is the ease of transition.

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SP
Telecom and Collaboration Manager at a construction company with 501-1,000 employees

Configuration interfaces are quite easy and intuitive. Being a part of the Cisco environment, Cisco SD-WAN is quite straightforward.

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LC
Consultant Engineer at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees

Encryption, which is native to the solution, is a valuable feature. Also, central management, onboarding of devices, QS, and routing applications are all okay.

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JA
Pre-Sale System Engineer SOLA & NOLA at Logicalis Latam

It's a complete solution with many security features.

It integrates well with other Cisco solutions.

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ZT
Network Solutions Architect at a computer software company with 201-500 employees

The most valuable features are manageability, scalability, and simplicity.

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AS
Lead BD,Global ICT & transformation at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees

If I have to give a neutral view of all the SD-WAN platforms that I have known so far, Cisco is good in routing.

The solution does not offer WAN optimization.

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DM
Network Operations Manager at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

The orchestration on the VPN connection between remote locations is a fantastic feature. I used it some time ago. 

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MY
Sales Engineer at Logicom

The solution has a high trust-level with clients.

The solution offers the customer good cost savings.

Our organization has found that the solution has helped us increase our levels of security for client networks.

It's very easy to manage and monitor the network's health and security using the solution.

The solution is east to upgrade as necessary.

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MZ
Sr. Network Engineer Consulting Services at a consumer goods company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Good for cloud bases integrations and operational overheads. There is minimum blind space in this solution.

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AS
Project Manager at Tachyon Broadband

Cisco SD-WAN's collaborative features are unique and sustainable. I also like the protocols, which use two SD-WAN.

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DH
Head of IT Network Division at Panorinformatika

I have found the solution's main features are its ability to be customized, network traffic classification, and has a wide range of features that can be set.

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PA
Pre-sales Engineer at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees

The idea of SD-WAN is very good and it's efficient.

You get security, all of the service you need, and it's easy to deploy.

It is a feature-rich product with a lot of components.

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AJ
Data Center Engineer at Emerging Communications Limited

So far, the feature that I like best is the policy configuration manager. It is better than performing a manual configuration.

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JD
Architect IT-systemen at Cegeka

It is really easy to deploy and use. It is also easy to use for failovers and designing solutions.  

The rollout is really quick. It is easy to adjust and roll out.

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Tharanga SKP - PeerSpot reviewer
Engineer, Enterprise Products at SLT Visioncom Pvt Ltd

The most valuable feature is the ease of central management. That is the main thing for us.

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SS
Pre-sales consultant at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

I think segmentation is a valuable feature that the product provides. I think the segmented traffic it provides is the best in the industry right now.

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Taimoor Khan - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Operations Engineer at Inara Technologies

Cisco SD-WAN is highly secure.

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HA
Design Engineer at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees

Cisco SD-WAN is a very good product. It is difficult to highlight one specific feature.

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SR
Senior Director, Network Engineering at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees

The most useful feature for our organization is the combination of on-prem and cloud-based deployments. We connect securely to our hybrid cloud using transit VPCs and cloud on-ramp for fast deployments. We have recently started using deep packet inspection allowing the use of the transit path as the firewall instead of putting firewalls on both ends of the mesh.

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NP
Network Analyst at a real estate/law firm with 1-10 employees

The regular net routing is a good feature. It's not just good for routing although like a lot of things it isn't linked to anything else.

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SK
Executive Director at a manufacturing company with 51-200 employees

It is very simple and easy to manage, compared to other methods.

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RJ
Senior Network Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

The application link selection, I would say, is quite useful. 

The load sharing over the multiple links is great. 

We like the centralized management and aggregation aspects.

Technology-wise, it's decent.

The solution is pretty stable.

You can easily scale the product.

They did a new interface of Cisco SD-WAN. It's good.

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PK
Owner at SCO`Scope Consulting Private Limited

The product's brand recognition is one of the most valuable aspects of the solution.

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TT
Administrator at SOURTHERN WAVES Solution

There was a scenario where the product improved our network's efficiency. For example, we had a customer with a main office in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, who wanted to connect with their offices in Hanoi and Hong Kong. By using the product, we could establish a connection between all the IP sites, creating a local network between them. 

The tool is stable, and its troubleshooting capabilities are good. It helps us identify and fix any issues. It simplifies VPN setup for both side-to-side and multisite connections. This allows for easier data sharing between main and branch offices, creating a local network feel even for distant sites.


The most significant benefit we've realized from Cisco SD-WAN's application optimization capabilities is cost savings. Traditionally, businesses had to purchase expensive WAN or wide channels to connect their sites. However, with SD-WAN, they can utilize existing internet lines, eliminating the need for costly WAN.

The solution's integration with other products is good.

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An Quang Vu Phan Phan - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Networking Pre-sales Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

The security of the solution is pretty good.

We like the user interface. It's fairly easy to navigate.

The user experience is pretty good.

We've found that the solution is easy to deploy.

The solution is very popular with many vendors.

Overall, our experience has been very positive. So far, so good. We don't have many complaints about its capabilities.

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UB
Solution Architect at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

The most valuable feature is the application-level routing. One of our clients used this solution to route VOIP and video calls using MPLS.

The single dashboard makes the management very easy.

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NP
Network Analyst at a real estate/law firm with 1-10 employees

The most valuable feature is the network routing.

The reliability is high and we have only had to restart it once or twice over the years.

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TEDDY LLANO - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Lead at Yssy

The most valuable features in Cisco SD-WAN are the QoS, AI, and simple interface for users to access.

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DR
Network Engineer at Transportation

Viptela (router) SDN-based services:

  • Hybrid networking.
  • Combination of low-cost appliances and virtualization.
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AR
Network Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

The solution is good to use and easy to handle and manage from the centralized location or from the cloud.

This means that no engineer need visit the site to do configurations and it addresses maintenance and upgrade issues, something which frees us up to accomplish more. 

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AG
Cisco Systems at a comms service provider with 501-1,000 employees

I like the feature that lets you transfer from old devices to new devices without changing the hardware and subscription.

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SZ
Team Lead Network Infrastructure at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

The most valuable features are zero-disk provisioning and link load balancing on an application basis. In the case of link load balancing, if an application is not working properly on the primary link, it may be fine on the secondary one. This means that if the first link goes down then it may still be accessible, which is a very good feature.

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YY
Junior Solution Architect at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees

I have found the performance and the Zero-Touch provisioning helpful which makes it easier for us to develop.

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ED
Director de Arquitecturas at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

The security features are very good. We really like the application routing, for example.

The initial setup is quite simple.

The solution offers very good documentation.

Technical support is quite helpful.

The product is very scalable.

There are a lot of exciting features coming out very soon which we are looking forward to working with.

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OM
System Engineer at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

The solution's application control and application traffic steering tool are its most valuable aspects in terms of how we utilize the product.

The solution allows organizations to have visibility into the application traffic. After implementing the solution, we can see what types of traffic we have. We can see how users are using the internet and will be able to tell if anyone is downloading something that they shouldn't be or if they are consuming a lot of data.

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SQ
Head IT Operations at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

In a software-defined network architecture, it heals itself and the management of the solution is very easy.

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Buyer's Guide
Cisco SD-WAN
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about Cisco SD-WAN. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.