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Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) vs DX Performance Management comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabri...
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
28th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
DX Performance Management
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
43rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
Infrastructure Capacity Planning (1st), DX NetOps (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) is 0.6%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of DX Performance Management is 0.5%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM)0.6%
DX Performance Management0.5%
Other98.9%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Jagdev Dhaliwal - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Engineer at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Flow monitoring has improved planning for east-west traffic and real-time capacity decisions
Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) helps to understand the flows and data plane capacities, which are the primary use cases. Usually, people struggle with east-west traffic flow when they need to decide on firewalls or products. People typically understand north-south traffic flows but usually miss the east-west traffic flows in data centers. I was focusing more on this so that people can accordingly plan, such as after F5, the number of servers, the number of sessions needed, and whether we need to plan the interface for groups from the line capacity perspective. This kind of information was valuable to us. The real-time telemetry feature was beneficial. When experiencing performance issues, I could determine if there were any issues related to flows or areas where bottlenecks were occurring.
reviewer1810893 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior IT Operations Specialist at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
Flexibility and detailed performance stats enable effective network monitoring
Spectrum is very good at monitoring all network faults and configurations. It enables me to take action based on network issues. The Performance Management provides detailed network performance stats, including CPU, memory, and interface bandwidth. Additionally, Spectrum is flexible and allows me to organize and treat devices uniquely without impacting other devices.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"I like that is easy to work on and straightforward."
"It has a very nice dashboard so you can see what's currently happening in the network and the performance of the back story."
"After installation, you almost forget that it is working."
"Cisco's support I would rate as a 10 compared to all other vendors."
"This solution is the easiest and most straightforward."
"The most valuable feature is the connectivity monitoring."
"The product has excellent stability."
"You can integrate all the networks into the software."
"Considering all these factors, it's really a good and easy product for analyzing your network performance, health status, and the quality of services."
"It gave us one location, one place to do all of group administration, and to build dashboards, and device administration, inventory counts... it really reduced our overall administrative overhead."
"Scalability is the reason we bought the product to begin with; it was designed from the ground up for carrier-grade services, and we are in effect an MSP ourselves, so we were really interested in looking at something to be able to handle the multi-tenancy and scale as large as possible, and this was the only solution that we really considered at that level."
"Since the implementation of the tool, it has cut down on probably 60% of our outages and letting us know what is going on."
"One feature I like about CA Performance Management is the certification of the devices."
"One of the most valuable features is the ease of use."
"The ability to very quickly and graphically navigate around, being able to zoom in to a timeframe, apply it to all the other panels... are all very intuitive."
"You can create intelligent alerts so you have enough time to replace the router or interface before it's full. The same is applicable for CBQoS channels.​"
 

Cons

"The technical support is a gap for us as a company."
"More integration features would be beneficial."
"In the next release, I would like to see it merged with Prime and I think that it should be more unified."
"Could integrate better with VMware products."
"If the customer thinks about using additional solutions, Cisco should make sure they are not left out."
"The reporting is not very intuitive and has room for improvement."
"I would like to see improved integration with other tools."
"The configuration is too complicated and you have to create templates and use a lot of menus."
"This tool gathers so much data, which makes it hard to convert over. To upgrade it, you really need the solution backed up. That is the issue that we are facing right now."
"Install is done as root, which is a security no-no, and the database IO requirements were not stated correctly, which lead to a year of instability."
"The dashboard features are very function rich, but the reporting feature is probably not as rich as we'd like it to be."
"There are some issues. We started supporting UTA and began to see both major and minor problems."
"It would be helpful if CA provided online training for its customers."
"For CA PM, there should be a way of easily migrating the reports coming from eHealth going to CA Performance Center, since CA PC is replacing eHealth."
"The certificates are not complete. CA needs to provide more support for the product through certificates."
"This solution's implementation process could be quicker. They could also optimize the hardware requirements."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is licensed with contracts that work on a yearly basis rather than a monthly model."
"The solution is very expensive."
"On average, Data Center Network Manager's pricing isn't too costly unless you choose a premier license."
"The price of Cisco Data Center Network Manager is expensive compared to other vendors on the market."
"When we purchase a Nexus box, the MDS CM license comes with it."
"I would say that the pricing offers great value for the money."
"We usually opt for a yearly plan, commonly for three or five years upfront. Some customers may not utilize all the features included in the product, and this can lead to them paying for functionalities they don't need."
"The tool is always expensive, but their service, product quality, and support are good. We're happy with it, but it's still an expensive solution. There are cheaper alternatives but no similar platform across all domains."
"We purchase a license to use the solution every three years and we have multiple contracts. They have been increasing the price annually. We have a baseline for three years and then we need to pay the difference from the baseline, and we are in the process of negotiating a new price for all the licenses we need. The price overall is affordable."
"The tool's pricing is based on the number of network devices."
"They should provide more scalable licensing for the product."
"Do your homework and know how many devices you will be managing out of the gate. Be sure to project what your growth will be each year."
"We were looking at other vendors in the marketplace for NetFlow, and CA just beat everybody else in price, cost, and the size to implement. ​"
"I like the licensing model because it's device-based."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Government
10%
Construction Company
9%
Healthcare Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Construction Company
11%
Healthcare Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise16
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Large Enterprise25
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco Data Center Network Manager?
It uses push technology, which pushes the changes to all relevant devices to ensure they are updated accordingly.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Data Center Network Manager?
The tool is always expensive, but their service, product quality, and support are good. We're happy with it, but it's still an expensive solution. There are cheaper alternatives but no similar plat...
What needs improvement with Cisco Data Center Network Manager?
I do not believe it integrated well with different infrastructures for hybrid environments. I am uncertain because we have never attempted that in our environment, so they could perform better in t...
What needs improvement with DX Performance Management?
Spectrum's topology view sometimes does not rebuild automatically when a device is shut down and reconnected. It requires manual discovery and rebuilding of the topology, which I hope can be improved.
What is your primary use case for DX Performance Management?
I have used Spectrum for monitoring all network faults, configurations, and troubleshooting network issues. It provides network performance stats, such as CPU, memory, and interface bandwidth detai...
What advice do you have for others considering DX Performance Management?
I would recommend this solution based on its functionality, flexibility, customizability, and ease of use. Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten. I am just a customer and not a par...
 

Also Known As

Cisco Data Center Network Manager
CA Performance Management
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Banco de Guayaquil, Cox Communications, Kuwait Petroleum Italia, Roper St. Francis, University of British Columbia
Jack Henry & Assoc, Target, CenturyLink, Bell Canada, BrightHouse Networks, Telus, Unisys, Verizon, Southern California Edison, GEICO, Fidelity Investments, Wells Fargo, American Family Insurance Group, Deutsche Telekom AG 
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) vs. DX Performance Management and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
885,376 professionals have used our research since 2012.