Aruba Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) vs. Cisco Cloud Services Router 1000V Series (CSR 1000V)

Have remote sites and need them to feel local? Want to get all your locations virtually on the same network? This is the way. And if you're like us and need an easy way to manage all your remote locations in one place this is the tool you want to use.

Incentivized

If you just need to do simple communication to Azure such as smb and rdp sessions then the Cisco Cloud Services Router 1000V Series is overkill. If you need to setup multiple mesh vpn connections to existing ISRs and have complicated routing with multiple protocols then Cisco Cloud Services Router makes that setup much easier and less work to maintain and troubleshoot.

Incentivized

• An intricate system of connections that make it seem like your outside sites are all on one single LAN
• Well priced in their category as others are a bit pricier for the same services
• Aruba is backed by a well staffed support team that can get you through your issues

Incentivized

• Easy and available to download with a CCO account.
• Full-featured router platform.
• Can run as many instances as you have memory to handle.
• No issues so far running in VMWare player 14.0.

Incentivized

• The right support team for your product can be difficult to get ahold of
• Integration with Cisco is not as super tight as integration with Aruba devices
• Some of the advanced features are difficult to use

Incentivized

• More integration with the switching
• A dynamic approach for software updates
• More automation features and APIs

Incentivized

Neither product supported all the protocols we needed to allow all of our locations to route. It does add some complications to the gateway and vnet setup though. Once we retired our ISRs we were able to go to Meraki vMX and the auto-vpn setup works rather well and is much simpler than IOS configs

Incentivized

• Changed the way we manage remote sites
• Saved us funds in the LAN budget
• Created new opportunities to roll out functions at these sites

Incentivized

• As this is available on AWS workplace, it's easy to configure and implement
• Absolute worth for money, easy ROI
• With the Cisco global support model, this becomes very easy to configure and troubleshoot and becomes part of my overall asset list
• License management could be simplified and made more cost-effective

Incentivized