Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) vs ITRS Geneos comparison

Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) vs. ITRS Geneos

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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

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

ITRS Geneos

Ranking in Network Monitoring Software

64th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (34th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (45th)

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 ITRS Geneos is 0.6%, down from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM)	0.6%
ITRS Geneos	0.6%
Other	98.8%

Network Monitoring Software

Featured Reviews

Jagdev Dhaliwal

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.

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DeepakR

Site Reliability Engineer(Observability) at Sapiens

If one server fails, the agent will automatically be reinstalled

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 if there's a 90% error. You need to check which process is consuming more CPU and determine the root cause for yourself. You need to troubleshoot it manually. This legacy system could introduce predictive analysis and root cause identification. They are reluctant to switch to newer solutions, which may require writing queries to fetch data. Manually logging into servers, checking CPU usage, identifying processes, and determining root causes is time-consuming. Once the root cause is identified, the issue can be resolved efficiently. The manual troubleshooting process is time-consuming. The content is not openly available in the market. If you search for it somewhere, it is not readily accessible. If you want to try it out, no trial version is available. Therefore, it will be challenging to learn. Loading ITRS is difficult, as you need to purchase it first. Secondly, only a few people are knowledgeable about ITRS in the market, making it challenging to find resources. Thirdly, the documentation must be well-documented, making finding content or training material hard. The UI also needs to be updated, which adds to the difficulty.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"After installation, you almost forget that it is working."

"The tool's most valuable feature is the consolidated dashboard, providing insights into parameters and overall usage of network features. It allows us to easily summarize insights through the dashboards. The solution offers automation capabilities, particularly in the context of connecting LAN sites with websites."

"The most valuable features of Cisco Data Center Network Manager are consistency and the core server. The teams have had a good experience."

"Stability is not an issue."

"I like that is easy to work on and straightforward."

"Fabric suite automation is a great feature."

"More than good enough as we have new clients everyday connected using this product"

"We have had a good ROI from Data Center Network Manager, and there is also a facility on Cisco's website to calculate the ROI from adopting this solution."

More Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) pros

"The monitoring of queues which helps us to stay ahead of issues and fix them before users start complaining."

"We use Geneos to monitor our own development and production environments, and due to its automation capabilities we are able to automatically restart failed processes and alert our developers to issues in our applications and infrastructure without traditional eyes on glass monitoring."

"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."

"The solution's log monitoring and alerting mechanisms are very user-friendly and easy to plug and play."

"This solution has helped provide relief to existing Level 2 teams, allowing them to focus efforts on in-depth problem analysis."

"Tons of default modules which are available out of the box"

"The filtering in the Active Console is exceptional. Depending on the user base, some people don't want to see server-level errors, so we have filters set up in the Managed Entities view, which allow us to filter out things that certain groups don't want to see, while allowing them to see other things. It's a great real-time monitoring solution. And you can draw graphs immediately, right from the Active Console, whether they're current graphs or historical graphs."

"The biggest benefit of Geneos is the fact that we can clearly see, if we have an alert, where that alert has come from. We can see the data around that alert and anything that might be relevant is also shown. We can very easily right-click and see why we've received that alert. That's the best part about it, that you've got all the data there with the alerting."

More ITRS Geneos pros

Cons

"The automation feature could be improved."

"In the next release, I would like to see it merged with Prime and I think that it should be more unified."

"I do not believe it integrated well with different infrastructures for hybrid environments."

"The configuration is too complicated and you have to create templates and use a lot of menus."

"It's a relatively expensive product for some clients."

"We need better performance and reliability."

"The tool should be more user-friendly and improve AI integration."

"In the next release, I would like to see it merged with Prime and I think that it should be more unified."

More Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) cons

"I believe the product has to improve on reporting."

"The Geneos configuration has greatly improved since the nascent version 1.0 days, but still requires specialist knowledge and convoluted config debugging when something’s not monitoring as expected."

"I would really like to see something from the Geneos side to set up automated reporting from ITRS."

"Still, it’s not that easy to create stuff to help with visibility and dashboarding in Geneos."

"t needs to have better middleware integration for things such as application and Microsft SQL servers."

"We all look at the same things - CPU, disk space, paging stats, service status with RAG status on each. That could be provided straight out, saving significant time."

"It needs to be easier to configure, especially with the JMX plugins."

"Much of the reporting outside of the user interface is very basic and requires much customization to be useful."

More ITRS Geneos cons

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 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."

"I would say that the pricing offers great value for the money."

"The price of Cisco Data Center Network Manager is expensive compared to other vendors on the market."

"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 solution is very expensive."

"You will get the best price if you get a single global deal."

"Pricing is the touchy subject, even here. Upper management always wants us to find a cheaper solution. But we have so much integrated with ITRS... It's expensive, but it does its job very well. And you set it and go."

"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."

"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."

"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 licensing cost may seem expensive upfront. However, the service is outstanding, the tool does things that no other tools can do, and the customizability more than makes up for the cost of licensing."

"ITRS Geneos is not a cheap tool. It's a moderate price for the banking industry. The reason we are not able to add the ITRS monitoring tool for the non-banking industries, and non-finance industries, is that the pricing is too high."

More ITRS Geneos pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Government

10%

Construction Company

Healthcare Company

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

67%

Computer Software Company

Construction Company

Outsourcing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	10
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	16

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	6
Midsize Enterprise	12
Large Enterprise	39

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 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?

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...

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Product Reports

Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM)

Download Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) product report

Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) report

ITRS Geneos

Download ITRS Geneos product report

Also Known As

Cisco Data Center Network Manager

Geneos

Overview

The Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (NDFC) offers a comprehensive solution for managing Cisco NX-OS switches in hybrid-cloud environments, providing automation, visibility, and consistent operations. Designed to simplify and enhance data center management, NDFC integrates with Cisco Nexus Dashboard to streamline network connectivity, reduce deployment times, and ensure seamless transitions with minimal disruptions. Its modular architecture, new user interface, and support for non-Nexus OS platforms make it a robust tool for LAN, SAN, and IP Fabric for Media management. Additionally, NDFC enhances fabric reliability, automates workflows, and supports cloud connectivity with AWS and Microsoft Azure, making it ideal for businesses adapting to increasingly complex digital environments.

Cisco

ITRS Geneos is a real-time monitoring tool designed for managing increasingly complex, hybrid and interconnected IT estates.

Built with financial services and trading organisations in mind, it collects a wide range of data relating to server performance, infrastructure, trading, connectivity and applications, and analyses it to provide relevant information and alerts in real time.

Geneos can give full stack visibility across highly dynamic environments and presents all the information through a single pane of glass and its configurable and customisable dashboards provide end-to-end visibility to both technical and business users.

For more information, please visit https://www.itrsgroup.com/products/geneos

ITRS

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.

Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) vs. ITRS Geneos