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Cisco CloudCenter [EOL] vs VMware Aria Automation 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
VMware Aria Automation
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
171
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Management (2nd), Configuration Management (6th), Network Automation (3rd), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (16th), Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM) (5th)
 

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…
Le Quang Long - PeerSpot reviewer
Significantly streamlined operations with good automation that helps with simplifying workflows
It helps me build a big catalog and provide it to my end users. It helps us automate the workflow of creating many VMs and the TensorFlow key method. I do not meet many people to operate it live beforehand. It operates for both of my products, but as a product, it is complicated to integrate and automate with other products.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The initial setup is fairly straightforward if you have a basic setup."
"The solution includes a lot of features and is useful because you can configure all the way down to ports."
"I can define all components and create a blueprint for consumption across all services."
"The initial setup process is straightforward."
"Cisco CloudCenter's scalability is good."
"The solution is agile and it has APIs for integration."
"You can scale it easily."
"Upgrades are very simple as well because they've allowed us to get updates directly in the CloudCenter Suite manager. If you need to do an upgrade to your setup afterward, you just push a button and it rolls out the parts and retires the old ones. It's seamless and very simple compared to what we've done before."
"The self service portal: People don't have to come to us to request something. They can just go fill out a form. Within 30 minutes, they have what they requested."
"The customer can set up multiple machine blueprints. Therefore, we are able to customize the template of three machines, then the customer can deploy without knowing anything about the IT business."
"value; It does a lot of things automatically that would take our group, when we're already strapped for time, a lot of time to go through and clean stuff out of databases and the like."
"Among the valuable features are the ease and speed of creating the VMs. Originally, we provisioned them manually and it would take us two days to do the provisioning... but with the automation, we are able to provision a VM with the click of a button, within seconds. It cut down on the time as well as cut down on the expense and employee cost in provisioning."
"It's quite user friendly. Everyone can use it, even non-technical people. This is good, since we use it to build a self-service portal which even users with not a lot of technical background can use."
"I want to build automation that is intelligent, part of the fabric of our environment, and is somewhat self-sustaining. I think SaltStack can help me do this."
"Our customers don't have to manage HVAC and space and cooling and all of those things that they used to have to do. Today, all they have to do is provision a server and manage their users."
"We automated many tool deployments with the help of the product, cutting short manual deployments and eliminating the need for human interaction. Its most valuable features include integrating various tools and working with different products using plugins."
 

Cons

"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 solution needs to be more simple."
"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."
"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."
"You don't get all the solution's benefits if you have older switches."
"Improvements are needed in UI and multi-tenancy for this solution."
"They should provide an entire cloud offering, from architecture to network security features."
"They can add some of those features to make the platform more usable for different backgrounds and developer skills."
"As a product, it is complicated to integrate and automate with other products."
"It is not intuitive or user-friendly. It's complicated as heck. We actually hired VMware Professional Services to come in. I understand the newer version, which we're not quite on yet, is easier and that the interface is better. But the product is really a profession unto itself. The user interface could be improved on."
"I'm not wanting any particular feature; but there should be cost reductions. VMware comes at a high cost, and that's why we are in the process of transitioning to a more affordable alternative."
"Web UI."
"It does go down from time to time. We have some issues with the appliances sometimes and we have to do reboots in the middle of the day. That affects the ability for them to deploy."
"It was a complex setup. We had to use the consultant from VMware to make the solution work well."
"Most of the time the upgrade experience has been good but sometimes things break after upgrading. For example, some API codes stopped working."
"There is a little bit of pain when it comes to libraries and what is needed to run the product."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is extremely expensive and has additional fees for things like monitoring."
"The tool's pricing is expensive."
"The tool's pricing is balanced with the market."
"The pricing for this solution is roughly 20% lower than the competitive products in the market."
"It made the provisioning of the virtual machines easier and faster. We can react more quickly to customers' demands."
"The tool is expensive since it is an enterprise product."
"There is confusion between licensing levels. There are three different licensed versions of vRealize Automation, and there are different things which can happen in each of them."
"The solution has helped to increase infrastructure, agility, speed, and provisioning in the time to market."
"The cost of the solution is reasonable for us. Although it is relatively high, we prioritize stability and integration over cost."
"I would rate the pricing a ten out of ten, with ten being very expensive."
"We have seen significant ROI. We used to have physical servers, it took 90 days to get a server, order it, buy it, and get it in. We have it down to 10 minutes, building a server with virtualization, and now that's too slow. So, we let the customer do it at their speed. Therefore, it is pretty much up in a couple of minutes and they have a server."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise130
 

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's the difference between VMware vRA (automation) and vROps (operations)?
vROP is a virtualization management solution from VMWare. It is efficient and easy to manage. You can find anything you need from the software interface. It provides complete visibility over applic...
Is there any way to try VMware Aria Automation for free?
When it comes to VMware Aria Automation, you have three choices for free runs: Hands-on Lab (HOL) Advanced lab A free trial I cannot describe in detail the second and third options as my company ...
Which sectors can benefit the most from VMware Aria Automation?
I was looking at VMware Aria Automation case studies recently and I got the impression that three main kinds of companies were using it most often: Social organizations Financial institutions and ...
 

Also Known As

CliQr, CliQr CloudCenter
VMware vRealize Automation, vRA, VMware DynamicOps Cloud Suite, SaltStack
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

NTT, Baylor College of Medicine (BCM), CollabNet, Pratt & Miller, PZFlex
Rent-a-Center, Amway, Vistra Energy, Liberty Mutual
Find out what your peers are saying about Nutanix, VMware, IBM and others in Cloud Management. Updated: August 2025.
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