Cisco Crosswork Network Automation vs. Pulseway

Cisco Crosswork Network Automation has been great at reducing the workload our engineers face on the day to day aspects of their jobs. CNC has been able to reduce the time it takes to provision a device while using NSO and has provided valuable data to assist in troubleshooting network wide issues. CNC has been a pivotal aspect to our multi-million dollar network refresh

Incentivized

If you have to manage a large number of computers, especially spread over multiple clients or a large physical area. This is one of the main products that allows us to act as a Managed Service Provider (MSP) and actually manage our clients devices and not just react to issues as clients call them in. Clients really love the proactive approach it allows us to take. Sadly as we became more familiar with options out there we found this area lacking and what was actually holding us back.

Incentivized

• It monitors computers and notifies us of any issues with any computer.
• It allows remote control of computers, such as requesting a computer to reboot itself.
• It is very highly configurable to monitor exactly what we need to monitor. For example, on server, we can have it notify us any time the server is shutdown or rebooted. On the other hand, for a desktop computer, we don't have to be bothered with notifications when a user decides to reboot his computer.

Incentivized

• It would be nice if they increased their scope of supported third-party apps.
• It would be great if they would create an ios app for their ticket system.
• If they could possibly build in a location service for tracking devices, that would be helpful.
• If they had two-factor authentication, it would be nice.

Incentivized

Giving this a 5 as CNC classifies to a specific set of users. CNC is not an 'easy to use' product and thus requires some training to ensure that it can be used to the best of its capabilities. CNC can when used fully provide valuable data that Network Engineers would otherwise have to hunt for on their own.

Incentivized

The tool is easy to use however it is can be daunting with the amount of features available in it. Last I checked, their knowledge base was not very expansive and they relied a lot on the changelog for how to do some stuff. This can make it hard to learn how to do some more advanced things like the automation.

Incentivized

I have never had to use the support for Pulseway. However, when initially starting out, we would receive emails every so often asking how we are doing and if there is any support that they can provide. I would imagine that any request would be supplied with the same great support!

Incentivized

Pulseway has the most features, the best looking app with the best design and better usability than any others we evaluated. We liked the uniformity of the app design across all platforms (Windows, Android, Apple) and the notifications displayed on each platform. The price was a major contributor to our selection of Pulseway compared to the competition.

Incentivized

• Problems can be dealt with more rapidly because I have access to systems from anywhere. I don't have to carry a computer with me nor do I have to find a location with potentially non-secure wifi to gain access to my systems.
• I can handle 99% of my system admin tasks using Pulseway and never have to touch a system or connect to the console.
• Pulseway gives so much control over a system that I don't need to spend extra money on other software to perform management tasks.

Incentivized