Cisco vs VMware SD-WAN: Which one to Prefer?
Cisco vs VMware SD-WAN, regardless of whose market share data is used, is Cisco or VMware are the top two SD-WAN vendors. Since spending millions of dollars in the SD-WAN industry, both of these behemoths have been fighting for supremacy. In 2017, Cisco paid $600 million for Viptela, while VMware paid $450 million for VeloCloud, a well-known SD-WAN company.
Cisco claimed that its Viptela and Meraki product solutions have over 20,000 SD-WAN clients in the first fiscal quarter of 2020. According to VMware, SD-WAN has been installed in 225,000 branch offices. While the comparison is not ideal because VMware mentions Cisco clients and branch offices, it signals a fight for customer market share in SD-WAN.
After you get past the excitement of a product’s marketing, it is tough to realize what a firm can honestly do in the field. It is much more fascinating when two giants in enterprise-level networking technologies go head-to-head. To understand the technical differences between Cisco’s Viptela and VMware’s VeloCloud and choose which is best for your company, you must compare and contrast the two systems.
Cisco SD-WAN
Because it possesses the best-in-class software and hardware for SD-WAN, Cisco is playing the software and hardware card. Cisco’s Viptela operates in a zero-trust environment, which means all of its hardware is authenticated, and all data packets are encrypted according to industry standards, despite Cisco’s blogs claiming multiple SD-WAN deployment models with the most options for physical and virtual locations for both remote and branch offices. This type of SD-WAN system may be managed and maintained totally in the cloud. Because of its open design, Viptela is well-suited for use with IPFIX interfaces, SNMP, Syslog, REST APIs, and Netconf.
According to Gartner, Cisco Viptela is one of the most powerful SD–WAN systems on the market. Viptela can be implemented more efficiently with better performance and less bandwidth. Multi-layer security encryption protects all data from the WAN edge to the cloud.
VMware’s VeloCloud SD-WAN
VMware’s SD-WAN product includes the VeloCloud Edge appliance. It is also one of the most successful SD-WAN providers on the market. It cuts down on the amount of time it takes to execute and the cost of shipping. It improves the efficiency of corporate and cloud applications via hybrid and Internet WANs. Any company that employs VMware’s VeloCloud SD-WAN, regardless of whether it uses MPLS or not, may use wired or wireless broadband Internet. The VeloCloud quality score is a metric that IT managers may use to determine how effectively the system performs. VeloCloud uses an intelligent firewall for security, allowing for centralized administration of BYOD policies.
As previously said, it provides a more efficient and stable hybrid WAN solution. It ensures optimal performance by allowing flexibility for even the most demanding applications, such as voice and video. It also eliminates data center backhaul fees, guaranteeing constant connectivity to both private and public cloud environments.
Cisco vs VMware SD-WAN
Features of Cisco SD-WAN:
Cisco SD-WAN provides Supports 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. It has its Analytics platform. It also has Dynamic routing (OSPF/BGP) and meshes topology with TCP optimization and Two VPNs (service + transport).
Cisco’s software-defined wide-area networking (SD-WAN) has three significant aspects in addition to these fast features:
- End-to-end segmentation is implemented using the classic VLAN idea to assure WAN traffic security.
- Cisco SD-WAN uses zero-touch provisioning, which allows the IT staff centralized management over system installations and updates. It aids in keeping up with shifting dynamics during rapid deployments.
- Cisco’s SD-WAN solution is a cloud-based solution that blends WAN infrastructure and cloud services.
Features of VMware SD-WAN:
- Optimization of Multipaths in a Dynamic Environment (DMPO)
- Service model for cloud hosting
- Monitoring of NFV infrastructure and application performance
- Datacenter integration with VMware’s NSX
- Access to the cloud and SaaS that is optimized
- Safe and dependable application performance
- SD-WAN with several regions and cloud VPN
Along with these quick features, VMware’s VeloCloud can deploy a branch in minutes leveraging NSX SD-WAN Edge activation from the cloud. It may also combine any WAN circuit to increase bandwidth at a low cost. As a consequence, the application replies much more quickly. Through VMware’s VeloCloud, all users have direct access to the cloud. Standard encryption is applied to data packets to provide secure communication via any means of transmission.
To reduce branch complexity and sophistication, it eliminates single functional appliances with multiple virtualized network functions that are modest. VMware is developing a platform that will allow multi-cloud and hybrid systems to extend their edge to IoT devices and apps. It will result in an agile, secure, and automated branch architecture.
Pros of Cisco SD-WAN
Cisco SD-WAN lets our organization attain optimal speeds and the most incredible speed boost-up for staging by providing cutting-edge analytics, monitoring, and automation for any associate networking. • SD-WAN clarifies our business by reducing high-cost routing and cutting hardware costs while allowing our firm to access multi-cloud services, among other things.
Pros of VMware SD-WAN
VMware SD-WAN is excellent at selecting the best internet connection based on speed and quality, and it includes a web-based interface that lets us control all of our connections from anywhere on the planet.
We can invest in VMware technology with confidence since the firm has a strong history in networking and is a name I can trust.
Cons of Cisco SD-WAN
The project’s initial investment is more expensive since the minimum subscription duration is three years; The types of
subscriptions that specify the overall bandwidth of the transport links impose a limit on the different solutions that the hardware can handle. Vmanage control console access is limited to a single IP address, restricting cloud access flexibility.
Cons of Vmware SD-WAN
The maximum number of tunnels you may construct and optimize the wide-area network (WAN) and logistics.
Recommendation for Cisco vs VMware SD-WAN
When transitioning from MPLS to an ADI/public internet circuit scenario, Vmware’s SD-WAN by VeloCloud was the clear winner among several POCs. Their ability to be top of the line with specific software providers also helped to improve the user experience. When interacting with other organizations that employ a static whitelisting service for access to resources, dynamic DMPO and circuit load balancing might cause issues.
Cisco SD-WAN is well-suited to businesses that seek complete control over their cloud and digital transformations. SD-WAN allows you to employ a variety of transport networks, such as 4G, 5G, or an Internet dedicated line, as well as WAN lines. The troubleshooting is rapid and efficient, saving us a significant amount of time, energy, and money.
