Cisco SD-WAN vs Juniper Contrail Networking comparison

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Cisco SD-WAN and Juniper Contrail Networking based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet, Cisco, VMware and others in Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions.
To learn more, read our detailed Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions Report (Updated: March 2024).
765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"The best feature of this technology that is available to us is the ability to do better load-balancing.""The solution has great scalability.""The product helps to aggregate network links. The tool increases security and makes it possible for you to have remote workers.""The most valuable features in Cisco SD-WAN are the QoS, AI, and simple interface for users to access.""It has a very good GUI.""It is very simple and easy to manage, compared to other methods.""The most valuable feature is the application-level routing.""We would recommend this solution to customers looking to implement it on a global scale. We recommend the solution, not only because of the functionality or the technical support, but also because of the delivery of the solution, and the docking and upgrading capabilities."

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"Juniper Contrail Networking is a stable solution.""After we finished setting Contrail up, it seemed stable enough. Still, we never tested it in a real environment, so we don't have enough information to say whether it's stable with a given number of users and appliances. We have tested it in a lab environment, but we haven't tested enough to say that the platform is stable.""It provides proactive alerting in a single dashboard solution."

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Cons
"The platform needs to be updated to be more stable and simple.""The initial setup was not very straightforward, but it gets easier the more deployments you complete.""The solution is very costly.""The security features could be improved.""The solution needs to be more flexible around legacy devices.""Since most user-data is going through the solution, we are concerned about security, as all the information is in the cloud and not on-premises. The user data authentification should be higher to better prevent malicious attacks.""Cisco SD-WAN could improve the integration with the cloud.""An area for improvement lies in enhancing the integration with the security functions of the SD-WAN."

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"Visibility, especially for the top of the platform, is a nightmare. The top was documented incorrectly and really complex to complete. In the end, it worked but only after several weeks of work with the support of a Juniper solution engineer in Holland.""Juniper needs to address the market's specific requirements, such as the SME sector, and offer more lower-priced products like a lower-end segment switch.""Juniper Contrail Networking is difficult if you do not have a certificate for Juniper. Juniper is a different type of configuration or operation than Cisco."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "We pay for the Cisco Customer Care support, which is a couple of hundred dollars."
  • "80 percent reduction in WAN costs. There are no MPLS or P2P circuits left in the organization."
  • "Cisco is more expensive than some competing products."
  • "SD-WAN as a service is probably something in the neighborhood of $100 to $200 a month per location."
  • "The costs are a bit on the high side."
  • "It is much cheaper than other solutions. Most of our clients are the top 500 companies, and they all have a corporate contract."
  • "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."
  • "It is going to be on a yearly basis. There are no additional costs."
  • More Cisco SD-WAN Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "Juniper Contrail Networking is low-cost for small and medium-sized businesses. Cisco and Palo Alto solutions are more expensive."
  • "There are many vendors in the wireless market that offer better pricing, solutions, and management skills compared to Juniper."
  • More Juniper Contrail Networking Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:The most valuable features, application awareness, and failover resilience, stand out as key considerations for users.
    Top Answer:The initial cost is quite significant, but the investment is worthwhile.
    Top Answer:As the majority of our applications now reside in the cloud, there's a growing need for solutions that revolve around cloud-centric policies. Currently, the convergence between on-premise and cloud… more »
    Top Answer:It provides proactive alerting in a single dashboard solution.
    Top Answer:Based on my experience in the Indian market, there are four to five areas that need improvement. First, there is a lack of marketing and awareness about Juniper, making it difficult to reach end-users… more »
    Top Answer:We're using all three topologies– wireless, wiring, and edge, which are connected using Juniper products. Specifically, for wireless, we use the Juniper product P32 and P33, while for switches, we use… more »
    Ranking
    Views
    19,678
    Comparisons
    13,510
    Reviews
    27
    Average Words per Review
    510
    Rating
    7.9
    Views
    558
    Comparisons
    522
    Reviews
    1
    Average Words per Review
    190
    Rating
    8.0
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Viptela, Cisco vEdge Cloud Router
    Contrail Networking
    Learn More
    Overview

    Cisco SD-WAN is a software-defined WAN (wide area network) solution that provides for secure stable connections to applications for enterprises and organizations. Cisco SD-WAN works to speed up the seamless movement to the cloud. A very robust and reliable solution, Cisco SD-WAN is cutting-edge in threat security and stability of the complete network and has very low latency. Cisco SD-WAN uses Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Software as a Service (SaaS), data centers, and even the internet to smoothly advance the move to a SASE (Service Access Service Edge)-based architecture. The Cisco SD-WAN dashboard gives you a complete visual of your entire infrastructure; you can see everything in real time. You will also have simplified IT operations and gain advanced network capabilities, dependability, and security. One valued feature is the overlay management protocol (OMP), which applies to your entire network to speedily connect all your company data centers. Cisco SD-WAN has a very flexible architecture and can be deployed on premises, in the cloud, hybrid, and even has multi-cloud options. Cisco SD-WAN instantly discovers, authenticates, and provisions all devices, both existing and new.

    Cisco SD-WAN simplifies the management of multiple connections across the WAN, improves the end-user experience, improves overall application functionality and performance, and is a very cost-effective solution. Cisco SD-WAN integrates well with Microsoft 365, Salesforce, and many other cloud-based business solutions. Additionally, Cisco SD-WAN optimizes connectivity and streamlines workflows for Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Azure.

    Benefits of Cisco SD-WAN

    • Increased profitability - Cisco SD-WAN will improve performance and decrease overall connectivity costs.
    • Improved productivity - Cisco SD-WAN requires less staff to manage and secure the WANs so valuable resources can be allocated elsewhere in your organization, increasing total productivity.
    • Flexible scalability- Cisco SD-WAN’s flexible and easily scalable architecture will allow your organization to address significantly greater business opportunities, helping to consistently increase revenue.
    • Enhanced security - Cisco SD-WAN offers real-time policy enforcement, ensuring that downtime and unplanned outages are kept to a minimum.

    What real users have to say:

    Cisco SD-WAN is fast with lower costs: “Using SD-WAN to combine services can result in better up time, higher speeds, and much lower costs.”

    Cisco is a brand you can trust: “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.”

    Cisco SD-WAN offers load-balancing and real-time traffic monitoring: “Load balancing is a feature that allows us to take the best of our links and distribute the load intelligently, always with an eye on the end-customer experience.”

    Juniper Contrail Networking is a simple, open, and agile cloud network automation product that implements an SDN architecture. With its scale-out microservices architecture, Contrail orchestrate virtual network overlays at the performance and scale of even the most dynamic and large clouds. Contrail Networking is equipped with always-on advanced analytics capabilities to provide deep insights into application and infrastructure performance for better visualization, easier diagnostics, rich reporting, custom application development, and machine automation. It also supports integration with other analytics platforms like Juniper Networks AppFormix and streaming analytics through technologies like Apache Kafka and its API.
    Sample Customers
    Doyle Research, Ashton Metzler & Associates
    Lithium Technologies, Orange Business Services, Cloudwatt, Symantec, Cloud Dynamics, CloudSeeds
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Comms Service Provider44%
    Computer Software Company18%
    Financial Services Firm12%
    Manufacturing Company6%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization34%
    Computer Software Company14%
    Financial Services Firm6%
    Comms Service Provider5%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company16%
    Comms Service Provider10%
    Government9%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business42%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise43%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business15%
    Midsize Enterprise41%
    Large Enterprise43%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business26%
    Midsize Enterprise14%
    Large Enterprise60%
    Buyer's Guide
    Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet, Cisco, VMware and others in Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Cisco SD-WAN is ranked 2nd in Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions with 86 reviews while Juniper Contrail Networking is ranked 3rd in Software Defined Networking (SDN) with 3 reviews. Cisco SD-WAN is rated 8.0, while Juniper Contrail Networking is rated 7.0. The top reviewer of Cisco SD-WAN writes "A solution for integrating services to enhance up-time, performance and lower costs". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Juniper Contrail Networking writes "Smart configuration management eliminates the need to worry about managing the network's configurations". Cisco SD-WAN is most compared with Fortinet FortiGate, Meraki SD-WAN, VMware SD-WAN, Versa Unified Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) Platform and Juniper Session Smart Router, whereas Juniper Contrail Networking is most compared with Tungsten Fabric, VMware NSX, VMware SD-WAN, Cisco ACI and Juniper Session Smart Router.

    We monitor all Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.