We compared Cisco ACI and Illumio Zero Trust Segmentation based on our users' reviews in six categories. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below:
Comparison Results: Cisco ACI has a more intricate initial setup, but once deployed, it excels in configuration and management. It adopts a network-centric approach, offers micro-segmentation, and integrates well with VMware. However, users have reported issues with the GUI, high pricing, and a need for improved integration. On the other hand, Illumio Zero Trust Segmentation boasts a relatively simple setup and receives praise for its monitoring and visibility features. However, it lacks support for certain operating systems and proves less effective in OT environments. Users have also mentioned its high cost and have provided mixed feedback on customer service and support.
"All the features provided by Cisco ACI including orchestration to layer seven, service training, load enhancements and firewalls."
"The best part of ACI is that it can integrate with a lot of virtual environments like VMware, Hyper-V, and KVM."
"The basic functionality that is the most useful is creating a virtual network on a physical device."
"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 in from other devices that might be connected into the Cisco ACI that monitors external traffic. It maintains what end-of-life products would be doing and offers other opportunities to unify solutions."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the Call Manager."
"It has made it much easier to deploy and make changes in the data center versus the previous infrastructure, which was NX-OS based."
"Their technical support is very good. We had a problem and Cisco gave us the best engineer to resolve the issue."
"I have found the SDN features to be the most valuable."
"The flexibility of the solution is its most valuable feature."
"The product provides visibility into how the applications communicate and how the network protocols are being used."
"The solution is easy to use."
"The Explorer allows you to know the traffic between source and destination."
"The features that I have found most useful is the ability to centralize all the rules and then distribute them across various locations. However, I've encountered challenges related to tagging policies, which can be complex to devise. It's a matter that requires careful consideration and stakeholder involvement before implementing such policies."
"The most valuable feature of Illumio Adaptive Security Platform is monitoring. When I have no requirement from the other application, I can use the web block traffic to build."
"It has helped us to understand internal network visibility and firewall policy implementation. We use the product to simplify firewall policy implementation."
"The solution helps to maintain logs and monitor activities. It also helps us with access management. The tool helps us to secure organizational data that include files."
"It would be great if ACI would include the next generation firewall feature."
"So far we've had very few issues, a couple of routing things that were glitches within ACI."
"Before version 5, you could manage your firewall or load balancer from the AP. It was very basic and now they removed the whole features in the new version, so you cannot manage your load balance or firewall from your AP on L2, L4, and L7 services."
"The initial setup was a bit complex."
"Since it is a new technology, Cisco moved all the menus. This made it tricky to use."
"I would like to see more troubleshooting apps."
"The user interface should be made easier."
"The only drawback that we are seeing is the user interface is still a little complex and difficult to use. It needs a more user-friendly interface."
"The customer service is lagging a bit. It could be better."
"The product’s agents don't work very well in OT environments."
"I would like to see better data security in the product."
"The solution is very basic and doesn't do anything other than the orchestration of layer four endpoint firewall rules."
"Some of the features that can be improved is offer additional guidance on creating an effective and risk-free tagging policy would be highly beneficial."
"Illumio Adaptive Security Platform could improve by supporting more operating systems. For example, Cisco and Apache appliances."
"The interaction we've had with the support team hasn't been ideal. Technical support should be improved."
"It requires a low-level re-architecting of the product."
Cisco ACI is ranked 2nd in Cloud and Data Center Security with 96 reviews while Illumio is ranked 4th in Cloud and Data Center Security with 8 reviews. Cisco ACI is rated 8.0, while Illumio is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Cisco ACI writes "Stable, easy to extend, scalable, and has a host-based routing feature". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Illumio writes "Pprevents attackers or threats from spreading or moving laterally". Cisco ACI is most compared with VMware NSX, Cisco Secure Workload, Nuage Networks, Akamai Guardicore Segmentation and Aviatrix, whereas Illumio is most compared with Akamai Guardicore Segmentation, VMware NSX, Cisco Secure Workload, Zscaler Internet Access and Microsoft Defender for Cloud. See our Cisco ACI vs. Illumio report.
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