Cisco DNA Center Reviews

Currently, we are working on building a small data center for a client. The goal is to connect all their branches and host various in-house developed services, such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications. 

We are utilizing Cisco DNA Center with at least 9000 series switches and a couple of SD-WAN solutions. With Cisco DNA Center's single interface, we can efficiently manage and deploy devices across all branches.

There are many valuable features, but one I would highlight is VXLAN. It's a protocol that has been around for some time, but the practical implementation and operational capability of Cisco DNA Center bring it to life. It enables seamless movement of machines from one location or branch to another with the same settings and parameters. So, there's no need for reconfiguration. This is just one example of the many features available in DNA Center.

Another feature I like is Access Control Lists. There are many other things. Same with DNA Center. You have SD-Access. So, SD-Access is also a powerful feature that Cisco claims to be a replacement for the LAN (Local Area Network) from their perspective.

For me, there is room for improvement in costs. Affordability is a problem because it's created for large enterprises only. So, some customers, even if their engineers want the solution, might have problems with budget limitations.

The user interface is quite user-friendly, but what I would like is to have a small information pointer available somewhere. It could be a plus feature that I want to implement. When I hover my mouse over the user interface, it should provide a brief explanation. It would be helpful to have it incorporated into the UI.

So, in summary, when I hover over the small "i," it should display relevant information about the feature or functionality I want to implement.

Currently, from a technological perspective, I don't have any limitations. However, I have my own limitations in terms of affordability and cost.

Initially, when Cisco DNA Center was launched, we had to acquire the physical gear, such as switches that DNA Center runs on, in order to practice with it. 

As engineers, we needed access to the physical devices. Cisco announced the 9000 series, and that's when we got involved. Also, as part of my enterprise infrastructure training, we were given lab access to work with Cisco DNA Center and gain experience on the implementation side. So, in terms of practical experience, I would say it's been around one year.

I would rate stability a ten out of ten. Since we deployed the solution, we haven't encountered any issues related to stability. We haven't experienced any downsides from the solution or any problems with the running switches or installers. Our devices have been running smoothly without any stability concerns.

I would rate them a nine out of ten. My impression of scalability is that the solution can scale to any size, whether it's just a few nodes, containers, or perimeter servers in your data center. The scale doesn't matter.

So it can accommodate any scale you need. The only potential limitation would be the license, but that can be upgraded by contacting Cisco. The license is not a problem, and upgrading it is always an option by reaching out to Cisco.

If we're talking about devices, we have more than 500 devices. And in terms of users, we have over 800. Our clients are mostly medium-sized businesses.

The customer service and support were good.

Cisco aims to ensure that all its solutions can coexist through the use of APIs. So if you want to, you can link them together and have the power and control as an administrator. From a technical perspective, I think they have done a lot.

When it comes to the initial setup, I will rate it a six, where one is difficult and ten is easy. It wasn't as straightforward as just clicking buttons on a graphical interface. Understanding the concepts and design perspective was necessary before implementation.

The reason is that it involved transitioning from the command-line interface (CLI) to using the user interface (UI) and automation tools like Python scripts to configure devices. 

It was a new technology for us, and we were accustomed to configuring devices through the CLI. Other companies, like Palo Alto with their firewalls, offer a graphical UI, but with Cisco, it was a different story. As someone who was more familiar with the CLI, getting used to the UI and other features took time.

It wasn't as simple as clicking here and there on the GUI. You needed to grasp the underlying concepts and design considerations before proceeding. So, onboarding wasn't easy.

The deployment took us approximately three months. The planning phase was crucial, where we had to consider different aspects, such as top-level management buy-in, budgeting, and designing how the existing solutions would fit into the architecture. From a design perspective, it took some time before we could move on to implementation.

I would rate the pricing as ten, where one is low price, and ten is high price.

There are additional fees to the standard license. The licensing depends on the deployment. If you use Cisco DNA Center on the cloud as a SaaS, you may have an annual subscription fee. However, if you deploy it on-premise, you would only have the standard licensing fees.

If a company is considering Cisco DNA Center, it's important to have competent engineers who understand the technology and have experience working with Cisco networking solutions. They should also be familiar with Cisco's vision and direction in piloting technology. However, companies that have engineers specializing in other solutions like Palo Alto Networks, Juniper Networks, or Aruba Networks may have a different approach and may find it challenging to implement Cisco DNA Center without additional study or external consultants, which can lead to extra costs.

Overall, I would rate it a nine out of ten. The reason I gave it a nine is because Cisco revised its certifications after 2018 when networking changed the way companies connect and design their networks. From a design perspective, everything changed with the evolution of SD-WAN (Software-Defined Wide Area Network) and software-defined access. So, bringing in a solution like Cisco DNA Center at the heart of an enterprise, especially at the data center, is significant. Our data center is essentially the same as an optical data center for this solution. So, running Cisco DNA Center at the data center and across the enterprise gives complete control because it works alongside Cisco I. It means the network engineer has the ability to implement and control all devices across the enterprise, whether it's a mobile user, desktop computer, server, router, switch, or any other device in any branch or location. Full control over these devices is possible. Furthermore, Cisco DNA Center, working alongside I, enhances security by providing user access to specific resources and offers a new approach to setting up and securing enterprise networks. It brings improvements in security, scalability, and performance.

It can assess traditional networks.

The automation features are significant and reduce configuration time. This means outstanding functionality. By deploying the controller automatically, the rest becomes automated.

When it comes to deploying wireless fields, integrating defaults into the DNS interface can be challenging.

I have experience with Cisco DNA Center.

In the dashboard, we observe that the integration with IT is functional. However, when inspecting the system, we encounter occasional errors in the desktop.I would rate it 8 out of 10.

I would rate it 8 out of 10.

Deployment is not difficult; it could take approximately a day to complete, assuming we have all the necessary information and the initial email from Cisco.

Maintenance can be challenging because we're unsure about the number of applications utilized in the studio.

I would rate it 7 in terms of pricing.

Overall, I would rate it an eight 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.

The solution is useful when an organization has a mature infrastructure with all Cisco devices.

Application Assurance works very well. The micro-segmentation and Multi-Cisco DNA Center features are also good.

The product has many features that do not work properly. We can’t work on basic DNA activities. The tool has very complex features. It's not stable, and it's not fully estimated.

I have been working with the product for almost one year.

The tool is not stable and reliable.

I don't think there is an issue with scalability. The main issue with the solution is that there is no way to integrate any other vendors with it. It is scalable, but we need Cisco devices.

It's mandatory to have access to technical support because it's a very complicated product. We have SmartNet from Cisco.

The initial setup is very complex. We must have a mature Cisco environment and a well-defined built-in configuration on the devices. Not all the devices would work properly. We must have the latest devices. It's very complex to build it.

It takes at least two months to deploy seven switches on one site. On average, the deployment takes one to two months.

We take help from Cisco partners for deployment. Our team does some of the implementations. It depends on the project and the budget. We need a manager, a technical team leader, and three engineers to deploy it.

We must upgrade all the devices to the optimal stable version to deploy the tool. Then, we must configure the initial IS-IS configuration. We need reachability between the devices for the product to work. Then, we must provision the devices in DNA one by one. Provisioning is the most complex process because the tool will check and verify every single command on the device.

Sometimes, the provisioning fails because of a conflict in configuration. It takes too much time to erase the configuration and redo the provisioning. After provisioning, we must configure the VLANs and the border routing from the overlay to the underlay.

The product is very costly. We must have a DNA license and upgrade it if we use it. Money is a major issue that we have with the solution.

We did not have any user experience issues. I don't highly recommend the tool. Organizations with expert Cisco engineers can use the product. It's not suitable for organizations that don't have any expertise. Overall, I would rate the solution a six out of ten.

We are using Cisco DNA Center for network management and wireless assurance.

Our business functions better by using Cisco DNA Center because we have better visibility of wireless and configuration deployment.

The most valuable features of Cisco DNA Center are wireless assurance and visibility.

The features of Cisco DNA Center and Cisco Prime could have more parity.

In a future release, there should be more deployment features.

I have been using Cisco DNA Center for approximately two years.

The stability of the solution is good.

I rate the stability of Cisco DNA Center an eight out of ten.

The latency limits our scalability. 

We have approximately 10 network engineers using the solution.

We might increase our daily usage of the solution.

I rate the scalability of Cisco DNA Center a seven out of ten.

I have not used the support.

I previously used Cisco Prime and witched because it was enterprise-grade.

The setup is complex and involves clusters. The network address allocation is complicated just between the Cisco DNA Center hardware.#The first part of the implementation is setting up the hardware and then onboarding all of the hardware. It can take a lot of time.

I rate the initial setup of Cisco DNA Center a five out of ten.

We did the deployment of the solution. We used two or three network engineers.

I rate the return on investment of Cisco DNA Center a four out of five.

The price of the solution is expensive. The hardware is licensed on the device, but the hardware on the server is expensive.

I rate the price of Cisco DNA Center a two out of ten.

I did not evaluate other options before using Cisco DNA Center.

We have one network engineer for the maintenance of the solution.

My advice to others is for them to make sure their building diagram are to scale

I rate Cisco DNA Center a seven out of ten.

I used Cisco DNA Center for centralized management for the projects I worked on. My projects had different sites and fabric networks connected. A fabric module was created for every site, and Cisco DNA Center acts as a centralized manager, so you don't need to configure the switches. You need to integrate the device with Cisco DNA Center, and the configuration will be centralized.

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.

An area for improvement in Cisco DNA Center is the latency in data correlation. For example, sometimes, when an issue happens, and I check the logs, I can't find the corresponding log. There's a delay in log replication, so this is what needs improvement in Cisco DNA Center.

Reporting in Cisco DNA Center could also be improved because it only has a few templates, and you can't customize it based on your requirements. There aren't many options available in Cisco DNA Center regarding reporting, versus Cisco Prime, which has excellent features for different levels of detailed reports.

I'd like to see real-time data replication in the next release of Cisco DNA Center, similar to what's done in Meraki. Data in Meraki is real-time with no delay, so data is immediately replicated in the cloud. Currently, there's a lag in Cisco DNA Center, and addressing that lag is the enhancement I'd like to see in Cisco DNA Center.

The solution also needs to be more user-friendly.

I've been using Cisco DNA Center for the last three and a half years.

Cisco DNA Center isn't as stable, particularly with the logs, because it doesn't replicate the exact logs. Configuration-wise, the solution is stable, but it isn't stable for log reproduction.

Scalability-wise, Cisco DNA Center is very good.

We've contacted Cisco DNA Center support a lot of times because sometimes we get errors that we usually can't troubleshoot, so we'd need assistance from Cisco techs. For example, because Cisco DNA Center is a centralized dashboard manager, if we make any mistake that'll impact the whole location, it's better to always refer to technical support as they have the expertise whenever we're doing any scheduled activity or whenever we're facing issues with Cisco DNA Center, rather than doing trial and error.

On a scale of one to five, we'd rate the support a three because of the delayed issue resolution from the Cisco engineers. We have to put a lot of effort into following up with them. The engineers handling Cisco DNA Center support aren't very good, and they take a lot of time getting back to us with solutions to our issues. Issues should be solved within one to two days or a maximum of one week, but that's not happening. In the past, Cisco support used to follow up with us daily, and we could schedule a WebEx with them, and they'll start troubleshooting. Nowadays, that's not the case.

For example, we wanted to integrate the Microsoft Outreach server with Cisco DNA Center to capture logs from Cisco DNA Center to Microsoft Outreach, but it took them three months to make it happen. Every time we followed up, they'll say that the engineer wasn't available for the week, so that issue would be assigned to another engineer, and that engineer would ask for the logs, and we'll tell him that we'd already checked the logs, and he'll say that he wants fresh logs. We'll then troubleshoot, and the engineer will check the logs. After he's back from his vacation, the previous engineer will come back to us; then, we'll continue based on where we left off. Following up with Cisco DNA Center support was very hectic.

Cisco DNA Center is the only product for Software-Defined Access in terms of LAN. You'll find a lot of competitors for SD-WAN, but for SDA technology, Cisco DNA Center is the only one currently, so this is the reason why my company is using the solution.

The initial setup for Cisco DNA Center is a bit complex. Its set of configurations is a bit difficult. First, you need to install certificates for three cluster nodes. One cluster node has to be deployed first, followed by the second cluster node, after the completion of the services. For head node availability, you need to have three cluster nodes. All steps combined make setting up Cisco DNA Center a little complex.

The solution also requires a more complex configuration for the switch router, so you need a different design set to deploy and configure it. Compared to other Cisco solutions, the setup for Cisco DNA Center is complicated.

I didn't deploy Cisco DNA Center, but I've seen people deploying it. With a good, reliable internet connection, deployment takes around three to four hours. Configuring the three cluster nodes takes almost a day.

Cisco DNA Center is a licensed product with multiple levels of licensing available such as basic, advanced, and essential. I don't have the exact figure, but Cisco DNA Center is costly. For example, the box has information about the essential license and costs a considerable amount of money. You need to pay extra to use advanced features in Cisco DNA Center.

My company sees Cisco DNA Center as a solution that's worth the money, which is why it invested in the solution. If you want centralized management for your network, especially when upgrading it, Cisco DNA Center is perfect, but it's more suitable for a large-scale rather than a small-scale network.

I have hands-on experience with Cisco DNA Center.

I've worked on three projects using Cisco DNA Center, either a single standby or three-cluster node. Whenever there's a large-scale network, my company tries to go with Cisco DNA Center. As a whole, my company has between ten to fifteen projects utilizing Cisco DNA Center. Whoever wants a network upgrade would use Cisco DNA Center, but there'd be different setups for every region, such as APAC, EMEA, etc. Currently, my company has nine clusters or nine boxes. A single company can have multiple projects that use Cisco DNA Center. Because it's an evolving networking technology, people get accustomed to it and may want SD access, not just LAN.

My advice to others who may want to implement Cisco DNA Center is that before buying a product, you need to understand what it can do and how to handle it. A typical engineer working on a legacy network won't be able to work on Cisco DNA Center because it has a different protocol, technology, and configuration. It would be best if you learned how to handle Cisco DNA Center before going with it, so I suggest getting trained by Cisco first. Without the training, using Cisco DNA Center isn't going to be easy for you. You won't know how to integrate a switch with Cisco DNA Center unless you get the training. Through the training, you'll also learn the protocols. Before making the purchase, you need someone to explain Cisco DNA Center to you.

I would rate Cisco DNA Center as seven out of ten. It's a new technology with Software-Defined Access capability, which allows centralized LAN management, so I prefer Cisco DNA Center over other solutions. Cisco DNA Center still requires a lot of improvements, though, so I deducted three points out of ten.

I'm a customer of Cisco DNA Center.

It does a lot of things automatically, and that's the big thing with it. They're making the software so that you don't need to be as knowledgeable as me on the switching and routing side to get your work done. If you want, you can have DNA troubleshoot your problem for you and give you solutions or fix it itself, if it was something that's just a configuration issue. That's a plus, but it doesn't help new people learn switching well. If you're depending on all the software to do it, you won't be able to figure it out yourself.

It's a very hard software to learn. It's very deep, and when we first got it, there wasn't a whole lot of documentation on it. There's more now, but you really have to know what you're doing to use it to its full functionality.

It seems to be a little bit more centered toward wireless than wired. You've got more options you can do wirelessly than you can with the wired switches, but it works for what we need it to do. We would like to see a little bit more about the traffic, and we're looking at what's out there to see about that. We are looking at something that might give us a bit more insight into the actual traffic. If they had the full functionality on the wired side, as they do on the wireless side in terms of being able to view traffic and everything, it would be good.

The configuration jobs part could be better. Basically, it's very easy to make mistakes when you're writing the little config file that you need to push in. You've got to do it exactly right. It's not based on CLI commands or whatever. It's got its own little format syntax. It needs to be synced up NTP-wise and time-wise. Otherwise, it doesn't work. I've had other management software where the time could have been off on both of them, and it wouldn't have been a big deal. 

I would like to see them make it like the old CiscoWorks did where when you wanted to run a command, you could just type in the command on your command line on the switch, instead of having to jump through the hoop to get the config pushed out to the new devices. I'd like Cisco to give more control to people who are using it and not keep it for themselves. It's one of those things where you've got to have the right image, and they all have to be on that image, or it doesn't work. NTP has to be synced up. There are a lot of little issues there to get it to work. When we first got it three years ago, there wasn't that much documentation, and we were sometimes just fumbling around in the dark. They've gotten better on the documentation, but they have a tendency to make it a little more complicated because they want you to have them do it, not do it yourself. It looks like that's where they're going with this software over the years. I've been doing this for 22 years, and it looks like they're trying to take the control away from the end-users and take it back for themselves. I've seen the younger generations coming out, and they don't seem to want to learn the switching and routing at the depth they need to in order to become a third-tier engineer. So, personally, I understand why they're doing it, but I'd like to have more control on my end. While I would like to have more control, there are people who work for me who I wouldn't want to have that control.

They don't have a good training plan. We had a guy who walked us through it and other things, but he was searching. We've had it since earlier on, and he was searching for stuff just like I would've been doing. He didn't know that well. So, they need a little bit better training plan or something on the initial buy to get people to realize exactly how everything works, how it's all tied together, and what you can do with it. I've learned a lot of stuff that this guy didn't show us. There are ways to do things, but he never showed those to us. He just showed us how to set it up and not how to monitor a bunch of stuff or push the configs out.

I have been using Cisco DNA for about three years.

It has been pretty stable. We've had a few issues with it, but that's because the software guys didn't keep it updated. We've got them, and they're going to keep it updated now. It is a fairly stable piece of software. It is just very deep, and you've got to know it well to take full advantage of its functionality.

Scalability is based on the number of licenses you buy. That's expensive sometimes. It's just software. So, you just buy more licenses. At some point, if you had a big enough network, you might have an issue, but we haven't had any issues with roughly 350 networking devices and 7,000 end devices. It hasn't reached its own limit yet with us, but I could see where it might, and it's just a matter of buying more licensing to expand it.

I've contacted their support a couple of times. It depends on who you get. You get a good one, and you get one who is not really that good. I've had to ask to speak to somebody else on a few occasions because the person didn't know a whole lot, and you're told to do things that any normal person would do before they call tech support.

I would rate it a seven out of ten because it is functional, and you can do a lot with it, but you really have to know it. So, I'm going to knock them down a few points because they don't have a good training plan.

Our customers use the solution to manage and centrally apply device policies. Many administrators are moving away from manual configuration, and DNA Center helps automate network management. Some use it purely for assurance, such as troubleshooting, monitoring, and generating network performance reports. The 360-degree view feature is widely used for monitoring networks, and many customers also leverage automation and access control features.

The platform's most valuable features are automation and assurance. Automation helps configure devices without manual intervention, enabling zero-touch provisioning. Devices like switches can seamlessly be added to the network, reducing time and effort. It also ensures policy compliance across the network. In addition, the assurance feature provides detailed insights into network health, which is essential for efficient management.

One area that needs improvement is the upgrade process. The time required for downloading and installing packages during upgrades is too long, often taking around ten hours. This is a significant issue for customers who cannot afford such long downtime. Improvements in reducing upgrade time would greatly enhance the user experience.

We have been working with Cisco DNA Center since its release.

I would rate DNA Center's scalability as eight. It can manage large networks efficiently, and its ability to scale with the organization's growing network requirements makes it a robust solution.

I rate the initial setup around seven to eight. While the physical setup, like rack-mounting, is straightforward, the complexity arises in gathering the prerequisites, such as management IP addresses and other configuration details from the customer. With proper planning, the setup can be completed in about 30 minutes. However, the lengthy upgrade process remains a challenge.

It is mostly deployed on-premises. It comes with UCS appliances, and most customers prefer the on-premise deployment for security and performance reasons. Although cloud deployment options may be available, most of our deployments are on-prem.

The deployment time depends on the size of the customer's network. Smaller setups can take a few days if all prerequisites are in place. However, larger networks, especially those requiring fabric-enabled switches or firewall integration, can take longer. The DNA Center's configuration is relatively simple, but preparing the network infrastructure can extend the timeline.

Overall, I rate Cisco DNA Center a nine out of ten. 

I am a partner and I design Center and offer it to many customers. I'm familiar with convincing customers to buy this solution.

The features, like segmentation and network automation control solutions, are quite impressive. You can now segment by user identity. This new approach to segmentation by identity is a standout feature.

Automation is another key highlight. With automation, you can automate everything through a single port. This means you can control, monitor, and configure the solution all from one place, which is incredibly convenient.

Additionally, the solution offers robust capabilities to identify and address weak points in the server, helping you pinpoint potential problems quickly. It also includes data analytics, providing customers with enhanced visibility and enabling them to find solutions to various issues quickly.

An area that needs improvement is the integration with other vendors. I think this is a missing point. If we focus on improving integration, many new features could evolve from this solution. Integration with other network admission control devices and vendors beyond just Cisco would be particularly beneficial.

I have been using the solution for the past five years.

The solution is stable. I rate it an eight out of ten.

Our clients are medium-sized businesses. I'd rate the scalability of the product as nine out of ten.

I rate the initial setup a six out of ten. The time it takes to set up depends on the solution and the size of the customer. But typically, if everything goes smoothly and we're dealing with just one building or three to four floors, it might take a maximum of one week to get everything settled.

I rate the return on investment as seven out of ten, with ten being visible ROI and one being no ROI.

I would rate the pricing a six out of ten, with ten being expensive.

I recommend the solution mainly because of its standout features like automation, which simplifies troubleshooting and configuration from a single pane of glass. The easy integration and advanced segmentation are also key benefits. These features make it an excellent choice for any IT organization.

Cisco DNA Center has been very supportive of our network security and compliance initiatives. I'd rate its support a nine out of ten. Moreover, the solution has significantly contributed to our AI-driven networking projects. I'd rate it a nine out of ten.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight 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.