Cisco Catalyst Center (formerly Cisco DNA
Center) is a network management system that leverages AI to connect,
secure, and automate customer’s network operations. It harnesses the Catalyst family of switching and wireless through AI-enabled
automation that simplifies the IT experience and streamlines complex network
operations. Offering
operational flexibility, Cisco Catalyst Center can be deployed on-premises on a
physical appliance or in a VMware virtual environment, or in a…
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Nagios Core
Score 8.0 out of 10
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Nagios provides monitoring of all mission-critical infrastructure components. Multiple APIs and community-build add-ons enable integration and monitoring with in-house and third-party applications for optimized scaling.
Cisco DNA Center es escalable y puede crecer desde administrar unos pocos equipos hasta una gran infraestructura de red, para ello CISCO proporciona mecanismos de escalabilidad y licenciamiento que se adaptan a las necesidades de las empresas
Cisco Catalyst Center does a good job configuring the switches and forming the fabric using recommended configuration and specific switch setup. Managing switches through inventory is another job Cisco Catalyst Center does well. On the other hand managing access to infrastructure (host onboarding for example) is one tedious job. To set 48 access ports on a switch takes more time than it would take an engineer connected to a switch using CLI.
Nagios monitoring is well suited for any mission critical application that requires per/second (or minute) monitoring. This would probably include even a shuttle launch. As Nagios was built around Linux, most (85%) plugins are Linux based, therefore its more suitable for a Linux environment.
As Nagios (and dependent components) requires complex configurations & compilations, an experienced Linux engineer would be needed to install all relevant components.
Any company that has hundreds (or thousands) of servers & services to monitor would require a stable monitoring solution like Nagios. I have seen Nagios used in extremely mediocre ways, but the core power lies when its fully configured with all remaining open-source components (i.e. MySQL, Grafana, NRDP etc). Nagios in the hands of an experienced Linux engineer can transform the organizations monitoring by taking preventative measures before a disaster strikes.
I think it abstracts the technical detail of what actually needs to be configured on the devices. So you can specify the intent and it'll do complex technical commands on the devices. You do not necessarily need to know I'm from a technical background, so I do know that, but on a scale, it's very easy just to click a few buttons and say what you want and it'll just do it for you.
Setting golden images is tricky and cant always get it to work as advertised. Takes a couple times. Having a recent problem where it stopped working and Cisco TAC only explanation is that 3850 is no longer supported.
When I initially set up, couldnt find documentation. I set up a lot of IP addresses and assigned them to DNA. Cant find where these are located.
Troubleshooting with TAC, they always want me to run some scripts that I have no clue how to do.
Ability to be able to access configuration backups would be great.
Nagios could use core improvements in HA, though, Nagios itself recommends monitoring itself with just another Nagios installation, which has worked fine for us. Given its stability, and this work-around, a minor need.
Nagios could also use improvements, feature wise, to the web gui. There is a lot in Nagios XI which I felt were almost excluded intentionally from the core project. Given the core functionality, a minor need. We have moved admin facing alerts to appear as though they originate from a different service to make interacting with alerts more practical.
We're currently looking to combine a bunch of our network montioring solutions into a single platform. Running multiple unique solutions for monitoring, data collection, compliance reporting etc has become a lot to manage.
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.
The Nagios UI is in need of a complete overhaul. Nice graphics and trendy fonts are easy on the eyes, but the menu system is dated, the lack of built in graphing support is confusing, and the learning curve for a new user is too steep.
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.
I haven't had to use support very often, but when I have, it has been effective in helping to accomplish our goals. Since Nagios has been very popular for a long time, there is also a very large user base from which to learn from and help you get your questions answered.
The software upgrades and ability to integrate with the wireless telemetry data set Cisco DNA Center ahead. However the automation with Change Control, Intent and better path mapping (even across MPLS and WAN Circuits) make NetBrain a needed tool to get that gives you that visibility and flexibility. Solarwinds has the ablity to view Netflow which would be an interesting add to DNA Center or an easier path to get or integrate with Stealthwatch.
Because we get all we required in Nagios [Core] and for npm, we have to do lots of configuration as it is not as easy as Comair to Nagios [Core]. On npm UI, there is lots of data, so we are not able to track exact data for analysis, which is why we use Nagios [Core].
Initial cost is pricy, but management needs to understand the value this provides so make them aware
Reporting could be improved in more detail in our opinion, but it gives a great overview of your environment. High level overview for managers would be greatly appreciated with as little or much detail as needed for certain Cisco gear.
Does not work as well with some older Cisco equipment because they want you to buy new, again the cost impact comes into play.
With it being a free tool, there is no cost associated with it, so it's very valuable to an organization to get something that is so great and widely used for free.
You can set up as many alerts as you want without incurring any fees.
