Cisco DNA Center Reviews

The solution is mainly used for setting up SPN or intent-based networking for the customers.

In day-to-day operations, especially post-pandemic, the majority of our customers have to work from anywhere. It's not just work from home, it's work from anywhere. Due to this work from anywhere concept, the traditional silos of a network for the data center architecture, and managing everything from anywhere, and having that single integrated dashboard for each and every activity while being able to correlate those activities in line with a business objective, has been very well addressed by Cisco DNA.

The solution's most valuable aspect is its simplicity and the complete automation of the network workflow, which we can use that correlate with the business. It's not only limited to STXs or a data center. It completes everything, which really helps us.

If a user is comfortable with Cisco technology, the initial setup is pretty straightforward. 

Cisco is extremely reliable.

The solution has the capability to scale. 

Technical support is always excellent.

The architecture should not be limited only to the USXC as a platform. Let's say if I'm referring to the Catalyst 1000 Series or an MB Series of an SG or FX. Due to the fact that there are mid-market and commercial customers who are using such kinds of product lines apart from the Catalyst 9000 or Cisco UCS architecture, they should all come under a single pane of glass. Any new product should be added right from Cisco itself.

The network automation should not be limited only to Cisco, as there may be customers who are using Palo Alto firewalls, or they might be using Ruckus for wireless. There has to be some sort of integration with a third party. 

The integration of Cisco DNA with a couple of leading CRMs or ticketing solutions would be ideal. 

The solution can be quite pricey.

We've been dealing with the solution for three to four years or so.

Stability is never an issue with Cisco. It's reliable. there are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze.

Scalability isn't really an issue. However, it all depends on the version or the flavor that you are selecting. We don't see a challenge. All options are available to us.

The technical support on offer from Cisco is always excellent. it would rate them at a ten out of ten. they are helpful and responsive.

We are using Cisco DNA as well as Ansible as a platform. We don't have that much experience working on other product lines. While Cisco is on the cloud, Ansible is on-premises.

If the engineer is good enough to understand the Cisco terminology, and if they have past experience working with Cisco, I don't see a challenge working with Cisco DNA as a platform.

Deployment may take maybe five to seven working days. However, the real process is all about fine-tuning. It's a continuous improvement process as we need to align DNA with the business objectives. It's not that product where we actually talk to the customer on a technicality. It is more about how best we can ensure the business outcome via the automation tool. There is always lots of engagement that happens at the customer experience level. That's the reason it takes some more time to find units.

The pricing is quite expensive. It'd rate it at a two out of ten in terms of affordability.

We have customers who would like to deploy DN architecture, however, DN architecture requires a DNF appliance. For the mid-market customer who is investing hardly a few thousand dollars, if they have to deploy an appliance, it is very costly. Ideally, to address the need of SMB or mid-market customers, Cisco should offer something on a cloud basis where it could be more affordable. 

My feedback to the Cisco product team is that technology is fantastic. There are no issues. The only thing is that they have to make the technology at an affordable price point, which should be affordable to SMBs and not just enterprises. Enterprises don't mind spending money. However, for mid-market and commercials, working out a pricing model which is more on an OPEX base rather than on a CAPEX base would be ideal.

We are a system integrator and we are providing network automation solutions and services to our customers. 

Overall, I would rate the solution at a six out of ten. It's quite good, however, it's not ideal for smaller organizations as it's cost-prohibitive.

This solution is best for customers who are end-to-end, Cisco customers. For the customers who have a heterogeneous environment where security comes from let's say CrowdStrike or Palo Alto or Ruckus we would suggest that a customer goes with Ansible. Cisco has limitations in terms of integration and automation when working with solutions outside the Cisco family. Some sort of API interface has to be available. 

We use the solution for location tracking. We have to monitor the traffic in our environment since we have more than 3000 visitors per day.

We can monitor all devices and get the required information using the product.

The solution needs to improve the dashboard. The dashboard is very difficult to understand for someone using it for the first time. We took around two months to connect our environment to Cisco.

I have been using the solution for six months.

The network team uses the solution in our organization.

When we struggled to connect our environment to the solution, we raised the issue thrice. However, the team was not able to resolve our issue. Finally, we figured out that we had to upgrade our wireless controller and install the proper certificate. I am not happy with the support.

Cisco should invest some resources to educate the users about the product. Overall, I rate the solution a six and a half out of ten.

We use Cisco DNA Center for management. You can configure any device, and if you put the device without configurations, you can start to configure it through Cisco DNA Center. For example: if you get a new Cisco switch, and you have other Cisco switches configured, you can plug in the new switch, copy the configuration, make the changes, and make the template, or you can use an existing template and just upload it to the device.

What I found most valuable in Cisco DNA Center is the ability to manage any device through it, because the infrastructure is for Cisco, and we have Cisco routers and Cisco switches.

In terms of areas for improvement in Cisco DNA Center, we don't use the product on 80% to 100% of its capacity, because our infrastructure is a small one. For us, it's enough. We have report capabilities, and other capabilities that we need are configured on the solution. If there is an expansion for any Cisco solution, we can integrate it with Cisco DNA Center, for example: with ISE, so we're fine.

What could be improved is the licensing cost of Cisco DNA Center. It's a little bit expensive.

I've been using Cisco DNA Center for the last six months.

In terms of the stability of Cisco DNA Center, we had a few bugs, but we managed to overcome them. For example: there were times we needed to reboot the device because it was not connecting.

How scalable Cisco DNA Center is would depend on the license you get. If you need more devices, you can always buy more licenses, or expand your current license.

There was no need for us to contact technical support, because we're not using Cisco DNA Center 100%. Our infrastructure is small, so we're just using the solution to reduce staff.

The initial setup for Cisco DNA Center was straightforward. On a scale between one and five where one is the worst and five is the best, I'm scoring the setup a four. Anyone could do it.

Licensing for Cisco DNA Center is a little bit expensive, just like any Cisco solution. Its cost could still be improved.

Cisco DNA Center is deployed on-premises. There is a link for the cloud because you need to have internet connection, but the data stays on-premises.

The advice I would give to other people who want to use Cisco DNA Center is to go for it, particularly if they have Cisco infrastructure, though these days it's really hard to do that because integration could be an issue. If they have other Cisco products they use in their infrastructure, it'll be a plus, so they should use Cisco DNA Center.

I'm rating Cisco DNA Center eight out of ten.

The availability endpoint is in the Cisco DNA Center dashboard, which allows us to push configurations and address compliance issues to all devices on Cisco network from a single location.

Cisco DNA Center provides operational support, compliance support, security vulnerability detection, and automatic scheduling.

They should include UTM features in the product. 

I have been using Cisco DNA Center for five years.

The product is stable.

The technical support services need improvement.

Negative

Cisco DNA Center can be deployed as a server or an appliance. It is up to you to choose which one meets the requirements. DNA Center can manage various endpoints, automatically adding new devices to DNS and integrating them with other Cisco devices. To do this, the DNA Center must be able to access the Cisco website. Therefore, this box should have internet connectivity with support for the Cisco website. DNA Center will then fetch the 802.1x authentication and client deployment information from the website and automatically deploy it to the box. It will take at least one or two days to do with automated and manual. We need to check both sides so that it's covering entire devices. Its maintenance is easy as well.

Cisco DNA Center is a good product. There could be more features added to the dashboard. Overall, I rate it a ten out of ten.

I use DNA Center for network administration. Four people in the IT department use this solution.

There are some software problems from version to version. It takes a long time for DNA Center to recognize the video and control access devices.

I've used Cisco DNA Center for about one year.

DNA Center is scalable. 

At the first level of Cisco support, no one can give you a solution, but the second level can help you.

A third-party integrator installed DNA Center for us.

Cisco's suite is expensive. The full solution, including DNA Center, costs more than a million US dollars for a five-year license.

I rate DNA Center seven out of 10, but it's not accessible to all companies who would benefit from the solution.

I like the visibility, instant build, network, policies, and the ability to control access. I also like that you can visualize your whole network.

Cisco could improve the security side of their solutions.

We have been using this solution since 2005.

It's definitely stable.

It's definitely scalable.

The initial setup can be easy depending on the knowledge you have.

It takes one or two people to maintain the solution. However, it depends on the client and the type of service required. 

The licensing cost for Cisco DNA Center is not more than that of other solutions.

If I were to give pricing a score from one to five, I would give it a score between three and four.

We are happy with this solution; we cannot design data center switches without Cisco DNA.

On a scale from one to ten, I would rate Cisco DNA Center at nine.

We deploy the Cisco DNA Center through Cisco Prime Migration, and we use Cisco DNA Center to monitor all the wired connections, endpoints, and switches such as access switches, data center switches, and routers. We also manage the wireless access points through the Cisco DNA Center.

We get reports on availability, health, manageability, logs, and critical errors. We monitor and maintain all the network devices using the solution.

The best feature of Cisco DNA Center is the visibility page, which is unavailable in Cisco Prime. You can see everything on a single plane of glass on the dashboard, and you don't have to be a technical person to view different data and statistics. For example, you can see the issue alarms, errors, topology, and availability. So the tool gives you good visibility into all that's happening within your network infra. It also provides visibility into your computing environment. Application and performance analytics in huge detail is available in the DNA center.

The reporting is fantastic in both Cisco Prime and Cisco DNA Center, so I rate that feature a ten out of ten. My company migrated clients to the Cisco DNA Center, and the reporting is incredible.

I don't have any areas for improvement regarding Cisco DNA Center that I can share now. However, what I want to see in Cisco DNA Center and Cisco Prime in the future is more support for other platforms so that you can manage third-party products, such as Fortinet. If you can other non-cisco devices on Cisco DNA Center, that would be beneficial, especially to LAN environments here in the UAE with multiple vendors. For example, through ICMP, it can be a minimal management level to manage the availability.

Cisco DNA Center can do some pinging to check whether a device is online, and it should be able to show you that this is a Fortinet device and it's a firewall, for example. The tool should show you some information about the product or device type. A feature like this is available in many other monitoring solutions like DNA centers.

I've been using Cisco DNA Center for two years now.

Cisco DNA Center is a very stable tool.

The solution is very scalable.

We have had a very great TAC support experience on Cisco DNA center.

Positive

The initial setup for Cisco DNA Center is easier compared to Cisco Prime.

My company uses Cisco DNA Center.

I'd tell anyone planning to use Cisco DNA Center to use it, especially when you have Cisco products or devices, such as wireless, security, and voice. Cisco DNA Center is the best product for  network monitoring and management. You can use Cisco Prime, but I prefer Cisco DNA Center because the visibility available there. You can see almost all information on a single page of the dashboard. If you have a Cisco environment, it's best to go for Cisco DNA Center.

I would give Cisco DNA Center an eight out of ten overall.

We use it to manage and monitor our branch network equipment.

It gives us automation capabilities for pushing out a configuration to branch networks. It also provides visibility into the health of user network devices.

There should be an option for automation of template deployment by using the stored data. It is not easy to save configuration information for lots of devices without using other tools. There should be a tighter, better repository of information that can be merged with the templates.

I have been using this solution for three years.

Its stability is good.

I haven't really got a view on that one because we haven't had a need to scale. 

In terms of its users, we probably have 15 people, which also includes our partners, who use it as well as manage it.

I have used their support. I would rate them a four out of five.

I didn't use any similar solution previously. 

It was relatively quick. I don't remember exactly, but it was probably in the order of a month or so to implement. 

We had help from Cisco themselves on Advanced Services, but from my memory, it was relatively straightforward. 

It is a good product. It does a good job. I can't think of any specific technical challenges we've had. 

I would rate it an eight out of ten.