Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (Cisco ACI) vs. Cisco Catalyst Switches

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cisco ACI
Score 7.6 out of 10
N/A
Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) is network virtualization technology.N/A
Cisco Catalyst Switches
Score 9.2 out of 10
N/A
Cisco's Catalyst is one of that company's brand of network switches.N/A
Pricing
Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (Cisco ACI)Cisco Catalyst Switches
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cisco ACICisco Catalyst Switches
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 Application Centric Infrastructure (Cisco ACI)Cisco Catalyst Switches
Considered Both Products
Cisco ACI
Chose Cisco ACI
Individual device management vs centralized management through Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure.
Chose Cisco ACI
I've used the Cisco Wireless LAN Controller 9800. I was quite surprised. It was very good to manage access points in a campus network setup that was good. There's a Cisco SD Access solution that I use. I forgot the name of it, to manage also the campus. It was also good. Yeah, …
Chose Cisco ACI
FortiADC, Huawei Cloud Application Performance Management and Lumina SDN Controller
Chose Cisco ACI
Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure sits well with other stack of Cisco products
Chose Cisco ACI
We have selected Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure compared to Catalyst Switches mainly because of the vPC and Port channel capability. With port channel, it loadbalance the bandwidth. While with Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure vPC, they don't have spanning …
Chose Cisco ACI
Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure is a more mature and proven product in different types of customer data centers. Currently this is the best solution for on-prem or hybrid cloud environments as other products nowhere close to Cisco as feature wise. Though most vendors …
Chose Cisco ACI
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. …
Chose Cisco ACI
I have not selected Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure. I only just started working with it. But speaking from a classical networking background, the possibilities are endless.
Chose Cisco ACI
LAN, Storage network and compute were already Cisco so we moved from Nexus to Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure as natural alignment and simplified the dc operations.
Chose Cisco ACI
My management chose after a deep evaluation involving the Cisco account manager and no one else. I was actually quite impressed by Aruba solutions but not in the position to correctly compare.
Chose Cisco ACI
Moving from Nexus 7k, 5k and 2k platform to a next gen SDN, Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure suited our needs very well.
Chose Cisco ACI
Cisco ACI is more a complementary solution to separate the underlay and overlay network than VMware NSX.
Chose Cisco ACI
We use Cisco Nexus Series Switches on Cisco ACI. It helps to make new and easy connections. It will better if we can use Generative Artificial Intelligence with them.. We manage many domains in one place. We manage more than one company’s network, so Cisco ACI is really helpful.
Chose Cisco ACI
Switching from NX OS to ACI OS made configuration easier after initial migration and getting to know ACI principles. There are no L2 loops and configuration mistakes as often as it used to be. There is only one management console, and policies are easily reused. The “Submit” …
Chose Cisco ACI
The availability and support for Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure is significantly better than that of other options that we have tested/implemented. Some features, however, are significantly more expensive, which at times has driven the need to use other clunkier …
Cisco Catalyst Switches
Chose Cisco Catalyst Switches
Cisco Catalyst Switches are much easier to use than Nexus and Meraki switches. The Nexus OS is confusing, and the Meraki is hard to troubleshoot.
Chose Cisco Catalyst Switches
Advanced Layer 2 and Layer 3 capabilities with support for protocols like OSPF, EIGRP, and VLANs, enabling more complex and robust network topologies.
Chose Cisco Catalyst Switches
They are pretty much great because when it comes down to configuration in the IOS, it's much simpler in Cisco than these other ones. You got to do too much configuration. You do the same thing you can do with two commands, for example on the Cisco IOS. So yeah, I recommend more …
Chose Cisco Catalyst Switches
I required the need for Catalyst Switches and not routers
Chose Cisco Catalyst Switches
MikroTik Routers and Switches
Chose Cisco Catalyst Switches
better performance and manageability
Chose Cisco Catalyst Switches
Cisco Nexus 9000 Series Switches
Chose Cisco Catalyst Switches
Cisco Nexus Series Switches
Chose Cisco Catalyst Switches
Cisco Wireless LAN Controllers
Chose Cisco Catalyst Switches
Much broader community for support.
Chose Cisco Catalyst Switches
I think Cisco Catalyst Switches works really well when they are implemented singularly to enhance connectivity. When designing an architecture from the ground up, I like to recommend FortiGate because their product is easier to use and when going all in on the Fortinet …
Chose Cisco Catalyst Switches
Cisco 9000 Series Aggregation Services Routers (ASR 9000), Cisco Nexus 9000 Series Switches, Cisco ASA 5500-X with FirePOWER Services and Cisco Catalyst 8000 Edge Platforms
Chose Cisco Catalyst Switches
We have selected Cisco Catalyst Switches for their performance. Cisco Catalyst Switches are recommended by a lot of institutions. Many institutions like the government, and many big companies. All who works in IT recognize the quality of this equipment. It's important for us …
Chose Cisco Catalyst Switches
Like I said, the Cisco Catalyst 1300 we evaluated and Cisco Catalyst 9200 & 9300 we evaluate and we choose for the mainly excess part Cisco Catalyst 1300 because they are much cheaper than the Cisco Catalyst 9300.
Chose Cisco Catalyst Switches
I use some Aruba switches as well and some Huawei products as well. That's the reference, honestly, that's really all the products that are quite good are mostly copying what Cisco does. And when it does not copy, it's not as good. The only other competitor that does the same …
Chose Cisco Catalyst Switches
Juniper Network. I am used to the Cisco syntax, so for me it's like a no brainer. I will implement Cisco if it's possible.
Chose Cisco Catalyst Switches
We only use Cisco. No other products or something. Cisco base or generally
Chose Cisco Catalyst Switches
Compared to switches from other vendors, Cisco Catalyst Switches are more suitable for Enterprise and Industrial markets. Although other vendors offer switches with similar specifications and a more advantageous price in the short term, Catalyst Switches have a high reliability …
Chose Cisco Catalyst Switches
Cisco pricier and maybe a little better. Also better stacking solution
Chose Cisco Catalyst Switches
The 9300 is a lot more handy then the 9200. Biggest plus is XFSU that gives almost no downtime when upgrading.
Best Alternatives
Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (Cisco ACI)Cisco Catalyst Switches
Small Businesses

No answers on this topic

No answers on this topic

Medium-sized Companies
Cisco Catalyst Center
Cisco Catalyst Center
Score 8.6 out of 10
Extreme Networks Wired Access - Switches
Extreme Networks Wired Access - Switches
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Cisco Catalyst Center
Cisco Catalyst Center
Score 8.6 out of 10
Cisco Nexus Series Switches
Cisco Nexus Series Switches
Score 9.2 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (Cisco ACI)Cisco Catalyst Switches
Likelihood to Recommend
8.1
(0 ratings)
9.2
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.2
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
7.1
(0 ratings)
9.5
(0 ratings)
Availability
9.1
(0 ratings)
9.2
(0 ratings)
Performance
9.1
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.1
(0 ratings)
9.8
(0 ratings)
In-Person Training
8.2
(0 ratings)
7.1
(0 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
7.3
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.0
(0 ratings)
8.4
(0 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
9.7
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
9.2
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.6
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
8.6
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
8.9
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (Cisco ACI)Cisco Catalyst Switches
Likelihood to Recommend
I feel that Cisco ACI is quite good at different architecture designs. You can have it as just a straight layer two network. You can have it like we have with a vast layer three network and I think just for the layer three network it has easen up the use. I think the use cases for layer three networking is better for ACI. If you just want to do the layer two, you can still use Cisco Nexus and so on and that should be almost simpler in some way.
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I think the most suited ones will be of course, for example, a supermarket where you have more than 50 plus devices because there are like 48 ports in a switch. We can just use a lot of devices and connect them to it. A less use case will be, I think it depends at the end of the day how your topology looks like. If you have a very few devices, you shouldn't be going for these catalyst switches because they are of course much bigger, more processing power and all those things. If you have, again, it comes to topology. If you have the number of users who are using these switches is less than 15, it's less than 15, then you can just go for any other option and not use them.
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Pros
  • So with the old one, we've had a secure zone, core zone, so we have special hardware specific for those zones, so security zones in our data center. This allows us to basically have the spine leaf and we could put any ports in any zone. So it allows a lot more, I'd say efficient use of equipment, being able to plug in things to whatever, and then program it to how you want it to work on.
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  • One of the things that it does well, it's not something major, but there's a light tracking feature that the 9300 comes with that you can turn on the light and that has become critical in a data center environment where you want to help someone to make sure that you're talking about the same switch, you can turn the light on and off something that is not available in other versions of Cisco switches before the 9300. So it's not as major, but it's quite critical when you're dealing with multiple systems and multiple switches.
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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.
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  • Functionality. Well, one of the functions that we are missing is a faster route based on OSPF. Other than that, it could provide an upgrade without a hitless upgrade. Well, now it is a very fast upgrade, which is also okay. We had a case when the platform crashed, but that was a specific case. We were happy with this product.
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Likelihood to Renew
Cisco ACI is doing exactly what was intended for it to do, that is support our next generation data centre, improve security, and increase resiliency. Migrating to another platform would be a waste of time, resource and energy, which could be better spent migrating more legacy applications into the Cisco ACI fabric.
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We are extremely happy with the Cisco Catalyst series and don't have any reason to switch. As long as we continue to get great use and service out of the products we'll continue to use them for the foreseeable future.
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Usability
Cisco ACI has changed the traditional data center model into a new era of automation and agility. The product was considerably easy to deploy met all the expectations. In terms of usability, ACI provides a unified interface for managing the whole infrastructure in one place which is the main benefit for users (admins)
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Based on my previous experience with other vendors, Cisco is worlds apart. I can manage every feature I need with great flexibility. Other vendors that only provide web UI, limited functionality exists. The other benefit is that since Cisco has been a strong player for so long, their training is being done in some high schools now expanding the knowledge to more of the workforce.
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Reliability and Availability
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.
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We have very few is any outages due to a Cisco hardware failure. Some of our gear is exposed to some pretty harsh environments, and they keep on ticking!
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Performance
I do not give it 10 because the platform evolves more and more every day in the data traffic of the datacenter. But the implementations that they carry out for different clients of the platform are very happy with the result of the same over time. Another point that you notice about the platform, despite its good performance, is the low use of energy used by this 24x7 on, it is a good fact to take into account for our environment.
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No, the packets flow. Sometimes you will see collisions and broadcast storms can happen which will slow performance but that can be fixed and the packets will flow.
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Support Rating
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
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We rarely have issues with the product. I have only had to contact support one time since we put it in and that was to see if another vendor was giving me accurate information on an issue I was having.
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In-Person Training
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.
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Cisco Networking Academy partners with many local Colleges and High Schools to provide great hands-on training. You do need to drive to learn the topic. The in-class session only go so far. You really need to apply this to the real world. Cisco makes it easy for business to connect via CLC or Cisco Learning Credits.
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Online Training
No answers on this topic
My own personal research to get the information I want is very handy and helped me many times
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Implementation Rating
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
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The implementation of the Cisco Catalyst 1000 Series Switches is fairly seamless, especially if you are familiar with Cisco products. We have had Brocade switch gear in place too, and the differences between the manufacturers [are] not a major issue.
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Alternatives Considered
I've used the Cisco Wireless LAN Controller 9800. I was quite surprised. It was very good to manage access points in a campus network setup that was good. There's a Cisco SD Access solution that I use. I forgot the name of it, to manage also the campus. It was also good. Yeah, I've used quite some Cisco product, but the one I can remember was the Cisco Wireless LAN Controller 9800.
Read full review
We do have other vendors. For example, Juniper, Fortinet, and there are quite a few others. And Cisco is pretty good because we know the workflow, we know how the operating system works. We are much more familiar with Cisco products and we know the support system behind it. So in terms of comparing with others, I think it stands out. It's one of our top products to go to
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Scalability
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.
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We are exclusive Cisco at our organization. In truth part of the reason is, with one type of switch and one manufacturer, it is easier to support. It is also easier to give consistent training to our staff in our tech department
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Return on Investment
  • 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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  • energy costs dropped by around 11 per cent on the access layer
  • management has become easier with DNA Center
  • ISSU software upgrades and fabric deployments have significantly reduced "planned" down times
  • network speed has increased, latency is at an all-time best within our own LAN
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ScreenShots

Cisco Catalyst Switches Screenshots

Screenshot of Screenshot of Catalyst 9200 SeriesScreenshot of Catalyst 9300 SeriesScreenshot of Catalyst 9400 SeriesScreenshot of Catalyst 9400 Series Additional ViewScreenshot of Catalyst 9500 Series