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Cisco CloudCenter [EOL] vs CloudStack comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 CloudCenter [EOL]
Average Rating
7.8
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
CloudStack
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Management (10th)
 

Featured Reviews

Boingotlo Molefhe - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps with data management and has a straightforward initial setup process
We use the product for demonstration, device provisioning, and data management They should provide an entire cloud offering, from architecture to network security features. We have been using Cisco CloudCenter for a couple of months. I rate the product’s stability a nine out of ten. I rate the…
Nelson Marcos - PeerSpot reviewer
It's easier to provision VMs than other solutions and you can customize it to integrate with load balancers
My teammates have complained about the upgrade. The source code had massive files that had to be merged with our own development to upgrade to the latest version of CloudStack. It was quite painful for them. CloudStack could add some cost management tools to give me some control over the costs associated with the number of users of my services.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Cisco has a lot of published information and documentation that helps users understand the product and its offering very well."
"The solution is agile and it has APIs for integration."
"You can scale it easily."
"Cisco CloudCenter's scalability is good."
"The solution includes a lot of features and is useful because you can configure all the way down to ports."
"The initial setup is fairly straightforward if you have a basic setup."
"I can define all components and create a blueprint for consumption across all services."
"The initial setup process is straightforward."
"The API with CloudStack made integration into various external facing web applications simple enough."
"Killer features for me were: support for many hypervisors, ability to match business logic, "everything in one box," available APIs."
"We like the virtualization capabilities."
"I have been impressed by CloudStack's most recent updates around Kubernetes. In particular, they have worked with Kubernetes to support the Cluster API, and you can now easily integrate Kubernetes into CloudStack and get access to a lot of good features."
"I liked the separation of the isolated network versus the shared network."
"When compared to OpenStack, CloudStack is also an open-source platform that is continuously improving its features and capabilities with each new version release. Having worked with CloudStack 4.7, 4.14, and most recently, 4.17, I have noticed significant enhancements in the platform's features and customer experience, such as the introduction of a new user interface in the latest release. Notably, the latest versions have made major improvements to VM live migrations, making them more efficient and effective."
"The structuring of the components and isolated environments helped us when using parts of the framework at different levels of product development."
"Everything in CloudStack works effectively."
 

Cons

"Improvements are needed in UI and multi-tenancy for this solution."
"The solution needs to be more simple."
"They can add some of those features to make the platform more usable for different backgrounds and developer skills."
"For many clients, the main problem with the solution is the price. Cisco is very expensive. If they could somehow make the pricing more competitive, that would be a big draw."
"The improvement I would like to see is not one thing particular to CloudCenter. I'd say it's more of a message that the system is still using a lot of the different products and if they would all just fit better together, they all could be faster together."
"They should provide an entire cloud offering, from architecture to network security features."
"I'm not a big fan of CloudCenter. I don't have anything against it, however, the on-premise version has been so hard to upgrade and maintain."
"You don't get all the solution's benefits if you have older switches."
"I would like to see support for native VLAN, and fault-tolerance."
"My teammates have complained about the upgrade. The source code had massive files that had to be merged with our own development to upgrade to the latest version of CloudStack. It was quite painful for them. CloudStack could add some cost management tools to give me some control over the costs associated with the number of users of my services."
"​The user can't upload SSH keys from the UI. We have to use the API for this, and it is not always convenient."
"A technology upgrade is one item which could be improved upon a lot."
"The Windows hosts do not get their hostnames from cloud-init."
"The number of contributors to this solution is relatively small compared to other solutions. However, if more frequent users of CloudStack contribute to the open-source community, it will significantly enhance the overall community experience and make it more useful for everyone involved."
"CS has very descriptive logging, and every time I faced issues and asked for help, I didn’t get any reply from the community. Reason? Its quite obvious. CS runs on specific environments, unique to each case. So, unless it is a functional issue of CS, nobody can help you. All issues were resolved by myself going through logs. This is another reason why you need smart enough people to manage it. Engineers must have knowledge of hypervisors and understand how CS interacts with them."
"I think that container technology in CloudStack is an area that needs to be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool's pricing is balanced with the market."
"The tool's pricing is expensive."
"The solution is extremely expensive and has additional fees for things like monitoring."
"There is no license, so the product is free unless you are buying professional technical support services."
"CloudStack is an open-source product."
"CloudStack is an open source solution, so you don't need to pay anything for it. When our company develops something specially for CloudStack, it is donated to the Apache Software Foundation and provided to anyone that wants to use it."
"​Give an effort to planning. If possible, contract a specialized consultant company for the initial setup and knowledge transfer.​​"
"The solution is open-source and free."
"The Apache CloudStack is open source, so you do not have licenses to purchase."
"As far as I know, CS is still free of charge. If you want to pay some money, Citrix Cloud Platform is based on CS, I think. As for hypervisors – everything as usual, you need to pay for VMware and vCenter. As for XenServer, recently they changed the free feature list, so you may need to pay some money to get useful features like XenMotion."
"It is a 100% open-source solution needing just an Apache license. Also, there are no hidden fees to be paid."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
24%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Comms Service Provider
18%
Healthcare Company
10%
Computer Software Company
19%
Educational Organization
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco CloudCenter?
The initial setup process is straightforward.
What needs improvement with Cisco CloudCenter?
They should provide an entire cloud offering, from architecture to network security features.
What is your primary use case for Cisco CloudCenter?
We use the product for demonstration, device provisioning, and data management.
What do you like most about CloudStack?
The initial implementation process was quite good.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for CloudStack?
CloudStack is open-source, so there is no cost apart from learning. Billing solutions, if outsourced, come at a moderate cost.
What needs improvement with CloudStack?
CloudStack lacks a billing solution which would complete it as a full 360-degree product. Additionally, more themes and drag-and-drop interfaces could enhance the user experience. Improved document...
 

Also Known As

CliQr, CliQr CloudCenter
Vmops, Cloud.com
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

NTT, Baylor College of Medicine (BCM), CollabNet, Pratt & Miller, PZFlex
GreenQloud, Exoscale, TomTom, ASG, PC Extreme, ISWest, Grid'5000
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