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Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN vs IBM Tivoli NetCool comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 2, 2025

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 Catalyst SD-WAN
Ranking in Network Management Applications
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
95
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (2nd), WAN Edge (2nd)
IBM Tivoli NetCool
Ranking in Network Management Applications
14th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

Igor Van Den Ouden - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables secure and flexible branch connectivity with application-aware routing
The valuable features of Cisco SD-WAN include its security policies and zone-based firewall that are applied to every site, as well as application-aware routing. Security is standard compliant, eliminating config drift that was prevalent before manual configurations. Application-aware routing offers flexibility in using different lines for traffic, depending on the policy implemented.
Petar Ganev - PeerSpot reviewer
Reliable for enterprise monitoring but no longer actively developed
There are problems with the latest security requirements because many things have changed in recent years, and now the security audits are very strict. And we need to switch to something else. We need to patch it constantly. Moreover, it is a very old tool and a little bit difficult to support. Otherwise, they work okay.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Cisco SD-WAN is valued for its operational efficiency and ease of operation."
"This solution can scale from SMB to the enterprise level. It is very impressive."
"Configuration interfaces are quite easy and intuitive. Being a part of the Cisco environment, Cisco SD-WAN is quite straightforward."
"Cisco SD-WAN's best features are the development of network links, application control, and bandwidth monitoring."
"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."
"You get security, all of the service you need, and it's easy to deploy."
"The product is stable."
"There is minimum blind space in this solution."
"Tivoli NetCool allows us to grasp a lot of data that can be applied toward predictive analytics and auto-remediation."
"The tool is much easier to manage than running scripts and figuring out how many endpoints have been exceeded."
"The scalability of monitoring, the breadth of supported network components, the scale of the number of monitoring events, and the flexibility in customization make this a well-rounded product."
"It's very easy to use."
"Support is one of the best aspects of this solution. NetCool is a good product that has good flexibility. There are a lot of documents available online which is one of the best features of IBM Tivoli Suite. Whenever an issue happens, rather than going to technical support, if you find the exact issue in Google, you can get tech notes for that particular issue."
"NetCool has a huge database that can collect and process about one million alarms a day."
"Anything is possible with Tivoli. It's quite a robust system."
"The feature I have found most valuable with NetCool is how it collaborates all the alarms, and then it does a predictive analysis, providing a consolidated alarm view and management."
 

Cons

"Cisco SD-WAN could improve on the ease of integration, the configuration should be easier. At the moment the process is more command line based and it would be better if it was able to be done through an interface."
"The solution could be a bit cheaper."
"It would be very helpful if we had better access to a knowledge base, or online documentation, to help both us and our customers learn to use this solution."
"The price could be better. From a technical side, and everything's working smoothly. Cisco SD-WAN could be cheaper."
"We have found that their SD-WAN has a lot of scope for improvement."
"The installation is not easy. If you have experience and it is not your first time doing the installation, it can be easier."
"When you buy the equipment, they should already put it into your cloud account. It should already be set up so that we can manage with vBond. We came across an issue where it wasn't resolved in the DNS. We are using Umbrella, so we need to create a VPN IPSec tunnel to Umbrella to enable the users to browse. I would really like to see an internal built-in firewall so that we don't have to go to Umbrella. This functionality might already be there. We are quite new to this solution, and we are still learning about it."
"One area for improvement in Cisco SD-WAN is reporting. The report needs to give more visibility to the customer. The security feature in Cisco SD-WAN also needs improvement, particularly if Cisco wants to challenge other brands, such as Fortinet."
"The solution is not user-friendly."
"UI is outdated, very old legacy."
"The solution does not have any AI capabilities."
"Tivoli NetCool is based on a Linux platform, it would be beneficial if they moved it to Windows because not everyone is acquainted with Linux."
"In terms of improvement, I would like to see more AIOps, Artificial Intelligent Operations in the next release. IBM develops new features for Power BI or Cognos Analytics, which is good. As of now, we use Cognos Analytics, we are not using Power BI. They have the Insight concept but we don't like that."
"The solution is too expensive."
"Customization and integration that you need to do to make the product fit your needs is very complex. It is not a product that somebody could easily pick up without any prior training or experience."
"The installation could be simplified, and technical support could be faster."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I give the price a seven out of ten."
"It is much cheaper than other solutions. Most of our clients are the top 500 companies, and they all have a corporate contract."
"The product's license is expensive."
"On a scale of one to five, I would rate Cisco's pricing as a three."
"Cisco's pricing is not entirely satisfactory when you compare the SD-WAN solutions in Asian markets — like the South Asian market in Sri Lanka — because there are several competing brands including Fortinet and Citrix, who provide much the same product for a generally lower price. And when it comes to firewall vendors like Palo Alto and SonicWall, they're also selling here. It's the same with VMware, too; they have much the same features."
"The license model is too complex with too many flavors and options. You might not be able to see it from an end user's point of view, but from a telco point of view, their license model is too complex. They should have a flexible license model. If you want to have good pricing, you need to buy it for a two-year, four-year, or five-year license immediately. Some other vendors have much more flexible license models."
"80 percent reduction in WAN costs. There are no MPLS or P2P circuits left in the organization."
"The product is not too expensive."
"The price of the product is too expensive."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
"It costs around 100k for every ten servers, which is lower than similar products from other vendors."
"Customers are required to pay a licensing fee."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
29%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
32%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Educational Organization
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco SD-WAN?
When considering the most valuable features of Cisco SD-WAN, the decoupling of self-monitoring stands out significantly.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco SD-WAN?
The pricing of Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN is rated between eight and nine out of ten, where ten is the most expensive.
What needs improvement with Cisco SD-WAN?
There's nothing I could put my finger on right away for improvements in Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN. There is definitely nothing that Juniper does that Cisco doesn't do. Cisco will do everything Juniper ...
What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
I have worked from 1973 with all kind of systems in large enterprises across the world. And have experience with all kind of software in monitoring from infra to end to end, it depends on the funct...
What do you like most about IBM Tivoli NetCool?
The tool had many built-in automation capabilities.
What needs improvement with IBM Tivoli NetCool?
The main challenge is its licensing model, which is very complicated.
 

Also Known As

Cisco SD-WAN
Tivoli NetCool
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Doyle Research, Ashton Metzler & Associates
Claranet, Consolidated Communications, Telus, €sterreichische Bundesbahnen (€BB), Telekom Srbija, Bendigo Community Telco, Capgemini, Schweizerische Bundesbahnen (SBB)
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN vs. IBM Tivoli NetCool and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
859,129 professionals have used our research since 2012.