Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN is a software-defined wide area network solution designed to simplify and optimize enterprise network connectivity in complex digital landscapes. It enables organizations to connect any user to any application, whether on-premises, in data centers, or across multiple clouds, with integrated capabilities for multicloud support, security, predictive automation, and enhanced network visibility—all built on a Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)-enabled…
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Cisco Meraki SD-WAN
Score 8.9 out of 10
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Cisco Meraki SD-WAN is a cloud-managed solution that simplifies and secures wide area networking across branch, campus, and remote locations. Built on Meraki’s dashboard, it delivers centralized visibility, automation, and traffic optimization without the complexity of traditional WAN deployments. The solution improves application performance by dynamically routing traffic based on real-time conditions, integrating advanced security, and providing seamless multicloud connectivity. With support…
We already had the infrastructure in place to use Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN. Using products from other vendors would have necessitated using additional equipment or virtual appliances.
Nothing very specific to say about the concurrent products but there is lots of concepts differentiators and typically the range of hardware platforms etc... the concepts as well.
Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN stands out for its robust performance, security features, and seamless integration with existing Cisco infrastructure. It offers advanced routing, centralized management, and enhanced network visibility, making it ideal for large-scale enterprises. Cisco's …
SD-WAN vs traditional routing is so much more advanced and interesting. Centralised management of devices makes everything easy to deploy, especially across hundreds of locations. The security is very similar, but I feel the network performance is improved and the setup is less …
Silver Peak is a pretty solid product as well. It does not offer as many customizations, but that also makes onboarding significantly easier. It's a tradeoff between the amount of supported features and the complexity of the dashboard. Similarly if you are willing to …
Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN is more sophisticated and has a wider range of functionalities than the Meraki SD-WAN solution. For Meraki SD-WAN you cannot configure all policies that it is possible for Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN. Meraki SD-WAN is more as plug and play solution. For Cisco …
We've used the old Cisco SD-WAN, which no longer exists. It was a lot more complex to configure what is now called Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN. So they've definitely come a long way in that it is a lot less complicated to set up and template based.
Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN isn't really a hardware product, so it's more like a concept. And so it's really hard to, this is kind of unique, so it doesn't really have a competitor per se.
Actually quite well, I will say. Like I said, I think the one thing that is probably holding us back is what do we need to do to clean up our environment now if we're able to do that right now, I think we wouldn't even be in this RFP process.
When we analyzed Meraki it was clear for us, that our company complexity and need required another level of maturity that was not present for there but it was for Viptela SDWAN now Cisco SDWAN.
Cisco Meraki SD-WAN is way more easy to configure as they do not use a command line interface, but a graphical user interface. Cisco Meraki SD-WAN also has configuration templates, which allows for multiple devices configuration with much less effort than conventional command …
The best case, what I recommend to others and to clients to use is Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN one for is the case when you have a huge number of branches or small offices or remote offices, you name it. Even home offices, you have a large number and you want this whole infrastructure to be extremely easy to set up and also to have everything almost the same, not to have deviations from the standard configuration. This is the sweet spot for introducing Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN.
At our level, we had to optimize our 3 internet links (MPLS and LTE) with applications like O365, SAP, Microsoft CRM Dynamics and our collaborative work tools like Teams. We also had to ensure that both client workstations and servers could communicate with minimal latency with our Microsoft Intune infrastructure.
I will say the ease of use. I know it's very much a template based with feature templates and device templates when deployed properly. I truly believe that the tool can be very, very effective and actually quite robust for us to leverage for globally because we manage a lot of distribution centers and it's all over the world and a different environment in each and every location and obviously across the global markets as well. We've got a wide range of use cases and how it would be very beneficial to each of our business units that we support.
The initial setup and configuration of the software can be somewhat complex, especially if you are not familiar with SD-WAN technology
It has many advanced features and capabilities and as so it can be difficult to find the specific setting or option that you are looking for in the interface
AutoVPN sites to site firewall rules needs to be improved
there is no logging or any insights which would be able to tell you what are the hit counts or actual usage for site to site firewall rules
SD-WAN plus license includes Smart breakout which has only few applications and those do not work properly, so it is quite useless
VPN exclusions (local internet breakout) for TCP/UDP type of traffic can not be specified with port ranges
VPN exclusions (local internet breakout) can be defined only for destinations, but not the sources. It is policy based routing which should support also Source definition
I would rate SD-WAN highly because it has significantly improved network performance, reliability, and cost-efficiency for my organization. Its ability to optimize traffic dynamically, enhance security, and simplify management across multiple locations has been invaluable. With SD-WAN, we’ve reduced dependency on costly MPLS, improved cloud application performance, and gained greater control over our network infrastructure.
We implemented Meraki in most of our organization sites, so we are always looking for ways of improving its usage, add more features and discover characteristics that we do not know we already have. As it is an easy to use tool and we are growing, hiring new employees, it is really simple to onboard the new joiners.
No very intuitive for none trained customer, very complicated to assure a day to day operations if you don't have a strong knowledges on network routing OSPF BGP RIP etc... The different platforms and range of furnitures with specific options is very complicated for the integration and consolidation of the solution.
Initial setup of any SD-WAN is complicated and difficult because there is so much to do and it is so very granular. Because of this, Cisco has a number of free onboarding help setups. I worked one-on-one with a couple of engineers during our POC, and those relationships continued afterwards into the Pilot. And that's not even counting the Cisco TAC experience or the number of How-To videos and documents they have uploaded on their sites.
Fast and efficient. The only issue currently is that the support is only overseas support and not in South Africa, which causes delays in resolution for some cases. Escalating issues is quite simple and the opening of new cases from the dashboard is easy. I have never had a support issue that could not be resolved.
We've used the old Cisco SD-WAN, which no longer exists. It was a lot more complex to configure what is now called Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN. So they've definitely come a long way in that it is a lot less complicated to set up and template based.
We did a very stringent valuation a few years ago. And we evaluated probably about a dozen suppliers on paper that we evaluate just by capabilities. And, we of some other business criteria, and we whittled that down to a list of five. And out of those five, we brought four of those into our lab environment where we ran approximately 350 different test cases on, we really beat on it pretty heavily. And some of those other suppliers would've been companies like Fortinet Versa Networks Silver Peak, which is now owned by Hewlett Packard.
Being a cloud-first solution, Meraki Dashboard will scale as needed without any effort for the client. The Meraki cloud will provision (upscale and downscale) the resources as you grow or shrink in size. You only have to physically install the MX on your site, all the management is one through the Internet via Meraki Dashboard. Worth noting that you can fully-configure the MX prior to the physical installation on site.
It had a very positive experience, especially for the power plants that have actually already transitioned into Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN. I think Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN is a very powerful tool for them because again, it allows peace of mind for redundancy purposes. Most power plants are located in a very remote area where before they used to have only certain choices for circuits to get out. So this allows to integrate any choice that you have there, not just point to point. So no, it is been great. Again, we're still in the process of transforming the whole network into Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN, so yeah, no, so far so good.
It was mostly around logs. I mean I understand because the aim is to provide the simplified solution to the people as an end user, be it an IT manager or the oil team. So I understand where you don't have lots of tools assigned where you can actually take help from the track. But in terms of having that logging information, I think that's where it's been a bit of a kind of journey where struggling, we have been struggling there.
