Item: Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (Cisco ACI)
Rating: 8
Author: Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (Cisco ACI)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We have workloads in the data center and it does the data center switching for all the workloads that we have, integrating virtual environments and bare metal servers. That's how we use it.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Once you're into the ACI and understood the concept, I think what it does well is abstracting certain complicated workflows in the operations and does the automation for you. Obviously you can further integrate things, but I think especially in the complex data center environment that we have, it's great to have some automation in the controller.

Cons

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.

Return on Investment

The positive thing, it is really structured. We have a more structured approach in how we run the data center than before. On the other side is we assume that when we first implement it that it lowers the cost in operations and it's easier because we don't have much stuff for network operations in the data center, but it's the opposite around, so it's the other way around. So we need more skilled people to run the application or the network infrastructure. But I think it's fair to say it's not because of just its ACI, it needs certain skills obviously, but it would be the same if it's Arista Extreme Network. Right. So, I think overall it's a good fit. I think now that hyper fabric is out, I'd rather would go for hyper fabric because it rather fits with the lead that we have and from the environment that we have.

Key Insights

Do you think Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (Cisco ACI) delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (Cisco ACI)'s feature set?

Yes

Did Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (Cisco ACI) live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (Cisco ACI) go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (Cisco ACI) again?

Yes

Likelihood to Recommend

If you have a big data center with lots of operations going on and you want to integrate that with the rest of your IT organizations and you are looking into automation, that's a great fit.

Comments

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Cisco ACI Review