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Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (Cisco ACI) vs. F5 BIG-IP

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Cisco ACI

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

    F5 BIG-IP

    Score9.2 out of 10
    N/AF5 BIG-IP software from Seattle-based F5 Networks is a load balancing and application protection solution suite available on cloud or via virtual editions, on a subscription or perpetual licensing basis.N/A
    Pricing
    Cisco ACIF5 BIG-IP
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Cisco ACIF5 BIG-IP
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Cisco ACIF5 BIG-IP
    Considered Both Products
    Cisco
    Chose Cisco ACI
    There are just a few contributors to Cisco ACI and as an engineer you usually dont have chance to work with all of them. But I can compare Cisco ACI to traditional VXLAN with EVPN deployments using Cisco NX-OS fabric and I can say it is totally different. In Cisco ACI there is …
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco ACI
    Ease to install and support.
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco ACI
    have looked at other SDN but ACI is fastest and easiest to implement
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco ACI
    Enable full automation of physical and virtual network.
    Legacy network devices can be physically connected to the fabric.
    Hardware routing is much more efficient than a software only network.
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco ACI
    Lower cost than FabricPath, maybe a little bit cheaper than Arista when we looked into it. I wasn't involved in the initial purchasing of ACI, and was kind of against it at first, but the product has evolved a lot over the last few years and I now believe that it can …
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco ACI
    We were initially planning to replace our Nexus 7K infrastructure with Nexus 7700 devices when we were introduced to ACI. We were running out of time with the Nexus 7K replacement and we were not able to compare with any other SDN/NFV applications out there in the market. …
    Incentivized
    F5
    Chose F5 BIG-IP
    I prefer the F5 over all of the other products. I have had more success with F5 than another of the above listed products.
    Incentivized
    Chose F5 BIG-IP
    We use a significant number of the virtual edition F5s, and a few physicals. We also have netscalers in a few places, but the netscalers we use are pretty much only used for Citrix Traffic where the F5s give us a ton of flexibility and can handle pretty much anything we throw …
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    96%
    Would buy again
    113 Answers
    99%
    Would buy again
    258 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    98%
    Delivers good value for the price
    96 Answers
    96%
    Delivers good value for the price
    215 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    97%
    Happy with the feature set
    115 Answers
    98%
    Happy with the feature set
    255 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    94%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    82 Answers
    95%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    179 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    89%
    Implementation went as expected
    93 Answers
    94%
    Implementation went as expected
    196 Answers
    Best Alternatives
    Cisco ACIF5 BIG-IP
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Medium-sized Companies
    IBM Cloud Internet Services
    Score9.8 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    Enterprises
    IBM Cloud Internet Services
    Score9.8 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Cisco ACIF5 BIG-IP
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.5
    (131 ratings)
    9.2
    (265 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    9.7
    (10 ratings)
    9.0
    (12 ratings)
    Usability
    5.1
    (8 ratings)
    8.7
    (140 ratings)
    Availability
    9.1
    (2 ratings)
    8.7
    (2 ratings)
    Performance
    9.1
    (9 ratings)
    9.2
    (2 ratings)
    Support Rating
    7.5
    (11 ratings)
    9.7
    (12 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    9.1
    (2 ratings)
    Online Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    6.0
    (5 ratings)
    9.2
    (3 ratings)
    Configurability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.3
    (2 ratings)
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.3
    (2 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    8.6
    (9 ratings)
    9.2
    (2 ratings)
    Professional Services
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    5.5
    (1 ratings)
    9.2
    (2 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.2
    (2 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Cisco ACIF5 BIG-IP
    Likelihood to Recommend
    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
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    F5
    LTM's scope of action goes beyond load balancing. Tools for control, governance, and application enhancement, as well as APIs like iRULE, are very important for day-to-day operations. Furthermore, the F5 BIG-IP WAF offers exceptional security. Advanced firewall and routing functionalities are helpful in more complex environments. O LTM possui um escopo de atuacao que vai alem do balanceamento. Ferramentas para controle, governanca e aprimoramento de aplicacoes e API como iRULE sao muito iportantes para o dia a dia a operacao. Alem disso o WAF do F5 BIG-IP tem uma qualidade de seguranca exceptional. As funcionalidades avancadas de firewall e roteamento ajudam em ambientes mais complexos. This review was originally written in Portuguese and has been translated into English using a third-party translation tool. While we strive for accuracy, some nuances or meanings may not be perfectly captured.
    Incentivized
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    Pros
    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
    F5
    • My company is kind of like it's a safe thing if you log in and you provide another second login to get the code to log in, confirm that it's a correct that you are logged into the account and it just provides more for the company
    Incentivized
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    Cons
    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
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    F5
    • I think a couple of challenges. One, I mean the cost, it's not an inexpensive product, but I think it's probably parity with value, maybe a little on the pricey side of things.
    • As far as features and what we'd like to see more cloud native type experiences like where NGINX and F5 kind of come together, we're moving more of the cloud just like everybody else, and it's a little clunky right now.
    Incentivized
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    Likelihood to Renew
    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
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    F5
    Stability of product and easy way to have account manager contact. F5 support team is also always available to help with major issues. Last year during the major OS upgrade F5 team and F5 leadership always shared clear information and F5 team was dedicated to help us to have it closed in record time
    Incentivized
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    Usability
    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
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    F5
    It is a good product to use but right now it is lacking the automation of certificates, management of iRules and automation of certain configuration. Also creating an APM policy from scratch with many APM agents take a long time due to slow load times of the GUI and the need to create everything from scratch every time. It's tough to reuse the configuration.
    Incentivized
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    Reliability and Availability
    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
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    F5
    No answers on this topic
    Performance
    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
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    F5
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    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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    F5
    I've supported F5 for three different companies. Our F5 support has been very consistent, regardless who the customer is. F5 technicians are very experienced and provide good support, even when issues are more related to knowledge than they are with the ability of the product to do what you need it to do.
    Incentivized
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    In-Person Training
    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
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    F5
    Practical cases and hands on , many hours of training with tipical cases
    Incentivized
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    Implementation Rating
    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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    F5
    implementation is fine
    Incentivized
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    Alternatives Considered
    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
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    F5
    We are recently not evaluating, but we have started the deployment for WAF and we're using GTM, LTM, you name it. F5, we are using all of them.
    Incentivized
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    Scalability
    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
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    F5
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    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)
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    F5
    • The F5 BIG-IP has improved all our load balancing needs, we have over 400 LTM VIPs in our environment this all use to be done with DNS round Robin configurations.
    • we have created unique APM solutions to support our external customer base
    Incentivized
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