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Arista Converged Cloud Fabric vs. Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (Cisco ACI) vs. Cradlepoint NetCloud Engine

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Arista Converged Cloud Fabric (CCF)

    Score8.8 out of 10
    N/AConverged Cloud Fabric (CCF, formerly Big Cloud Fabric from Big Switch Networks, which was acquired by Arista Networks in February of 2020) is an automated fabric built with cloud networking design principles.N/A

    Cisco ACI

    Score8.5 out of 10
    N/ACisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) is network virtualization technology.N/A

    Cradlepoint NetCloud Engine

    Score7.1 out of 10
    N/ACradlepoint in Boise offers the all-inclusive NetCloud Solution Packages for branch, mobile, and IoT networks combine tailored NetCloud services with fit-for-purpose hardware and a comprehensive support plan. NetCloud Solution Packages are cloud-managed and deployable anywhere in days, not months. Cradlepoint acquired the NetCloud technology with original developer Pertino in December 2015, and integrated the platform into their own services by early 2016.N/A
    Pricing
    Arista Converged Cloud Fabric (CCF)Cisco ACICradlepoint NetCloud Engine
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Arista Converged Cloud Fabric (CCF)Cisco ACICradlepoint NetCloud Engine
    Free Trial
    NoNoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details———
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Arista Converged Cloud Fabric (CCF)Cisco ACICradlepoint NetCloud Engine
    Considered Multiple Products
    Arista Networks
    No answer on this topic
    Cisco
    Chose Cisco ACI
    because well developed and competitive in technology and price
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco ACI
    ACI is more mature compare to other cloud and fabric products. It's proven on the Cisco nxos and the engineers have the flexibility of knowing the system. Compared to the competition, TAC support is better for Cisco and the documentation covers good use cases. Power to extend …
    Incentivized
    Cradlepoint
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    No answers on this topic
    96%
    Would buy again
    113 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
    98%
    Delivers good value for the price
    96 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Happy with the feature set
    No answers on this topic
    97%
    Happy with the feature set
    115 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    94%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    82 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    89%
    Implementation went as expected
    93 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Best Alternatives
    Arista Converged Cloud Fabric (CCF)Cisco ACICradlepoint NetCloud Engine
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Medium-sized Companies
    No answers on this topic
    IBM Cloud Internet Services
    Score9.8 out of 10
    Cisco ACI
    Score8.5 out of 10
    Enterprises
    No answers on this topic
    IBM Cloud Internet Services
    Score9.8 out of 10
    Cisco ACI
    Score8.5 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Arista Converged Cloud Fabric (CCF)Cisco ACICradlepoint NetCloud Engine
    Likelihood to Recommend
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.5
    (131 ratings)
    9.9
    (5 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.7
    (10 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Usability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    5.1
    (8 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (9 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.4
    (11 ratings)
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    6.0
    (5 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.6
    (9 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    5.5
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Arista Converged Cloud Fabric (CCF)Cisco ACICradlepoint NetCloud Engine
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Arista Networks
    No answers on this topic
    Cisco
    The ACI solution is perfectly fit for a large or multi-site data center environment. It permits simplifying deployment, management, automation, and security. ACI is especially valuable when strong scalability, automation, security, and segmentation are required. However, ACI is less suitable for a small environment due to its complexity and high cost.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cradlepoint
    The platform and product selection as a whole covers a lot of range. The pricing is low enough and the levels granular enough that even customers that only need the use of a few features of the product can buy into the ecosystem with reasonable investment and grow with confidence without having paid too much. One thing that this enterprise company gets is this: Many small companies need enterprise-class features but don't have the user count to justify purchasing enterprise-class solutions. It is not that they don't need advanced features, it's just that enterprise vendors assume that small companies only have basic needs. It is not true, but you can't buy a solution that is only sold in hundreds of seats if you have 25 users in your company. Cradlepoint NetCloud does a good job of getting this right. You can buy a single seat or hundreds of seats, and the price is truly commensurate with your seat count. Everyone gets the enterprise features, you only pay for the seats you need.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Arista Networks
    No answers on this topic
    Cisco
    • Cisco ACI, The object model is very complicated. It's something difficult to understand and also because there is a user interface, there's a web user interface, but it's not optimal to use it because if you want to deploy a large amount of VLAN or a large amount of tenants, it's quite difficult to do it or it's quite challenging. Maybe if you want to configure a large amount of ports using the web interface, it's not appropriate because it takes a lot of time. It also provides APIs to do that, but as I say, the object model is very difficult to understand and there is very little documentation about automation of the ACI and maybe there is but it's not so easy to find.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cradlepoint
    • Remote router management
    • Grouping and templating configurations
    • Notifications and showing cellular health
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Arista Networks
    No answers on this topic
    Cisco
    • I think something I've just went to a session with hyper fabric and the ideas that hyper fabric has. Keep it really simple because Cisco ACI is a complex system and adopt some of the ideas behind hyper fabric, bring it to ACI that will be really beneficial. So as I said, automation is a great thing, but it's still, you need to have the background and the really complex stuff that happens behind the scenes to leverage the value of that solution. And by adding more simplicity to it, I think that will be a great thing. And also integrating with other applications in terms of the automation.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cradlepoint
    • Group management of devices could be easier.
    • Customized reporting would be nice.
    • The task scheduler is not very robust (only one task is available for scheduling).
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Arista Networks
    No answers on this topic
    Cisco
    Provided with the intensive fault isolation for the CISCO ACI, we are glad that we have this Data Center Solution in place and we will continue to renew as long as the future needed requirements are meet and more helpful features will be enabled in the future with the integration of security
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cradlepoint
    No answers on this topic
    Usability
    Arista Networks
    No answers on this topic
    Cisco
    You'll need a lot of training and hands on experience to get the most out of the product. There are a lot of very useful features in the ACI product. Often times there are a lot of ways to get to a solution for chalanges in the field. The solutions might be different eacht time. Knowing which one to implement is somtimes a challenge.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cradlepoint
    Device management is nearly the same as if you logged in locally, giving a familiar feel to the interface. Device group management can be cumbersome when pushing firmware updates.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Arista Networks
    No answers on this topic
    Cisco
    It allways works. If there are problems with links going down by accident (say someone accidentally unpatches something they shouldn't have), we rarely miss more then one packet over the link. Also, using VPCs we are able to upgrade the software on the switches without the attached EPs ever noticing.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cradlepoint
    No answers on this topic
    Performance
    Arista Networks
    No answers on this topic
    Cisco
    Day to day operations on Cisco ACI do not require much human intervention, the platform ticks over without any major faults. Being able to rapidly replicate the communication between two groups of machines across multiple sub networks speeds up new application delivery, and the integration into vmWare allows multiple teams within IT to work together to problem solve rapidly.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cradlepoint
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    Arista Networks
    No answers on this topic
    Cisco
    Cisco provides users and partners with a multitude of data for you to consume. I think that the stuff in the public domain goes a long way to assisting you find any answers you may need, plus insights and information from areas such as DevNet provide you with access to more than just the traditional release notes and the like
    Incentivized
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    Cradlepoint
    Every time I have engaged support, it has been a satisfying experience. Because they cover such a wide range of applications, I do have to spend more time explaining our intended results and rationale than I would have to do with a more focused vendor, but it's a minor tradeoff for the value of saved time in every other aspect of the solution.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    In-Person Training
    Arista Networks
    No answers on this topic
    Cisco
    The Cisco ACI training provided by Cisco was in depth, covered all of our requirements, and allowed us to implement and maintain the platform without issues.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cradlepoint
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation Rating
    Arista Networks
    No answers on this topic
    Cisco
    Being involved in the implmentation gives you more overview on how things are supposed to be working and communicating, you can easily performce troubleshooting and understanding the troubleshooting scenario
    Incentivized
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    Cradlepoint
    It is much easier to group your devices within NetCloud prior to deployment. We ran into issues of lost/changed settings when grouping devices that had already been deployed
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Arista Networks
    No answers on this topic
    Cisco
    Actually we start our learning in networking career with Cisco. So it is very useful or easier to learn this product. And honestly speaking, I didn't work in any other data center solution other than Cisco. So I cannot compare what it gives us more than other popular stuff. But this is very nice product like from Cisco.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cradlepoint
    The cost of equipment, lines, and services was over 1,000 times the five year cost of Cradlepoint (formerly Pertino) when looking for a complete WAN replacement. Using small Linux devices (Intel NUCs) instead of expensive networking hardware provided equal service levels when we needed passthrough site-based access, rather than buying specific hardware from a vendor (including even Cradlepoint, though the integration is great and I do recommend their devices - especially for their cellular data redundancy features)
    Incentivized
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    Scalability
    Arista Networks
    No answers on this topic
    Cisco
    Cisco ACI scales well and is suited in scenarios such as multi-cloud or large data centre implementations. It is not suited to smaller deployments as the efficiencies that it provides are not fully realised. It is well suited in large environments that contain both virtual and bare-metal machines allowing a great deal of flexibility. It is also perfect to support multi-tenancy platforms.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cradlepoint
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    Arista Networks
    No answers on this topic
    Cisco
    • We've definitely spent quite a bit of time relearning how to do things in ACI, but I think the investment has been well worth while considering that we can now deploy tenants and leaves from the ground up in a matter of seconds.
    • We can if we choose to upgrade an entire datacenters worth of switches in a single night. (We've chosen to break it up for availability requirements, but if you didn't require 99.999% uptime like us you may be able to do it)
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cradlepoint
    • It has freed me up to do more productive things instead of troubleshooting the VPN.
    • It has made my employees happier because they have less frustrations working from home or on the road.
    Incentivized
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