Cisco SD-WAN can produce great results
May 03, 2021

Cisco SD-WAN can produce great results

Taner Imamoglu | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Cisco SD-WAN

Our company operates far from any reliable wide bandwidth connections and we have to rely on a mixture of satellite broadband and limited dedicated broadband from sole mobile operator that services the area where our organization operates. Before we switched to Cisco SD-WAN we had a hard time managing network performance and applications. We increased our user numbers dramatically but our bandwidth stayed the same; with dramatic user expansion, our bandwidth became inadequate for our needs. After we implemented Cisco SD-WAN, we managed to prioritize office applications (emails, SharePoint, etc.) and users manage to perform their tasks faster and more efficiently. On the other hand we managed to add LTE routers to boost our traffic. Thanks to Cisco SD-WAN, we did not have any security breaches and feel confident in Cisco SD-WAN's security features. Since we implemented Cisco SD-WAN, our business applications work faster, business continuity increased, and cloud services became more available and usable for our needs. My network team also spends less time adjusting and configuring routing tables and application routings. Instead of monitoring traffic constantly, we let Cisco SD-WAN automatically adjust our traffic and as a result we have improved performance overall--even some streaming services have started to work at an acceptable level in our remote location. In the end we manage to provide better connectivity for both our business and personal needs for users.
  • Before Cisco SD-WAN, our users even struggled to send emails with Microsoft 365
  • Cloud applications, such as SharePoint, were not taking a long time to load and made it impossible to collaborate
  • Streaming services--even though video streaming does not work at desired levels, music streaming started to work without interruption
  • Outside help is not widely available
  • Still needs some QoS
  • Configuration might be easier
  • Scalability
  • Seamless integration
  • Optimize services
  • Security
  • Managing to use business applications efficiently causes us to get more value from our cloud subscriptions
  • Able to use streaming services improved employees' morale and increased their performance
  • Able to combine multiple connections, helped reduce costs, and prevented us from investing in only the most expensive WAN supplier
  • Instead of relying on one supplier when one connection was down, we managed to carry on with another broadband solution
Unlike Cisco SD-WAN, Fortinet does not perform well to prioritize our business applications. Even though the Fortinet solution is cheaper, when it comes to monitoring and logging you need to pay extra. Fortinet web filtering is not very efficient and lacks some features, even though it is simple to configure Fortinet, when you configure Cisco SD-WAN, it performs better than Fortinet.

Do you think Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN's feature set?

Yes

Did Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN again?

Yes

Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365), Veeam Backup & Replication, Ubiquiti Networks UniFi
If there are a couple of solid broadband connections available, Cisco SD-WAN can produce great results, but if there is only a satellite connection and limited GSM coverage, Cisco SD-WAN might not produce the desired effect. Configuration is a bit tricky, but once it is set, it works fine and greatly improves network performance.