Cisco DNA Center Reviews

Cisco DNA Center helps to manage user networks. 

The product offers an intuitive and automated way to manage user networks. It gives me an insight into the network health.  

The tool's deployment is complex. It also needs to improve its GUI. 

I have been using the product for three years. 

I rate the product's stability a nine out of ten. 

The product is scalable. My company has 500 users. 

Cisco DNA Center's deployment takes three weeks to complete. 

Cisco DNA Center is expensive. 

I rate the product a nine out of ten. 

We use the solution’s capabilities to the maximum.

The product gives a consolidated view. It has good tools for creating standard templates. It is good for basic troubleshooting.

The product doesn’t have good monitoring capabilities. It should be improved. The data has a lot of inconsistencies. We cannot trust it or rely on it. The solution has a lot of bugs in assurance and provisioning. Sometimes, in the inventory, the devices are out of sync. The AI features are very basic.

I have been using the solution for three to four years.

The product is not stable. I rate the stability a five out of ten.

The tool is scalable. If we want to scale it, it will be expensive. There should be a good ratio between scalability and cost. Our clients are medium and large enterprises.

The technical support is not excellent, but it is good. If we seek information that is not in the public documentation, then we don't get answers from Cisco TAC. The support could be improved. If we are unsure about the behavior of a feature or application, we should get proper documentation from Cisco on how the feature should work.

Neutral

The deployment is easy after we get the IOS image. However, when compared to cloud-hosted solutions, the process requires manual work. We have to deploy it manually. If everything is ready, it takes us a full day to deploy the tool. It takes one week to deploy it if we have to prepare the network and get the IOS image.

One engineer is enough to deploy the tool. Maintenance is not super easy. The upgrades are time-consuming. The features do not work as they're supposed to sometimes. If there are errors, we have to contact Cisco TAC.

The solution is expensive. There is a recurring license fee that has to be paid annually. There is also a one-time cost for the appliance, which is also expensive.

We are partners with Cisco. People wanting to use the product must compare it with other tools and choose accordingly. Overall, I rate the product a six out of ten.

Cisco DNA Center offers managed services and integration. It also has centralization of management. Centralized management is crucial; additional tools are available for invoicing and endpoint certification. The platform offers various features, including new Wi-Fi capabilities and access points. There is no licensing for users.

Cisco DNA Center is costly for Ukrainian customers. The functionality and connections are excellent. If the price decreases, it should become more accessible.

I rate the solution’s stability an eight out of ten.

The solution is suited for large organizations. 

There are several compliance issues that they are unable to resolve. The response time is very slow, and we must change the agent frequently because the agents cannot address questions.

Neutral

People should keep an eye on the Cisco DNA Center software, which is becoming more accessible. This software is not confined to a single device due to its large size and high cost. Some customers can utilize multiple sources or partner sources and can use virtual or software clients to install it on their network. This ensures certified features on the platform.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

We use it for incorporating around four hundred wireless access points into our network infrastructure.

It enables monitoring of various components such as access points, switch cards, and other elements within the company's solutions.

We encountered issues with their response times, which had a big impact on our workflow.

We started using it this year, so for a couple of months now.

Overall, I would rate it seven out of ten.

In my former company, we used Cisco DNA Center specifically for monitoring. I also used the solution as a troubleshooting tool to investigate issues on the wireless infrastructure.

The most valuable feature of Cisco DNA Center is the AI (Artificial Intelligence) that provides us with valuable information. Otherwise, we would have to spend a lot of time trying to understand what's going on. I really appreciate the reports provided by the solution's AI for the wireless.

For example, we had issues with the Cisco wireless controller and spent a lot of time troubleshooting it. In just a few minutes, Cisco DNA Center provided us with valuable information regarding the memory leaking in the controller. That helped us to fix the issue. For me, the most valuable feature of Cisco DNA Center is the intelligence inside the tool.

As a user, it would be good if I could plug in controllers, suites, and devices from other vendors to Cisco DNA Center. Users could use the intelligence in Cisco DNA Center for the entire environment.

I have been using Cisco DNA Center for three or four years.

I faced a few problems during the solution's upgrade process, and TAC took a few hours to fix it. I'm pretty comfortable with the solution's technical support.

Positive

I previously used Cisco Prime and other monitoring tools.

Cisco DNA Center's initial setup is pretty easy.

Overall, I rate Cisco DNA Center a nine 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.

Our primary use case is for building and maintaining networks while adhering to security policies. 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 most valuable features are its life cycle management and the security aspects it provides.

The weaknesses primarily involve pricing and the ongoing need for increased bandwidth and data throughput. These aspects are interconnected with the lifecycle management of the network. Security is also a concern, even though is somewhat implemented. There are no specific requirements except for user-friendly dashboards, but the definition of "user-friendly" can vary from person to person, making it challenging to define a universal standard.

I have used it for a year.

It has good stability capabilities.

It offers good scalability features.

The initial setup was complex.

The partnership price is notably high, but it ultimately depends on the chosen business model.

The choice of the solution depends on the organization's size, network complexity, and whether they have its own maintenance or operational department. Organizations can opt to outsource to Cisco partners, but this decision relies on their specific needs. It's crucial to determine whether to keep network knowledge in-house or rely on external expertise. Skill versions and portfolio updates should be approached cautiously, considering customer requirements and the timing of upgrades to avoid disrupting operations. I would rate it eight out of ten.

My company uses the solution frequently for configuration, monitoring, and ZTP, which is Zero-touch provisioning. The solution is for configuration purposes, making it a centralized configuration tool.

The most valuable features of the solution are all of its security features.

Price is an area with certain shortcomings in the solution that needs improvement.

The technical support team of Cisco needs to improve the support they provide to users of their products.

I have been using Cisco DNA Center for five years. My company is a platinum partner of Cisco. I work as an integrator. There is an update each time we work with the solution in our company, so we always use the latest version.

It is a highly stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution an eight to nine out of ten.

It is a highly scalable solution. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

Around 30 to 40 percent of my company's clients use Cisco DNA Center, which may consist of more than a hundred users.

Most big companies opt for Cisco DNA Center. The smaller companies may find Cisco DNA Center to be costly.

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. I rate the technical support provided by Aruba, Huawei, or Extreme Networks to be way higher than what Cisco provides.

I rate the technical support of Cisco a four or five out of ten.

Neutral

I rate the initial setup phase of the product a five on a scale of one to ten, where one is difficult and ten is easy. The initial configuration is not a problem, but working with Cisco DNA Center is hard, so there is a learning curve for all the clients.

It is really complex to speak on how Cisco DNA Center can be improved, but there are products equivalent to Cisco in the market, like Aruba Central, which is way easier to work with, including the dashboard and everything. Cisco offers a wide range of features in their management tool, making it hard for the client to work on it. It is hard to wrap your head around all the functionalities provided by Cisco, and you have to learn about the solution to get a hang of it.

The solution is deployed on an on-premises model.

The deployment time taken for the solution depends on the requirements of the company's clients. The time taken for deployment may range from a day to two weeks.

For Cisco DNA Center's deployment, there is a need for a server and an OVA file. There is also a process for configuring Cisco DNA Center by itself, and then there is another process for adding all your devices. At the end of the deployment phase, we get templates to push into the configuration part.

I rate the product's pricing an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is very cheap, and ten is very expensive. The solution's price could be a problem for smaller businesses. There are a lot of customers who want Cisco products but are startled when they see Cisco's pricing model, which includes Cisco DNA Center. So Cisco forces its customers to purchase DNA Center with everything. If you don't buy Cisco DNA Center, then the product you purchase from Cisco won't work.

When customers see the prices of Cisco products, they change their minds and opt for other products like Aruba or Huawei.

There are no costs in addition to the licensing cost of the solution. Cisco offers a wide range of products, which is the problem with Cisco's portfolio of products since they offer different options like three years, five years, or seven years. Suppose you don't pay after three years to renew the license, then they provide you with a period of sixty days, after which the product won't work anymore, but this is not the case with products from other vendors like Aruba. If you don't have Aruba Central, you directly connect it to your suite and use it traditionally, but with Cisco, it's an obligation to have a license and renew it. Since Cisco is the leader in the market, it uses the power to force others with their terms, which is a normal strategy.

Cisco DNA Center is pretty much a complete product.

I won't recommend Cisco DNA Center to anyone, and I would rather suggest that they use Aruba.

Cisco offers good products, and I believe they have the most solid products in the market.

I rate the overall solution somewhere between eight and nine out of ten.