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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
16th
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
46th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
54
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (20th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (45th), Log Management (47th), Cloud Monitoring Software (30th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) is 0.5%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) is 1.0%, down from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
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

"Data Center Network Manager is absolutely stable."
"Monitoring system provides a clear indication of what's going on in the network."
"Stability is not an issue."
"Automation of the ILS."
"VCNM provides a unique capability of managing the admin VDCs of Nexus boxes."
"The monitoring capability is the best in Cisco Data Center Network Manager. It helps me improve network management tasks and optimize processes."
"It uses push technology, which pushes the changes to all relevant devices to ensure they are updated accordingly."
"The most valuable features of Cisco Data Center Network Manager are consistency and the core server. The teams have had a good experience."
"It's given us the ability to create various real-time network performance reports and distribute them to any colleague who can access these reports immediately."
"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."
"Its ability to monitor practically any type of network device via SNMP is most valuable. This is the main functionality that we're using. If a network device exposes a metric, such as interface utilization, SevOne will monitor it for us."
"I like SevOne's network flow reporting."
"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."
"In 90% of the cases, new devices are plug-and-play, so when a new version comes out then SevOne has support for it out of the box."
"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 most valuable features is the graphs, which you can build instantly. I have used some open-source platforms in the past, but they are not as good. With SevOne, the sampling in the graph can be every few seconds, not just every few minutes, and that's really helpful. It's really fast."
 

Cons

"Automation for the RMA process can be added."
"The visibility of applications is not great."
"API lacks robustness."
"The delivery Cisco Data Center Network Manager could improve if it was easier. Additionally, some feature improvement is needed."
"Could integrate better with VMware products."
"More integration features would be beneficial."
"It's very costly."
"We need better performance and reliability."
"Some similar solutions offer end-to-end visibility."
"The GUI: both the dashboard/user view and the admin tool."
"We previously have had discussions on some reporting enhancements. So, we raised a feature request, which was delivered from SevOne."
"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."
"When I started using it, I tried adding one of the BroadWorks application servers into SevOne... it created thousands and thousands of objects from that one application server and we immediately ran out of license... It would help, when new objects are discovered, if there were a way to categorize those objects and to pick the part of the object you need..."
"Would benefit with the addition of AI modules for proactive data insights."
"The method of searching for SIP and the way to create the groups."
"SevOne should work with the graphs legend functionality."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I would say that the pricing offers great value for the money."
"The product is licensed with contracts that work on a yearly basis rather than a monthly model."
"The price of Cisco Data Center Network Manager is expensive compared to other vendors on the market."
"The solution is very expensive."
"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."
"When we purchase a Nexus box, the MDS CM license comes with it."
"On average, Data Center Network Manager's pricing isn't too costly unless you choose a premier license."
"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."
"There are cheaper solutions available."
"It is inexpensive compared to other monitoring tools."
"The pricing has been fair."
"The pricing has not evolved with the market, which is one of the reasons we are moving to a new product."
"Have a bank of licenses, because it is about the number of objects (RAM, ports, CPU, etc.)."
"There are different options available for licensing, with the per-device option being more expensive but more flexible."
"The tool is not expensive. We were able to negotiate with SevOne on pricing."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Government
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Real Estate/Law Firm
7%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Computer Software Company
12%
Legal Firm
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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: July 2025.
862,077 professionals have used our research since 2012.