Cisco ACI vs Symantec Data Center Security comparison

Cisco and Broadcom are both solutions in the Cloud and Data Center Security category. Cisco is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.7, while Broadcom is ranked #11 with an average rating of 8.0. Cisco holds a 5.7% mindshare in CDCS, compared to Broadcom’s 1.5% mindshare. Additionally, 85% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 81% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

Cisco ACI

Read 101 Cisco ACI reviews

4,013 Views
1,126 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

Symantec Data Center Security

Read 11 Symantec Data Center Security reviews

506 Views
401 Comparison Views

81% willing to recommend

Cisco ACI

Symantec Data Center Security

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 14, 2024

Cisco ACI and Symantec Data Center Security are leaders in the network management and data security markets, respectively. While Cisco ACI has the upper hand due to its comprehensive automation and integration capabilities, Symantec excels in detailed policy enforcement for infrastructure protection.

Features: Cisco ACI focuses on network automation, centralized management, and microsegmentation, ensuring seamless integration with virtual environments. It also supports vast tenant networks and scalability. Symantec Data Center Security offers robust hardening capabilities, detailed policy enforcement, and intrusion prevention, crucial for safeguarding infrastructure.

Room for Improvement: Cisco ACI users encounter complex configuration processes, a steep learning curve, and limited integration flexibility with third-party products. Enhancements are needed in both documentation and technical support. Symantec Data Center Security requires improved reporting, better third-party integration options, and a more user-friendly interface to enhance policy management and usability.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Cisco ACI provides deployment flexibility across various environments, though feedback on technical support is mixed. Symantec also supports diverse deployment scenarios but similarly faces criticism regarding technical support responsiveness. Cisco's extensive support structure surpasses Symantec’s, which struggles with complex issue resolution.

Pricing and ROI: Cisco ACI is recognized as an expensive solution with mixed opinions on its value, despite operational savings through automation. Symantec Data Center Security, although costlier than some competitors, promises potential ROI via operational efficiency and security enhancements. Both solutions improve efficiency and reduce downtime, but Cisco ACI's pricing may limit accessibility for smaller businesses.

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco ACI vs. Symantec Data Center Security Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Cisco ACI vs. Symantec Data Center Security

April 2025

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Cisco ACI

Ranking in Cloud and Data Center Security

4th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

101

Ranking in other categories

Network Virtualization (1st), Software Defined Networking (SDN) (2nd)

Symantec Data Center Security

Ranking in Cloud and Data Center Security

11th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

5.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Cloud and Data Center Security category, the mindshare of Cisco ACI is 5.7%, down from 7.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Data Center Security is 1.5%, down from 3.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud and Data Center Security

Featured Reviews

Raj Metkar

Director, Head of Networks at MUFG, EMEA

Provides scalability, ease of migration for future DC moves, multi-tenancy and programmability

Cisco's MSO (Multi-Site Orchestrator) or NDO has room for improvement. Cisco monitors ACI through a product called NDI. I find it very frustrating that Cisco has multiple monitoring platforms. It has DNAC for monitoring Cisco NX-OS, campus switches, and any other routers and switches you would have in the environment. That same thing does not work for Cisco ACI monitoring. MEraki cloudbasd platform for Meraki which will get extended to Campus monitoring, to be honest Cisco never got Monitoring 100% right from days of CiscoWorks to Prime to current platforms. To monitor and manage Cisco ACI, you need to have another platform called NDI and Cisco Dashboard Insights. What frustrates me about Cisco is that it never has a central, single pane of glass platform for all its solutions. It has one thing for Cisco ACI and another thing for campus switches. I would really appreciate it if Cisco came up with something centralized to monitor everything. I haven't thought about anything since the Cisco NDO is quite advanced, and you can deploy your cloud networking through it. I don't know how many people use it. I might explore it as my cloud orchestration tool in the future. We do a lot of cloud automation using our scripts like TerraForm, but I would like to see people using NDO more. We could have more case studies on how many people use NDO for their cloud orchestration. That might be a much easier journey for people when they move from an on-premises data center into a cloud and move from one cloud to another cloud. That is where I personally see an orchestrator being effectively used for multiple deployments.

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Atul-Vats

Consultant at Tata Consultancy

Offers a complete system lockdown feature and the ability to restrict users but has a complex policy structure

The negative aspect of that particular product is the fact it has a very, very, very complex policy structure. A user or administrator making the policy in the DCS should have a very thorough knowledge of the operating system or policy making. You have to be very specific about the data structure. If you want to secure a Linux server, an administrator should be very confident about how the directory structure of Linux, how Linux works, and where it puts the important logs. You have to be very cautious about the complete path, and you have to write it over there in the policy part. If you are not very specific, there will be a lot of noise in the system. You're going to receive thousands of events that are false positives. The fine-tuning of the policy is a very complex thing in the DCS itself. Another negative aspect that I have observed is if the product gets installed on the kernel level of any non-Windows server, it has some issues, comparability issues. Sometimes the product doesn't work properly, so it shuts down the machine and crashes the system. There are many cases in which I've observed the DCS crashing the system.

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"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."

"This product improved the way our company functions by enabling us to establish our goal of moving to a zero-trust model. That's how Cisco ACI helps us the most."

"It is more scalable than our previous products."

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

"With Cisco ACI, I can deploy things with a script, then run it in five minutes."

"Cisco ACI can separate networks with a buoy interface. That is the most valuable feature."

"The most valuable features of Cisco ACI are micro-segmentation, the VXLAN, and the ACI flattening services."

"The security component is its most valuable feature."

More Cisco ACI pros

"We use the product to prevent unauthorized access to data, systems, and servers. It provides essential features for data center security."

"The real strength lies in its straightforward approach, offering just two key policies: prevention and detection."

"The most valuable feature is the endpoint protection system."

"The most valuable feature is the centralized console, which can handle different products that we have."

"The monitoring in the management console allows us to find out what is going wrong, and it gets reports even before the user reports it."

"Good file integrity monitoring features."

"The console and tools are very user-friendly."

"The tool will then detect any anomalies, such as an intruder who has breached the network, which can trigger the system lockdown feature if it's enabled and meets the defined threshold."

More Symantec Data Center Security pros

Cons

"Cisco ACI would benefit by providing the option to integrate easily with DNAC in their next release."

"I think that technical support tickets should be escalated sooner."

"We deployed a lot of Fabrics to multiple sites, which was a bit complex."

"The way the objects are oriented on it are not as straightforward as they should be."

"The initial setup was fairly complex and it looks terrifying when you first log in. That's one thing about ACI. It takes a bit to wrap your mind around how it works. It's not overly complicated once you understand the concepts, but someone who has never worked with anything like ACI, will initially find it difficult to grasp the complexity of it."

"The learning curve is long. It's very difficult to learn Cisco ACI. As a result, our customers usually have difficulty working with this solution."

"They should improve the GUI, make it simpler. They also need to improve its integration with other automation tools."

"The initial setup was a bit complex. ACI was just out at that time, and there wasn't support at that time."

More Cisco ACI cons

"This solution clashes with Microsoft defender, which results in performance degradation on the machine."

"The support is very bad. They're not fast at all. Trend Micro's support is much better."

"Could have better reporting capabilities and better support."

"It would be advantageous if Symantec or Broadcom, given the rebranding, could simplify the process, enabling users to leverage the antivirus functionality more easily."

"The product blocks certain processes, even after allowlisting them."

"There is room for improvement in enhancing its graphical user interface for a more user-friendly experience."

"A user or administrator making the policy in the DCS should have a very thorough knowledge of the operating system or policy making. You have to be very specific about the data structure."

"There is plenty of room for improvement with this product, and it could start with platform metrics."

More Symantec Data Center Security cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"Cisco is much more expensive than other vendors, especially when it comes to the licensing."

"The product is not cheap."

"The pricing, including both hardware and licenses, is reasonable."

"I don't believe there is any licensing required."

"The cost is fine."

"This is an expensive solution."

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

More Cisco ACI pricing and cost advice

"It is notably more expensive when compared to other solutions."

"The product is a bit costly."

"Compared to some other solutions, such as CrowdStrike, Symantec is more expensive."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

22%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Manufacturing Company

20%

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

15%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What are the biggest differences between Cisco ACI and VMware NSX?

There are some very major differences between both the Products and to name a few. -Cisco ACI have physical network gear (9K Switches) where the Code runs in ACI Policy Mode & the UCS server wh...

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What are the biggest differences between Cisco ACI and VMware NSX?

Once you know your way around the Cisco ecosystem, using Cisco ACI is not so difficult. It is a global product, so when you change one interface, changes are automatically reflected on every switch...

See all answers

What do you like most about Cisco ACI?

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.

See all answers

What do you like most about Symantec Data Center Security?

The granularity of applying the policies is valuable.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Symantec Data Center Security?

Agent management is a challenging task. We cannot do it from the console. We will have to use other tools.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Symantec Data Center Security?

One key use case for data center security is protecting files within the data center. This is especially important for Linux systems, where locking down specific files is essential to prevent unaut...

See all answers

Comparisons

Cisco Secure Workload vs Cisco ACI

Compared 23% of the time

VMware NSX vs Cisco ACI

Compared 20% of the time

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs Cisco ACI

Compared 15% of the time

HPE SDN vs Cisco ACI

Compared 10% of the time

Illumio vs Cisco ACI

Compared 10% of the time

More Cisco ACI Competitors

Trend Micro Deep Security vs Symantec Data Center Security

Compared 57% of the time

Symantec Endpoint Security vs Symantec Data Center Security

Compared 33% of the time

VMware NSX vs Symantec Data Center Security

Compared 10% of the time

More Symantec Data Center Security Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco ACI

April 2025

Download Cisco ACI product report

Buyer's Guide

Symantec Data Center Security

April 2025

Download Symantec Data Center Security product report

Overview

Cisco ACI automates data center networking, centralizing management and configuration of diverse network environments. It's used for micro-segmentation, replacing legacy networks, and deploying software-defined networking.

Cisco ACI enables seamless integration with cloud platforms and multi-site connectivity. It ensures high availability and redundancy, supports network-centric applications, enhances security, and facilitates agile service implementations across different regions and data centers. The platform offers high throughput, ease of configuration, centralized management, and programmability. Users find value in its single management interface, policy-based routing, Service Graphs, and simplified deployment. Cisco ACI also excels in scalability, automation, low latency, and supports data center expansion efficiently.

What are the key features of Cisco ACI?

High Throughput: Ensures fast data transmission and network efficiency.
Ease of Configuration: Simplifies setup and changes to network configurations.
Centralized Management: Provides a single interface for managing the entire network.
Micro-Segmentation: Enhances security by isolating network segments.
Integration with VMware: Seamlessly integrates with VMware environments.
Scalability: Easily expands to accommodate growing organizational needs.
Automation Capabilities: Reduces manual tasks through advanced automation.
Policy-Based Routing: Optimizes network traffic based on set policies.

What benefits should users look for when evaluating Cisco ACI?

Seamless integration with cloud platforms and multi-site connectivity.
High availability and redundancy ensuring consistent service uptime.
Enhanced security with micro-segmentation and policy-based control.
Agility in service implementations across regions and data centers.
Efficiency in network management with centralized control.

Organizations in industries such as finance, healthcare, and technology implement Cisco ACI to modernize data centers, improve security, and streamline network operations. Its capabilities support expanding infrastructure, integrating with cloud services, and managing complex network architectures with minimal effort.

Cisco

Docker containers make it easy to develop, deploy, and deliver applications where containers can be deployed and brought down in a matter of seconds. This flexibility makes it very useful for DevOps to automate deployment of containers. Symantec Data Center Security: Server Advanced provides agentless Docker container protection that allows you to achieve the performance benefits of Docker without sacrificing security. Full application control enables administrator privilege de-escalation, patch mitigation, and protection against zero day threats in today's heterogeneous data centers.

Broadcom

Sample Customers

Bowling Green State University, du, Qatar University

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Cisco ACI vs. Symantec Data Center Security

April 2025

Free Report: Cisco ACI vs. Symantec Data Center Security

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