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Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) vs IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) 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
17th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM SevOne Network Performa...
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
45th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
54
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (19th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (43rd), Log Management (42nd), Cloud Monitoring Software (30th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, 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 IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) is 1.0%, down from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM)0.6%
IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)1.0%
Other98.4%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Upul Abhayasena - PeerSpot reviewer
Robust management tool with an easy setup and room for more features
DCNM is used by one of the airline customers in Qatar to manage many data centers and rack switches running on normal Nexus or NX-OS mode. They required a controller platform to manage these Nexus switches, and thus, they utilized DCNM as a Fabric controller. Given that ACI deployment is very low…
Grzegorz Nowak - PeerSpot reviewer
Improves infrastructure planning by helping us analyze network traffic
We use SevOne to collect and report on network flows SevOne improves infrastructure planning by helping us analyze network traffic. We can look at bandwidth for specific endpoints on the customer's network and analyze traffic to identify issues. For example, maybe some connectors are unavailable.…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product makes the management of our environment simpler."
"I like running the scripts. With the help of a Python script, we deployed within the configuration and built up the code."
"Automation of the ILS."
"The feature I find most valuable, is the stability of the solution."
"The automation capability is more than enough. It depends on how we consider and integrate the automation engine. We need to ensure the automation engine and then how to perform it. It depends on the policy making, API integration, and other integrations."
"It uses push technology, which pushes the changes to all relevant devices to ensure they are updated accordingly."
"After installation, you almost forget that it is working."
"The most valuable features of Cisco Data Center Network Manager are consistency and the core server. The teams have had a good experience."
"The comprehensiveness of this solution's collection of network performance and flow data is one of the basics in the field for what it does. It meets all of our needs. So for all those areas, for the most straightforward collection capabilities, right up to NetFlow and even telemetry, it meets all those demands. Not only just basic or fundamental SNMP collection capability, but the product also supports what we need for the future with telemetry streaming. So it's very comprehensive."
"The modules and the performance management reports that come with data insights are two of the most valuable features. I also find the reports for Wi-Fi, Netflow, LAN, and WAN for monitoring to be very good."
"One of the solution's biggest strengths is its capacity management performance, with out-of-the-box reports through NMS, as well as its ability to collect NetFlow-related data from devices. The collection of network performance and flow data is important because we have many critical business applications."
"The monitoring of the network is very customizable. That is its unique feature."
"We find that the reporting is particularly valuable in terms of not only communicating with our peer teams but also with the executives."
"The out of the box reports and workflows are pretty good and they meet our requirements well."
"We've had great feedback from our customers about SevOne support. They're willing to set up a remote session upon request. You have to go through three tiers of support with most vendors, and they ask a lot of screening questions before they will do a remote session. You need to spend a lot of time before an engineer will host a remote session to look at your problematic system."
"Another useful feature is that SevOne gives you real-time insights into your network performance. It polls every five minutes. That is important for our customers because there are some network teams that are always monitoring their networks."
 

Cons

"Automation for the RMA process can be added."
"It is not very easy to monitor or to browse."
"It's a relatively expensive product for some clients."
"It's very costly."
"The automation feature could be improved."
"Sometimes the product gives us problems that require support."
"It would be nice to have the ability to more easily collect information from other software when doing some types of analysis."
"We need better performance and reliability."
"With the administrative management of the appliance, if some object appears from SevOne because something changed in the network or whatever, then as an administrator you will not be aware. If you are using this object in a report, this object will disappear from the report and you will not be aware of it. So, if you have 1,000 reports, you cannot always check these reports everyday to see if objects are missing or information has disappeared. We don't have any information on alerts, saying that something is happening there and maybe we need to take action. If an object was replaced by another one, or if a link was replaced by another one, then the graph needs to be changed because it doesn't exist in the graph anymore. However, we don't have this information."
"High-frequency polling is data-intensive because you're pulling more. If SevOne could figure out a way to manage the impact of high-frequency polling on the system, that would be very popular."
"Some similar solutions offer end-to-end visibility."
"The tool needs improvement in non-Cisco SD-WAN."
"User-friendly, multi-tenancy."
"The reporting of NMS is good, but it could be better."
"One area that requires a little bit of improvement is the topology of visualization and being able to map out connections, end-to-end. It's able to do that, but it's not as impressive as we would like it to be. We would like to understand the different interface types and the connection points better, through the visualization. Heatmaps also need further development."
"I'm not really sure if this was the software's fault or a server issue, but a couple of years back the disks were failing on our SevOne physical server every month and the server would go down. The secondary server took over from the primary until the disk issue was resolved. That was annoying."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"On average, Data Center Network Manager's pricing isn't too costly unless you choose a premier license."
"When we purchase a Nexus box, the MDS CM license comes with it."
"The price of Cisco Data Center Network Manager is expensive compared to other vendors on the market."
"I would say that the pricing offers great value for the money."
"The solution is very expensive."
"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."
"The product is licensed with contracts that work on a yearly basis rather than a monthly model."
"Many tools price things based on the number of KPIs that you're collecting around a device. In many cases, there could be hundreds of metrics that you need to collect. SevOne provides device-level pricing. That gives us the flexibility to turn on, and expand on, the metrics that we're collecting around those devices, without taking a financial hit."
"There are different options available for licensing, with the per-device option being more expensive but more flexible."
"Have a bank of licenses, because it is about the number of objects (RAM, ports, CPU, etc.)."
"Although I don't have exact details in terms of cost, my experience has been that SevOne is willing to make a deal with the customer."
"Choose a SevOne partner who can provide SevOne as a service and can deliver professional services and maintenance."
"The tool is not expensive. We were able to negotiate with SevOne on pricing."
"Prices per license are not huge, but they exist."
"The pricing has been fair."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
Legal Firm
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise15
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise45
 

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?
In a mixed architecture where Nexus switches are used as border devices and are connected to a Palo Alto firewall (e.g., version 9.1 or 10.1), you might encounter issues with BGP peering. For insta...
What needs improvement with SevOne Network Data Platform?
There is room for improvement in the integration with different vendors and the reporting capabilities. It would be beneficial to have out-of-the-box integration with third-party vendors and improv...
What is your primary use case for SevOne Network Data Platform?
The primary use case of IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) ( /products/ibm-sevone-network-performance-management-npm-reviews ) is network monitoring. It helps to maintain the infrastru...
What advice do you have for others considering SevOne Network Data Platform?
To compete with custom-built tools, IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) should accommodate the desired features and be timely in the delivery of feature updates. I would rate the overal...
 

Also Known As

Cisco Data Center Network Manager
SevOne
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Banco de Guayaquil, Cox Communications, Kuwait Petroleum Italia, Roper St. Francis, University of British Columbia
ATOS, Devereux, Spark New Zealand, Access4, Rogers Communication, Lumen (formerly known as CenturyLink)
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) vs. IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
869,771 professionals have used our research since 2012.