Network Engineer at Edmonton Catholic School Board
Real User
Top 5
Nov 13, 2025
Cisco Catalyst Center would benefit from different licensing tiers instead of an all-or-nothing model. Some tiers could focus on monitoring and tracking licenses with minimal configuration automation. Current pricing is too expensive for features that users may not be sure they will use, pricing the company out of the market. More à la carte options or different tiers would allow customers to select products that fit within their operational expenditure budget.
Account Service Delivery Manager at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 20
Jul 14, 2025
The area for improvement in Cisco Catalyst Center is the spectrum analyzer, as I find it difficult to identify which type of device is causing a problem. Additionally, the accuracy of reports can be improved; while pulling accurate data for one day is fine, I struggle to get proper data for seven days due to the heavy logs. There might be a need for compressing data since we do not have a syslog server in our environment, relying on the DNAC database, which has made it challenging to get reliable data beyond a short period.
Analyst at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
Real User
Top 10
Feb 28, 2025
Some documentation or use cases are not clear enough. However, when I contact their second-level support or product teams, they respond well. While documentation could be improved, it is not very relevant to me.
Regarding the cons of Catalyst, it is a little more expensive. With other vendors, you have one license for all features. In the case of Catalyst, there are many licensing options.
Most customers have heterogeneous environments. The main drawback of Cisco Catalyst Center is that it can only manage and monitor Cisco devices with a DNA license, specifically the Catalyst 9000 series. Customers often have mixed vendor environments, and platforms like Xtream offer vendor-agnostic solutions. While Cisco's DNA Center does have third-party SDKs that allow monitoring of non-Cisco devices, this approach isn't always practical. Additionally, Kumar mentioned the importance of segmentation, transitioning to SDA, and moving away from traditional VLANs and ACLs towards identity-based segmentation integrated with ISE. Therefore, it's more suitable for customers who primarily use Cisco solutions rather than those with diverse vendor environments.
Cisco Catalyst Center offers a comprehensive platform for network management, providing scalable solutions and advanced analytics for enterprise-level operations. Focusing on efficient network management, Cisco Catalyst Center effectively addresses dynamic enterprise environments, ensuring operational scalability and actionable insights through its robust feature set. It emphasizes seamless management with an intuitive interface tailored for professional use, facilitating enhanced network...
Cisco Catalyst Center would benefit from different licensing tiers instead of an all-or-nothing model. Some tiers could focus on monitoring and tracking licenses with minimal configuration automation. Current pricing is too expensive for features that users may not be sure they will use, pricing the company out of the market. More à la carte options or different tiers would allow customers to select products that fit within their operational expenditure budget.
The area for improvement in Cisco Catalyst Center is the spectrum analyzer, as I find it difficult to identify which type of device is causing a problem. Additionally, the accuracy of reports can be improved; while pulling accurate data for one day is fine, I struggle to get proper data for seven days due to the heavy logs. There might be a need for compressing data since we do not have a syslog server in our environment, relying on the DNAC database, which has made it challenging to get reliable data beyond a short period.
If they can add a layer of portable hotspots with some licensing flexibility for 20 to 50 users, it would be a great feature.
Some documentation or use cases are not clear enough. However, when I contact their second-level support or product teams, they respond well. While documentation could be improved, it is not very relevant to me.
Regarding the cons of Catalyst, it is a little more expensive. With other vendors, you have one license for all features. In the case of Catalyst, there are many licensing options.
Catalyst is a very mature product. The only limitation is when integrating with other products due to Cisco's proprietary protocols.
Most customers have heterogeneous environments. The main drawback of Cisco Catalyst Center is that it can only manage and monitor Cisco devices with a DNA license, specifically the Catalyst 9000 series. Customers often have mixed vendor environments, and platforms like Xtream offer vendor-agnostic solutions. While Cisco's DNA Center does have third-party SDKs that allow monitoring of non-Cisco devices, this approach isn't always practical. Additionally, Kumar mentioned the importance of segmentation, transitioning to SDA, and moving away from traditional VLANs and ACLs towards identity-based segmentation integrated with ISE. Therefore, it's more suitable for customers who primarily use Cisco solutions rather than those with diverse vendor environments.