Cisco DNA Analytics and Assurance vs. Observium

So not everyone is in need of a smart AI checking their network metrics looking for issues before they happen or finding and alerting on problems that the network staff may not have noticed, but if you have the budget for it, it could be a huge time saver for your whole department.

Incentivized

• If you are on a budget, this is one heck of a tool for the price (including the ~$200/year for the Pro subscription).
• If you are OK with maintaining and updating open source tools, this is a great tool.
• If you are afraid of the Linux command line or live in a Windows-centric world, this might not be the tool for you.
• If you can't stand things occasionally not working, this is probably not a good fit.

Incentivized

• Identify devices and their connectivity to the network
• Troubleshoot device connectivity paths
• Give us visibility into possible issues with network devices

Incentivized

• Automatic device discovery.
• Scalability
• Real-time monitoring.

Incentivized

• Early on the product was unstable. Since fixed.
• The need to contact the BU when TAC cannot solve the issue. This happens all the time.
• Upgrades to the product are not smooth and take a great deal of time.

Incentivized

• Documentation
• Community support
• Easy to set up but hard to customise fully

Incentivized

Cisco DNA Analytics and Assurance definitely has a steep learning curve. While it's had an upgrade to its onboarding, it's still a very technically heavy application that requires knowledge of Cisco networking and terminology. I think keeping that in mind helps with the expectations, but anyone can use the application with a little training and experience.

Incentivized

It's open source. Your mileage may vary. Sometimes the provided documentation is beyond frustrating, other times it's right on the mark.

Incentivized

We moved away from Solarwinds during the breach. Haven't touched them with a 10 foot pole since.We looked at Splunk but decided to stick with a Cisco product since we are a Cisco shop

Incentivized

I haven't used other products that are similar to Observium. Observium is an open tool, with a robust feature set. There are elements of comparable monitoring across other tools, but nothing I've seen that is a complete parallel in terms of feature set and visualizations. If I were asked, I wouldn't have another tool to recommend over Observium.

Incentivized

• Loads of time saved diagnosing network issues.
• Much effort saved having to determine network performance metrics by hand.
• The Cisco brand is generally safe and trusted so you get that additional peace of mind.

Incentivized

• It is good for DC admin.
• Only positive impact.
• Highly recommended.

Incentivized