We performed a comparison between Cisco DNA Center and SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Network Automation solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."Cisco DNA Center provides operational support, compliance support, security vulnerability detection, and automatic scheduling."
"The solution helps in user microsegmentation."
"It offers automation, security enforcement, analytics, and integration with other Cisco technologies, making it a key driver for efficient network operations and compliance with security protocols."
"The solution has the capability to scale."
"I like that we can easily configure any new hardware. It's also easy to deploy and easy to troubleshoot."
"What's most valuable in Cisco DNA Center is the ability to manage any Cisco infrastructure and device through it. Setup was straightforward."
"The automation features are significant, reducing configuration time. This means outstanding functionality. By deploying the controller automatically, the rest becomes automated"
"What I found valuable in Cisco DNA Center is the Software-Defined Access Network, so the entire LAN network can be centralized and managed from a single dashboard. Cisco DNA Center is suitable for centralized management and lets you deploy switches in a centralized fashion. You can also do multiple switch port configurations simultaneously and segregate your traffic into multiple fabrics. Another valuable feature of Cisco DNA Center is enhanced security through Scalable Group Tags. Cisco DNA Center can be integrated with your Cisco ISE to enhance the port securities, and this paves the way for Software-Defined Networking in the LAN segment, which is the main advantage of Cisco DNA Center. I also like that you can use Cisco DNA Center for data assurance or correlation. The solution shows your network and client health parameters, which I find convenient for troubleshooting."
"It's perfect for network configuration management. It's easy to use."
"The feature that I really enjoy is the ability to script changes across all of your devices."
"It allows us to manage backups in big companies. It is also useful in managing the configuration changes."
"Configuration refers to the specific settings and options that determine how a device or system behaves. It can include things, such as network settings, security settings, and other options that are specific to the device or system in question. One of the most valuable features of the solution was its ability to track and monitor changes to the configuration of devices on a network. This can be useful for troubleshooting and identifying potential issues. By keeping track of who made changes to the configuration and when it can be easier to determine the cause of any problems that may arise."
"We push all our configurations to the servers with ease and the logs capture almost all the transactions needed for an internal audit."
"The most valuable features the solution offers are compliance, reliability, and information about reliability."
"It is a stable solution."
"What's nice with NCM is you can set up policies that you can then check against the configs to ensure that your device configs adhere to a baseline or standard that you've set in place."
"The tool's IoT integration should be better."
"Cisco DNA Center was a new technology for us, at the beginning, it was not easy to do, but Cisco did a lot of training with us to a level we could handle everything. The team is managing itself now without the assistance of Cisco."
"They can improve the network visibility. Licensing and its maintenance are also needed."
"In terms of the clustering part, there are some concerns."
"The solution can be quite pricey."
"Cisco DNA Center should improve its configuration management. It is better to have a dev version before pushing it."
"The solution's technical support is an area with which my company's clients have a problem. Cisco doesn't provide good technical support unless a user has a big account that Cisco wants to retain."
"There is a limitation with the number of VRFs that you can have in your network, and this has caused us problems with some customers."
"We want to be able to store it in a data warehouse format and integrate it with Google single sign-on."
"I'd like to see additional features like support for devices that don't use CLI for configuration backups, expanded inventory support for other vendors beyond Cisco, and compatibility with newer SD WAN devices. These enhancements would further improve the product's versatility and utility for users. we hope for future enhancements, especially in supporting security devices that lack CLI backup options."
"The interface of solar winds could be improved."
"Our experience has shown that most of the problems we've had with SolarWinds NCM are related to software issues."
"Its customer service response could be faster."
"I would like to see more integration tools. Something like dialysis, for example."
"Improvements are needed in the automatic network mapping function."
"On NCM, reporting could be a bit better. It's completely become just one report. When I try to create a custom report, the solution just commits old server data."
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Cisco DNA Center is ranked 1st in Network Automation with 37 reviews while SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager is ranked 3rd in Network Automation with 22 reviews. Cisco DNA Center is rated 7.8, while SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Cisco DNA Center writes "Practical implementation of VXLAN is good and provides centralized control". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager writes "Network configuration is done well; great pricing". Cisco DNA Center is most compared with Cisco Prime, Aruba Airwave, Huawei eSight, Juniper Mist Wired Assurance and Fortinet FortiManager, whereas SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager is most compared with Cisco Prime, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, OpenText Network Node Manager i, VMware NSX and IBM Tivoli NetCool. See our Cisco DNA Center vs. SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager report.
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