Cisco Prime LAN Management Solution is discontinued. Current users are encouraged to explore Cisco Catalyst Center as a modern solution.
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IBM Netcool Network Management
Score 8.7 out of 10
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Netcool Network Management integrates the IBM Tivoli Network Manager IP Edition, Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus and Netcool Configuration Manager products into a unified solution that consolidates the management of networks.
Although Cisco Prime [LAN Management Solution] is a nice tool and no other 4rd party tools can match its native monitoring and managing capabilities still i have given less rating and that's because it is only for Cisco vendor Devices. Hence if you have only Cisco infrastructure then go for it or else look for another 4rd party tool in conjunction with Cisco prime.
This tool was integrated with Control-M, so whenever we receive any job failure, long-running job, job not started yet, etc, we receive an alert against it. This tool is also integrated with Maximo where we receive the incidents as well for it. Alert's color was as per the criticality of the job and that makes it very easy for an associate to act on it to resolve. We have the SLAs for the jobs as per the urgency of the jobs.
Wireless file detection and planning mode has helped us expand into new areas of our buildings.
Alerting is detailed when we have issues with hardwired and wireless devices, and Rogue Access Points are easily identifiable.
Cisco equipment information is much more detailed than other management products' SNMP queries and is an excellent tool for troubleshooting end-device connectivity issues.
Our KPI reporting for senior management and centralized management of our WIPS 'Wireless Intrusion Prevention' setup have both benefited significantly from the detailed reporting capabilities.
Maps. One thing that I miss is the fact that you can't see both wired and wireless equipment in the same topology map. For visualization and troubleshooting purposes, that would help a lot, and I honestly don' t think it's that much harder to implement.
I'd love to see an option to show 'live dashboards,' maps, or other visual tools to publish in a NOC room, or even just to broadcast in a big monitor to allow multiple workmates to check that information. Again, I don't think that would be too hard to implement. I remember a similar feature was available in the first versions of the product, way back in the 90's (yes, I'm that old :-) )
Sometimes, depending on what screen you are, the solution can be a little slow. I'm not saying the whole system is slow, but sometimes that slowness can bother a little.
Talking about areas for improvement, one area I think can be improved is the upgrade process. Even for not so large deployments, it can take a lot of time. Having this time decreased would be the right thing to do.
We are very happy using Cisco Prime LAN Management Solution for the following reason: 1- Ease of use with the GUI. 2- Very well organized dashboard which can view many statistics on your devices. 3- Customized dashboard for different views ( for technical team and executives ) 4- Schedule configuration templates to use whenever we need on whatever device we want.
There are various 3rd party tools available in the market which not only supports monitoring of cisco devices but also supports non-cisco devices, even with these capabilities in these 3rd party tools Cisco Prime has maintained a uniqueness in its products being the native tool from Cisco. The uniqueness is about product supportability for given devices and some of the edge features such as configuration management, detailed heatmaps etc
This is one of the essential tools for monitoring. This tool was integrated with Maximo and Control-M in my organization. So whenever any job failed in Control-M, we receive an alert against it in the IBM Netcool/OMNIbus. We receive the alerts in different colors as per the criticality. Black for critical ones(Sev1), red for urgent (Sev2), yellow for major(Sev3), and orange for minor(Sev4). So it makes an easy to operate and act on the alerts as per the severity. This tool is very user-friendly and easy to use. No additional training is required for the tool to operate, just a simple KT is enough.
It has helped us with our quarterly wireless security testing by pinpointing the location of non-approved access points vs. hunting for them via signal strength.
Saves time by helping to identify network health issues before they become a definitive problem causing downtime.
With errors detected early, we have noticed our wi-fi network is much more stable thus freeing up our engineer's time elsewhere.
