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Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) vs ITRS Geneos 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
ITRS Geneos
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
67th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
57
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (34th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (46th)
 

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 ITRS Geneos is 0.5%, down from 0.7% 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%
ITRS Geneos0.5%
Other98.9%
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…
Sanket - PeerSpot reviewer
With the help of the solution, we can predict and prevent failures
Currently, the most valuable thing for an individual is a mobile device. Since that is where people are currently tracking everything, we have multiple applications or apps that are for various products. I would like ITRS Geneos to develop an app, where instead of going to specific login terminals or logging into laptops or desktops to check alerts, we can have visibility in the app itself. Using the ITRS Geneos app, we could see the error message during our travels or wherever we are. I would like to see the capacity of messages for forecasting increased. Since the NSE is the number one derivative stock exchange in the work for three consecutive years, the number of messages is important. We use the capacity planner in ITRS to forecast our data needs for the next two months. The planner is important because the volume of data we produce is becoming more and more volatile compared to when we first started using ITRS Geneos in 2014.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"VCNM provides a unique capability of managing the admin VDCs of Nexus boxes."
"The product makes the management of our environment simpler."
"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."
"The feature I find most valuable, is the stability of the solution."
"Stability is not an issue."
"The interface of this solution is easy to use overall."
"The most valuable features of Cisco Data Center Network Manager are consistency and the core server. The teams have had a good experience."
"The most valuable feature is the connectivity monitoring."
"I would say that it is an easy-to-use monitoring tool. Amongst the available monitoring tools, it is a really good option."
"It enables us to monitor application processes, to do log-monitoring on a 24/7 basis, to do server-level monitoring - all the hardware parameters - as well as monitor connectivity across applications to the interfaces."
"The ability to logically normalize data gathered from multiple types of sources via pre-built plugins is extremely powerful. This functionality, coupled with the ability to import custom data via the Toolkit plugin allows Geneos to be leveraged to monitor every system in the enterprise."
"The remarkable feature of Geneos is the dashboard. Geneos' flexible dashboard sets it apart from other monitoring tools. Other solutions have limitations in their dashboard design and can't be customized as much. The Geneos dashboard allows unlimited creativity."
"One thing we're utilizing in Geneos is the Gateway-SQL. That's really helpful for us. Using Gateway-SQL, we are able to merge two different views into one. Suppose we have to check something in the log and that we have to check something in the database and do a comparison before publishing a result. We can achieve that using Gateway-SQL."
"It's a very powerful application monitoring tool across the industry. Many free, open-source tools are available. There are also paid tools, but ITRS Geneos is a real-time application monitoring tool where the user can monitor, self-configure, and manage alerts through their console."
"Geneos automatically sends email notifications when any batch job fails, the database is down or the website is down. It is automatically monitoring everything and reduces manual effort."
"Ability to monitor logs for potential issues to prevent app outages before problems get a chance to arise. That's invaluable for our teams in a fast-paced trading environment."
 

Cons

"The automation feature could be improved."
"The tool's pricing strategy could be improved to compete more effectively in the market, especially against competitors like Huawei, Aruba, and Juniper."
"The initial setup is challenging."
"Automation for the RMA process can be added."
"Data Center Network Manager is a little complex because it includes a lot of hardware to be installed."
"The reporting is not very intuitive and has room for improvement."
"The delivery Cisco Data Center Network Manager could improve if it was easier. Additionally, some feature improvement is needed."
"Sometimes the product gives us problems that require support."
"I would like better access to the data that is being collected."
"I would like to see ITRS integrate its setup editor with a SVN to check-in setup XML after major changes."
"​It needs to be easier to configure, especially with the JMX plugins.​"
"There is a part of the rules for monitoring alerts. I want to understand more about how to choose the samples and the requirements for the rules. That is the part that I want to understand better and get better training for."
"Much of the reporting outside of the user interface is very basic and requires much customization to be useful."
"I would really like to see something from the Geneos side to set up automated reporting from ITRS. We have to send reporting to management every day. To do that we have to check the dashboard and then we have to report whether everything is fine or not. In the future, I want something, some reporting kind of feature in ITRS, where it can collect all the data and mention what is green, what is amber, what is red in a report."
"ITRS have started to make some major changes that we haven't taken on board yet, in the creation of dashboards and more visibility of the metrics that we collect. At the moment, that's something that's lacking, but I know they have addressed it. Still, it’s not that easy to create stuff to help with visibility and dashboarding in Geneos."
"The ITA, the post-incident analytics, could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"When we purchase a Nexus box, the MDS CM license comes with it."
"The solution is very expensive."
"The price of Cisco Data Center Network Manager is expensive compared to other vendors on the market."
"On average, Data Center Network Manager's pricing isn't too costly unless you choose a premier license."
"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."
"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."
"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 pricing is fairly market-related. They have been very lenient because we have been working with them for so long. An example is that we're currently migrating some of our services to AWS, and they've given us a grace period for some of the things to help with the migration and not to grow additional costs while we are migrating, but it's still on par with the market."
"Pricing and licensing is based on the requirements."
"The product is priced quite high. There are pricing options for customers based on the size of the environment and plug-ins used by the monitoring system."
"Based on feedback from colleagues and friends working in the financial sector, Geneos is relatively costly. Many companies have been switching from Geneos to Dynatrace, Sysdig, or other monitoring tools in the past two years because of the price."
"The organization is not just purchasing a license for the product, but also managing services and professional services from ITRS. Another factor is if the implementation is going to be in production, non-production, or both."
"Given our spend and the amount of service we have in it, the pricing is quite reasonable."
"The market tools are on par with this solution, but if the solution included more features, then it would be well within the range for the cost."
"Its price is reasonable. It isn't too expensive, and it isn't too cheap, but it also depends on a company's volume and negotiation."
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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
72%
Computer Software Company
6%
University
5%
Construction Company
2%
 

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 Business6
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise39
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ITRS Geneos?
The pricing is high. Licensing fees might be around 500$ per server monthly.
What needs improvement with ITRS Geneos?
ITRS Geneos is a legacy system. It predicts or provides proactive measures once an issue is resolved. It doesn't offer any predictive capabilities or root cause analysis. They throw a lot of data i...
What is your primary use case for ITRS Geneos?
ITRS offers multiple products, including upgrades for synthetic monitoring and a SaaS platform. Geneos is used for infrastructure monitoring, covering KPIs such as CPU, memory, processes, network l...
 

Also Known As

Cisco Data Center Network Manager
Geneos
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Banco de Guayaquil, Cox Communications, Kuwait Petroleum Italia, Roper St. Francis, University of British Columbia
ITRS Geneos is used by over 170 financial institutions, including JPMorgan, HSBC, RBS, Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs. Clients range from investment banks to exchanges and brokers.
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) vs. ITRS Geneos and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
869,771 professionals have used our research since 2012.