Cisco Prime [EOL] Reviews

I use Cisco Prime to check the interfaces and links and generate reports. I use the solution to see which locations are down.

What I found most beneficial from Cisco Prime is that it gives you an insight into what your network does, even when you're not actively monitoring what's going on with your network.

I would love for Cisco Prime to show bandwidth usage and consumption, but I can't monitor bandwidth usage at a given time on the version I use or on the subscription I have available. All I can see on Cisco Prime is the uptime depending on the date range or period I want to have an insight about, so this is an area for improvement in the solution.

If bandwidth usage and consumption data are available, that will help me with my reporting.

I discovered you need another license to see bandwidth utilization data. If Cisco can diffuse that functionality into a single subscription, I can monitor bandwidth usage and see reports and a few other functionalities, which would improve Cisco Prime.

I've been using Cisco Prime for around six months.

Cisco Prime is a stable product. Its stability is eight out of ten.

I've yet to try to scale Cisco Prime.

I've contacted Cisco Prime technical support, and as it can be problematic at times and other times pretty seamless, it's a seven out of ten for me.

Cisco Prime was the first solution I used, and then I just supplemented it with a free version of PRTG.

I didn't do the initial setup for Cisco Prime because I just came into the company after the setup.

A third party implemented Cisco Prime for the company.

I've used PRTG and then Cisco Prime.

I have to check the version of Cisco Prime that I'm currently using, but I'm sure it isn't the latest version.

A third party deals with Cisco Prime, which can sometimes be troublesome, though it's pretty seamless at other times.

Up to thirty people use the solution within the company.

I'd tell people looking into Cisco Prime that the decision should be based on what you need the solution for. What are you looking to monitor? It would be best if you also looked into licenses supporting your use case. This is the best way to go about it.

My rating for Cisco Prime is eight out of ten.

Our main use cases are for device management as well as for wireless monitoring. I'm an account service delivery manager and we have a gold partnership with Cisco.

Operationally, Prime is quite easy to use and I like the wireless heatmap and search management features. 

The reporting could be simplified and the information made clearer to the user. There is a lack of detail and a useful breakdown that shows what is happening. The dashboard should have more options which would help with analysis. This is crucial for us as the system is currently too slow and it seems we have reached our limits because a lot of databases are getting loaded into it.

I would like to see link management for routers, and a functioning network discovery feature that exists in the solution but for some reason does not function. We've been told that we need to manually add it. That is unacceptable and it's the biggest downfall of the solution. 

I've been using this solution for five years. 

The stability is not terrible, there are no issues. The problem is the time it takes to get visibility. I need to wait for more than 30 seconds to get what I need. 

This is a scalable tool. We have four people in the company using Prime. 

The customer service is average because some of the support staff are knowledgeable, but some are not and it can take a while to resolve things. They should all know the product and which features are for what purpose.

Neutral

I wasn't involved in the initial setup but last week we upgraded to the 3.10 version and had a lot of difficulties with the upgrade and the patch management. We have it sorted out now. I think the issue is that there is a refresh happening, a check that all the data is available, so the loading time has been slow and I feel it on each and every screen. 

I'm not involved with licensing. 

This is actually a wonderful tool with good features but it's slow so I rate this product eight out of 10. 

We use the solution for monitoring and backing up our network devices.

The dashboard is a valuable feature. It's very clear, and the metrics make it easy to see the current network situation.

In general, it's fine for me. It's a nice product. Right now, I can't think of any features that could be added. Maybe it could be a little cheaper.

We've been using the solution for less than a year.

The solution is stable. It works very well.

The solution is scalable. You can expand it if you buy an additional license.

We've never had to create a case for Cisco Prime support.

At my previous company, I used Huawei Insight software for our Cisco devices. Cisco Prime is slightly easier than Huawei Insight but a bit expensive, which is why my previous company preferred it.

The setup wasn't complex at all.

We did the deployment in-house.

I don't think these products have a standard cost because they are very specific. You need to get special quotes from the company for each order.

On a scale of one to 10, I would rate the product as nine.

We have two users using the solution.

The product is simple to maintain. By following the Cisco alarms, you can fix problems easily.

The solution is very easy to use, and I absolutely advise using it, as long as your budget has no limits. 

We use Cisco Prime mainly to monitor and double-check if all access points are working correctly and in the correct places that they are intended to be. Additionally, we check the heat maps of the coverage of the wifi signal to see if it is the appropriate coverage.

The most valuable feature of Cisco Prime is the heat map.

Cisco Prime could improve the notifications in the system. Having more details about what is happening would be useful, such as traffic numbers or who is connected. We can see them through the firewall controller, but it would be better if you can see them from one place.

In the next release, they could add some more features and improve the look of the user interface to something more modern.

I have been using Cisco Prime for approximately five years.

Cisco Prime is stable.

The scalability of Cisco Prime has been good for the 200 access points we have.

We communicate with our Cisco partner here and I'm very happy with them. They're very cooperative and responsive.

I have not used another similar solution prior to Cisco Prime.

The price of Cisco Prime was reasonable because we purchased it as part of a Cisco One package. The package was a bundle of Cisco solutions together, such as Cisco ISE and CMX. The price is reasonable com compared to other solutions.

My advice to others is they need to make sure during their planning that they have distributed the exact number of access points in the right location. There should be someone dedicated to it because it needs a follow-up and daily monitoring.

I rate Cisco Prime a seven out of ten.

We use this solution to troubleshoot our wireless systems, specifically regarding signal strength. We have 10 users and 5 admins for maintenance of this solution. 

This solution could be improved if it could monitor configuration changes.

I have been using this solution for five years. 

This is not a scalable solution. 

The customer service and support for this solution is good. When we have had a technical problem, we have worked together with them to fix any issues. 

Positive

We use this solution together with SolarWinds. We use SolarWinds to monitor set up and configuration changes. We use Cisco Prime to troubleshoot network signal.

The initial setup is straightforward. 

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten. 

I primarily offer this solution to my clients. It is really helpful, for example, for monitoring the access point condition of my clients' devices.

I like the monitoring of access points. We can see the heat map in locations within the building. In case of trouble, if my client has trouble in some specific area, we can look to specific areas on the map, which areas are impacted.

The installation is easy.

The solution is a bit pricey.

It should be able to monitor Palo Alto, Juniper, and Check Point products - not just Cisco solutions. 

I've been dealing with the solution for five or six years.

It's stable. There are no bugs or glitches. I have never heard my customers complaining about the stability of Cisco Prime.

I'm not sure about the scalability. Most of my clients deploy the network differently. Not that many worry about scaling. If you want it to be scalable, it's still possible to scale by upgrading the hardware or software, maybe. It's VM-based; it's still scalable if you upgrade it.

We have five clients using the solution, however, I'm unsure how many users are under each client. 

Technical support is great. We find them to be helpful and responsive. 

The solution is very straightforward and simple. It's not overly complex. 

The deployment is quick as well. For installation, a half-day is enough. That covers not just installation. That also covers the testing and connection to the network.

The licensing is pretty simple, however, we would like it to be less expensive. 

We resell both the cloud and on-premises versions. 

I would recommend the solution. We tend to recommend it to clients. 

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten.

There are fewer monitoring solutions around, however, for now, my clients are using Cisco Prime just to monitor Cisco products only - not other brands like HP or Palo Alto, or Check Point. I cannot recommend it beyond using it if you are heavily involved in Cisco.

We use Cisco Prime to manage all of the wireless infrastructure in our stores and campus distribution centers. In our distribution centers we also monitor switches so we can do rogue AP detection. I'm the IT wireless manager and we are customers of Cisco Prime. 

I'm required to produce a rogue report once a quarter and also to provide a summary. The map overview of our campus environment shows the distribution of RF frequency channels and the distribution of a client. It provides us with a great idea of where the busier areas are within our environment to allow us to tweak and tune. The reporting is also a great feature because everyone sees which APs and which clients are the busiest, as well as the busiest applications. This solution enables us to do that.

Cisco is currently moving to DNA Center which has a lot of extra features we're looking forward to using. I think many of the gaps currently in Cisco Prime will be implemented in DNA Center. For now, because there are more and more devices in enterprise organizations that are wireless, it's the platform that's depended on. Cisco Prime is slow at times, we often have to restart the database to run reports or to gain access. We have it deployed on a VM, and that was a mistake, because when you put it on VM, the resources and management don't function well. The good still outweighs the bad, but when we have these ongoing problems, performance is not ideal. 

For additional features, I'd like to see support for Ekahau Site Survey maps. Some competing companies allow you to import that together with its AP attributes, so you can perform your predictive, or post site surveys and incorporate them into their management system. It ensures you don't have to start from scratch and then import a new map and new APs with all of the attributes. Having some level of ability to work with either AirMagnet or Ekahau, the two top wireless analysis tools on the market, is where you can gain great benefit for supporting large deployments.

I've been using this solution for 12 years. 

If you're using a VM, stability is iffy, probably around 80% stable. 

We currently have 10 Prime servers and when I compare it to the competition, it can handle more devices than competing companies. From a scalability standpoint, it seems to be able to support more devices. We have our operations department which troubleshoots on a daily basis. Our wireless engineering team set up new facilities, put in new maps and AP placements. There are two groups - operations and engineering. We have a few people involved in that area. 

The technical support is very helpful and very knowledgeable.

Working for a larger company, we were using Wavelink to manage our first and second generation access points. Wavelink is a vendor-agnostic management tool to manage APs. When you choose a more sophisticated solution, such as Cisco, as our vendor for deploying nationwide, it made sense to select a management tool that's going to allow us to manage, deploy, report, and provide PCI requirements. Those are the main reasons we switched. 

The initial setup was straightforward.

We're not like a normal company, we get steep discounts from Cisco, although they do compete well on a pricing level with other similar solutions. 

Anyone wanting to implement this now should deploy DNA Center and I would recommend against using VMs if possible.

I would rate this solution an eight out of 10. 

I use Cisco Prime to work with VLANs, especially the VLANs that function in my daily business. I deploy security updates, iOS configurations, and configs on the access layer, routers, and switches. I also use reports to troubleshoot problems.

The VLAN mapping function has been most impactful in simplifying our network management tasks.

There is room for improvement in the Access layer. 

I have been using it since 2017. 

I would rate the stability a ten out of ten.

The scalability is great. I would rate the scalability a ten out of ten. 

For all functions, we have around 200 end users.

I contacted customer service and support vie email. Their response is okay, but not very fast.

Neutral

The initial setup is very difficult. 

We work with Cisco through our dealer.

Cisco Prime is a great solution for Cisco environments. I don't think other software is the same leader because other software doesn't support Cisco hardware like Cisco software does. It's very familiar.

For the Cisco environment, I would rate Cisco Prime a ten out of ten. 

The user interface of Cisco Prime could be more user-friendly and increase its performance.

I have been using Cisco Prime for approximately one year.

Cisco Prime is a stable solution.

I have found the solution to be scalable.

We are in Tanzania and we use a support representative in Kenya. We have received good responses from them and the technical support we receive from Cisco has been through email and it was good. However, the support we have received from Huawei was better. It would have a local presence in Tanzania.

I rate the support from Cisco Prime a four out of five.

I have used other solutions previously, such as Huawei. What attracts customers to Cisco Prime is it is readily available. Many customers are comfortable with Cisco solutions, it is easy for us to sell to them. The solution is recommended for large enterprises.

The initial setup of Cisco Prime is simple.

I would rate the initial setup of Cisco Prime a three out of five.

I rate Cisco Prime an eight out of ten.

We use Cisco Prime for managing calls for the company. We are only at the beginning of using the solution.

Cisco Prime allows us to do a lot of functions with the users and it is flexible.

Cisco Prime could improve the graphical user interface.

I have been using Cisco Prime for approximately seven months.

Cisco Prime is a sable solution.

We have five administrators using this solution in my organization.

I have used the support.

I rate the support from Cisco Prime a five out of five.

The initial setup of Cisco Prime is very simple. The process takes a few minutes.

I rate the initial setup of Cisco Prime a four out of five.

I rate Cisco Prime an eight out of ten.