Cisco Catalyst Center

At our Engineering team, we adopted Cisco Catalyst Center as the central platform to help us in the task of network management. This solution has helped us in automating operational processes, ensuring end-to-end security, and enhancing user experience across our corporate environments. Before implementing Cisco Catalyst Center, we faced challenges such as manual device configuration, limited visibility into network health, and very long resolution times for incidents which extra hours of work was wasted. With Cisco Catalyst Center, we’ve been able to reduce troubleshooting time and monitor network and application performance in almost real time.

• Configuration changes that took days can now be implemented in minutes or hours, which saves money
• Improved troubleshooting and root cause analysis fast with online solutions
• Access policies and segmentation makes network more secure

Cisco Meraki Dashboard, Cisco ThousandEyes, Microsoft Teams

We use this product to monitor our network for errors and to create network maps for our wireless access points. We also use it for software distribution. It creates backups of our network devices and ensures that we have a handle on EOX software and hardware. We have been using it for about 3 years.

• Slower to get things done than its predecessor , Prime.
• Requires far more hardware than its predecessor, Prime.
• Has more features but they are needlessly complex to use.
• I feel the UI is a total mess.

Progress WhatsUp Gold, Cisco Prime LAN Management (discontinued)

We use Catalyst Center/DNA to manage all of our Cisco network infrastructure throughout our data center and campus. A single unified interface makes it easy to manage wired and wireless infrastructure and see all devices together. We use it to monitor end-user performance and troubleshoot issues.

• Time savings.
• Improved security with automation for upgrades.
• Faster device deployment.

Cisco UCS Manager, Webex Meetings and Cisco Secure Access

Cisco Umbrella, Cisco Secure Access, Cisco UCS Manager

Initially we used ciscoworks which was replaced by Prime and now Cisco Catalyst Center. Our use case is to monitor, configure, backup and manage our switches and routers. In particular we enjoy seeing the CPU health, run CVE reports, port reclaim reports, and the capability to mass deploy software upgrades.

• Great for generating reports for our catalyst switches
• One extra device to maintain and upkeep
• Wish it could monitor more than just cisco catalyst switches

Cloudflare, ExtraHop Performance Platform and VMware SD-WAN

Cisco Firepower 1000 Series, Gigamon GigaVUE Cloud Suite™, Forescout Platform

We have a smaller network team that is using Cisco DNA Center to help automate infrastructure deployment and maintenance. Cisco DNA Center assists in automating tasks such as updating firmware on Cisco switches and routers, along with allowing on-the-fly switch replacement that's flexible enough to allow our desktop team to replace a switch if necessary.

• Frees up time for your network team.
• Allows certain functions to be automated.
• Allows deep visibility into your network.

SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM), Cisco Prime LAN Management Solution, Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)