Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) vs Pico Corvil Analytics 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
18th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Pico Corvil Analytics
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
73rd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) is 0.6%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Pico Corvil Analytics is 0.5%, up from 0.4% 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%
Pico Corvil Analytics0.5%
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…
Ted Hruzd - PeerSpot reviewer
Helpful support agents, beneficial issue detection, and high availability
The creation of charts and real-time windows was somewhat cumbersome. The vendor's website had an application called App Agent that required improvement. This API was designed to track message rates between microservers ingested into a microservice memory map. It allowed users to monitor the number of transactions that occurred at specific points within the application, and it was quite impressive. However, it had some limitations, and it mainly served as a tool for basic tracking. The protocols it employed could reveal the type of server-to-server communication and the specific order types, but it was not able to provide a more in-depth analysis of the application. The vendor has the potential to integrate application metrics more extensively into their product suite. The product suite could benefit from more out-of-the-box predictive analytics capabilities, such as projecting market or symbol movements. However, it is unclear whether the vendor currently provides this functionality. Users may need to adjust their software to perform such analysis independently.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The feature I find most valuable, is the stability of the solution."
"We use the product to manage access points."
"Fabric suite automation is a great feature."
"The interface of this solution is easy to use overall."
"Data Center Network Manager is absolutely stable."
"The monitoring capability is the best in Cisco Data Center Network Manager. It helps me improve network management tasks and optimize processes."
"I don't have to rely on the on-site engineer who can do the configuration. I can have our team just plug the devices and perform remotely. I can also do the templates."
"After installation, you almost forget that it is working."
"With the Corvil Stored Data Analyzer module, we can use it for test data or a set of production data to set up the configuration for latency setup, so we can use the fields to correlate messages."
"The performance metrics are pretty good. We've got everything from the network layer to the actual application layer. We can see what's going on with things like sending time and batching."
"We like the dashboards because they essentially organize all the sessions into one viewpoint."
"We're able to quickly drill down and find answers to events that are happening in real-time, using Corvil's analytics tools. That's the feature which is most in the spotlight..."
"It has all the decoders so it's capturing every network packet and it's decoding in real-time and it's giving us latency information in real-time... It's the real-time decoding and getting the latency information statistics that we find the most useful."
"It allows us to trace the flow. The logic is built sufficiently for us to be able to break down clients' orders, underlying child orders, and execution. Thus, it's a good way for us to trace client flow through a myriad of different internal systems."
"What is most valuable is the ability to troubleshoot when a client complains of spikes in latencies. It gives us the ability to go granular, all the way down to looking at the network packets and analyze them."
"We can use CLI with the UI for configuring the new monitoring system, which is good."
 

Cons

"More integration features would be beneficial."
"Sometimes the product gives us problems that require support."
"The configuration is too complicated and you have to create templates and use a lot of menus."
"It's very costly."
"The tool's pricing strategy could be improved to compete more effectively in the market, especially against competitors like Huawei, Aruba, and Juniper."
"The delivery Cisco Data Center Network Manager could improve if it was easier. Additionally, some feature improvement is needed."
"The automation feature could be improved."
"The tool should be more user-friendly and improve AI integration."
"There is definitely room for improvement in the reporting. We've tried to use the reporting in Corvil but, to me, it feels like a bolt-on, like not a lot of thought has gone into it. The whole interface where you build reports and schedule them is very clunky."
"It's quite difficult to see, sometimes, how hard your Corvil is working. When we had a very busy feed that chucked out a lot of data it wasn't working very well on Corvil. We had to raise a case for it. It turned out to be that, in fact, we were overloading Corvil."
"For FIX protocol, maybe we could have built-in configurations for signatures and decoders. Also, for certain protocols, which are newer, we would like to just add the signatures within the decoders itself."
"Alerting isn't great... you can only put in one email address in. And that's for all kinds of alerting on the box."
"The analytics feature is very nice, but it's mostly software. We are hoping that it could be embedded in ASICs, so it could be faster."
"In terms of performance analysis, if you really want to dig down into the minutiae and get statistics on the important things... that would be the only piece lacking because, in our environment, we have thousands and thousands of symbols. With the architecture that Corvil is built on, it's cumbersome."
"Before I got the Corvil training... one thing that was not very efficient was that every time you had to create a new stream or a new session from within Corvil... you had to tell it what protocol the message is going to come through and how to correlate messages, etc... After I went for the training, they had already added these nice features in the 9.4 version where it could do auto-discovery... Based on the traffic that it has already seen, it could create sessions on the fly."
"Overall, the Corvil device needs a little bit of training for people to handle it. If that could be reduced and made more user-friendly, more intuitive, it would be better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of Cisco Data Center Network Manager is expensive compared to other vendors on the market."
"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 solution is very expensive."
"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."
"The pricing is very expensive. Corvil could work on the pricing."
"Pico Corvil Analytics is expensive. There are several competitors in the market. Selling this solution to a trading firm might be challenging as there are several other solutions available that can perform basic similar operations, such as using Wireshark and Python scripts to obtain the required values. However, that does not nearly approach the comprehensive end-2-end automated depth of metrics and their correlations that Pico Corvil Analytics provides."
"As I am working more with Corvil, it looks like it is improving diagnostic times."
"I like the way they've decoupled the hardware now... Everything's based on the licensing side now. The way they do the packs is fair. It's very flexible in that we're not charged per decoder, we're charged for a certain pack. Whether we use one decoder or 20 decoders, as long as they're in the same pack, there's no extra charge. Expensive but fair is how I'd summarize it."
"We bought a box from Corvil and it was $200,000 for one big CNE. Then there are obviously the recurring maintenance fees. The licensing is perpetual but the maintenance fees are not."
"It is pricey versus its competitors."
"Corvil has reduced the time it takes us to isolate root causes."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Network Monitoring Software solutions are best for your needs.
866,561 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Government
12%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Financial Services Firm
53%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Real Estate/Law Firm
4%
 

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 Business2
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise6
 

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...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

Cisco Data Center Network Manager
Corvil
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Banco de Guayaquil, Cox Communications, Kuwait Petroleum Italia, Roper St. Francis, University of British Columbia
NASDAQ, Commerzbank, Pico Quantitative Trading, CME Group, Interactive Data, Tokyo Stock Exchange Inc.
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) vs. Pico Corvil Analytics and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
866,561 professionals have used our research since 2012.