Cisco Catalyst Center vs. DX Spectrum

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cisco Catalyst Center
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
Cisco Catalyst Center provides an intent-based platform for managing enterprise networks across campus, branch, and edge environments. It combines automation, analytics, and assurance to streamline IT operations, improve security posture, and reduce manual tasks. With integratedAI/ML-driven insights, policy-based controls, and end-to-end visibility across wired and wireless infrastructures, Catalyst Center empowers IT teams toproactively detect issues, enforce compliance, and accelerate…N/A
DX Spectrum
Score 7.0 out of 10
N/A
DX Spectrum (formerly CA Spectrum) is network fault management software, from Broadcom company CA Technologies.N/A
Pricing
Cisco Catalyst CenterDX Spectrum
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cisco Catalyst CenterDX Spectrum
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Cisco Catalyst CenterDX Spectrum
Considered Both Products
Cisco Catalyst Center
Chose Cisco Catalyst Center
Because the deployment is based on Cisco Catalyst 9000 in an SDA context, it was a natural choice.
DX Spectrum

No answer on this topic

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User Ratings
Cisco Catalyst CenterDX Spectrum
Likelihood to Recommend
8.4
(343 ratings)
8.0
(2 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.9
(9 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
7.9
(19 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.7
(33 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Cisco Catalyst CenterDX Spectrum
Likelihood to Recommend
Cisco
Would recommend Cisco Catalyst Center to medium to large scale organizations that have many cookie-cutter sites and the resources to properly provision all their devices. I would not recommend to teams that do not have a strong network engineering team that can navigate the various intricacies of the platform.
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Broadcom
As I said before, not only for Spectrum, but for any monitoring tool, you need to know what is critical in your environment and think about how exactly you should monitor and treat it. If you have done that, everything will work just fine.
  • Well Suited - Networking Monitoring
  • Less Appropriate - When you need to customize some monitoring and to update the version
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Pros
Cisco
  • Again, the ease of use of the APIs and the API Explorer provides the tools needed to write these custom workflows that allow us to do a lot of the automation we’re doing now, saving hundreds of hours by using those tools.
  • The product is very intuitive, and there is a lot of support out there in the DevNet community to help with that.
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Broadcom
  • Polling and traps can be configured to take heartbeats at specified intervals and notify on an event in real-time, respectively.
  • Topology of devices gives a high-level overview of network architecture.
  • Discovery of devices is simple and secure with the use of community strings.
  • Details can be added per device or alarm type for actions to be taken to make troubleshooting easier.
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Cons
Cisco
  • Within its Tasks - Audit, it can sometimes allow plaintext data, including passwords, to be seen. There should be functionality to detect password usage and appropriately obfuscate the data.
  • Occasionally, Catalyst Center does not sync changes properly within templates, which requires deleting and reconfiguring the template version. Better processes here would be beneficial.
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Broadcom
  • NOC
  • Data Center/Telecom
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Likelihood to Renew
Cisco
I think new products are often "half-baked" or over hyped when they release, as was the case with DNAC. We were well ahead of the curve in acquiring it. But as it has matured it is now a fantastic addition to our infrastructure. I think we are easing into a stage where it is hard to envision a large organization NOT having Catalyst Center in place. If for nothing outside of the mapping and troubleshooting aspects; using it as a "source of truth".
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Broadcom
No answers on this topic
Usability
Cisco
Cisco DNA Center is going to help us in security, simplicity and ease of administration. Cisco DNA Center is complete management and control platform that simplifies and streamlines network operations. Cisco DNA Center offers a single dashboard for every core function in your network. With this platform, IT can become more nimble and respond to changes and challenges faster and more intelligently.
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Broadcom
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Cisco
El soporte de CISCO DNA Center es muy bueno, responden a mis dudas pero no he tenido oportunidad de reportar un incidente o determinar un tiempo de respuesta critico. The support of CISCO DNA Center is very good, they answer my questions, but I have not had the opportunity to report an incident or determine a critical response time.
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Broadcom
No answers on this topic
Online Training
Cisco
It was informative, but the labs were not available long enough for us to get intimately familiar with CCNA before it was closed. The course instructor was well informed and got us as close to ready as she could.
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Broadcom
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Cisco
Cisco Catalyst Centeris basic zero-touch provisioning out of the box. You just rack and stack the switches, patch 'em in, and the controller pushes the config automatically. No need to console into every single box or spend hours script-running over CLI.The AI-driven assurance and telemetry are top-tier. Instead of getting flooded with useless syslog alerts when a link drops, it correlates the telemetry data to give you proactive health checks. It literally pinpoints wireless anomalies and bandwidth chokepoints before the users even start opening tickets.It handles fabric microsegmentation like a boss through SD-Access and TrustSec. You can easily enforce group-based policies right at the hardware level. It drops IoT gear, guests, and corporate traffic into their own secure buckets dynamically, without you having to manage a trillion messy VLANs and ACLs.
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Broadcom
Other tools I have used are more server/application-centric. CA Spectrum seems to work effectively and efficiently for network devices. Notification delays can be set to grant grace periods in case of network blips or false positives, which occur ALL the time. Other monitoring tools send event notifications immediately and would clear instantly, which while on-call can wake a technician for no reason.
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Return on Investment
Cisco
  • I have used it for upgrading devices, and it's does a great job at that, however out operations team for whatever reason has not adopted the feature.
  • Overall it feels like Cisco Catalyst Center has been huge waste of time. I feel like my time would be better spent on other projects and looking at other products and tools
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Broadcom
  • Proactive monitoring for networking
  • To many times to plan an update
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ScreenShots

Cisco Catalyst Center Screenshots

Screenshot of AIOpsScreenshot of BaselinesScreenshot of PoliciesScreenshot of HealthScreenshot of Network HierarchyScreenshot of PoE