"I like using WebEx Board."
"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."
"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."
"The stability is quite good."
"We had different networks and combined them with ACI so we could have the control of one controller-based network. Also, everything is combined now."
"The most valuable feature is the throughput that it offers."
"You can integrate Cisco ACI well with VMware."
"Cisco's technical support team is very good."
"It's a beneficial tool."
"The solution is very good at micro-segmentation."
"The most valuable features are security and dynamic routing."
"The most valuable features for us at this early stage are the interface and the integration with existing VMware solutions."
"The most valuable features are the micro-segmentation and integrated security options."
"Some of the key features I find most valuable are the highly graphical user interface, virtualization of networks, and Microsoft application compatibility. It has all the functionality that we require."
"This is a good firewall and overall it is rich in features."
"It gives more security and micro-segmentation. It helps to set network configurations in an easy way."
"Its graphical user interface (GUI) is not as user-friendly as it could be."
"The integration has room for improvement. There should be a drag-and-drop interface for configuring the integration where you connect some arrows to boxes, and the system takes care of the configuration. Right now, they have something similar, but it's limited. You have to take care of some things yourself. That is one area that the solution can work on. It's easy now, but it's much easier in other solutions."
"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."
"Training for this product is available from institutions but it is not available online where you can get users trained easily."
"I would like this solution to be integrated with Pure Storage."
"It would be great if ACI would include the next generation firewall feature."
"I would like to be able to test the upgrades in a simulation before implementing them in production because not everyone has a lab."
"Cisco ACI is a highly complex solution. The initial deployment is just a few clicks, but understanding how an ACI works and interacts with routing, switching, and virtualization takes a lot of knowledge. The interface isn't necessarily hard to use, but the technology is complicated. If you want to understand how it works and how to configure it, you should study hard."
"It isn't easy to deploy."
"It could be more user-friendly, but it's manageable. When we add a specific node to this particular NSX and the configuration changes, it won't push through the errors where required, but it'll accept it. However, while using it, we will have issues. It can also be more stable."
"In the future, the solution should be compliant with internet NIC."
"VMware NSX only supports some platforms like KVM."
"VMware NSX can improve the migration tools from the older environments to the new environment. For example, the NSX-V has become a legacy solution, it's out of support, but customers are able to keep using it. For migration purposes, it's better for them to provide a proper tool. It will be easy to migrate from an old environment to a new one."
"Some configuration maximums are limiting to the user, especially when it comes to the deployment of very, very large environments."
"VMware NSX provides a lot of automation capabilities, but there is still room for improvement."
"There are always issues integrating with Cisco."
Cisco ACI is ranked 2nd in Network Virtualization with 10 reviews while VMware NSX is ranked 1st in Network Virtualization with 30 reviews. Cisco ACI is rated 8.0, while VMware NSX is rated 7.8. The top reviewer of Cisco ACI writes "Stable, scalable, and easy to manage". On the other hand, the top reviewer of VMware NSX writes "A flexible option for managing security, but setup is complex and documentation is lacking". Cisco ACI is most compared with Nuage Networks, whereas VMware NSX is most compared with Cisco Secure Workload, Nutanix Flow, Guardicore Centra, Illumio Adaptive Security Platform and Check Point CloudGuard Network Security. See our Cisco ACI vs. VMware NSX report.
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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 where APIC software runs.
-VMware NSX doesn't have any physical network gear of its own, VMware NSX software runs on ESXi hosts(Any Vendor) & even NSX Bare Metal Edge runs on any Vendor hardware(check compatibility)
-Cisco ACI offers both Underlay & Overlay functionality
-VMware NSX is a software and it builds an Overlay tunnel for (VM/Container) communication on top of an already established IP network which can be build on hardware network gear (Cisco Legacy/ACI/Juniper etc.)
-Cisco ACI: To use micro-segmentation on a VM or Container level you will need some other Cisco products
-VMware NSX: Micro-segmentation can be done Out of the Box because DFW Distributed Firewall are applied on the vnic of a VM i.e. on the ESXi kernel.
Being different in many manners but they still define the SDN realm with L2-L7 Network services and what you choose over the other may depend on many other factors like what network gear you already have or if its Green or Brownfield deployment. For example if your infra already have something other than Cisco 9K switches and is well configured then it will make more sense to use NSX to make use of all the SDN functionalities. This is just an example not a recommendation.
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. Cisco ACI can connect with both virtualized networks and physical networks.
As with many Cisco solutions, Cisco ACI has a steep learning curve. It is not user-friendly and most of our team would like to see a better GUI. It would be great if we could test upgrades in a simulation before implementing; this could save a lot of rework and downtime.
The key component for us with VMware NSX is the distributed firewall. VMware NSX can segment every application and server based on the ports with which they need to communicate. We can activate the ports we need and disable the ones we don’t. This really helps to keep things very secure and makes VMware NSX very flexible.
We would like to see VMware NSX integrate better with other open-source solutions; integration can be very complex leading many to simply choose not to use VMware NSX at all. We found some maximums can be very limiting, especially with very large environments. VMware can only be used with virtualized networks.
Conclusion:
Cisco ACI and VMware have many similar qualities and features. The fundamental difference is that Vmware NSX’s primary focus is on virtualized networks, while Cisco ACI can connect to both virtual and physical networks.
Vmware NSX can provide better levels of granularity and visibility into how your workload performs and functions. Cisco ACI does not provide this.
Because Cisco ACI is more robust and can handle both physical and virtual networks, Cisco ACI might be a more appropriate solution. At the end of the day, it really depends on your organization’s ecosystem and applications, features and utilities needed, and, of course, cost of implementation. You may need one of these solutions or both.