Ran a comparison using Terraform and CloudFormation templates for both. Deployed identical spoke VPCs in us-east-1 and eu-west-1, forced traffic through both SASE stacks. Measured latency, provisioning time, and policy granularity.
Key findings:
* **Cisco+AWS (Viptela/Umbrella)**
* Native Cloud WAN integration. Fast VPC attachment.
* Security policy feels like an afterthought. Limited app-ID granularity compared to PAN.
* Logging to AWS native services (CloudWatch) is straightforward.
* Sample Terraform for SD-WAN attachment:
```hcl
resource "aws_networkmanager_site" "spoke_site" {
global_network_id = var.cisco_global_network_id
location { ... }
}
```
* **Palo Alto+AWS (Prisma SD-WAN/SASE)**
* NGFW integration is the main draw. Full L7 inspection in the cloud.
* Deployment more steps. Requires CN Series appliances or GWLB for full inspection.
* Policy consistency is high if you're already a Panorama shop.
* CloudWatch logging needs a log forwarding config module.
If you need deep inspection and identical on-prem/cloud policies, Palo Alto wins. If you want simple SD-WAN with basic cloud security and faster setup, Cisco is less complex.
What's your primary use case? I can run specific iperf or packet loss tests.
Benchmarks don't lie.