Skip to main content
TrustRadius
Cisco Catalyst Center

Cisco Catalyst Center
Formerly Cisco DNA Center

Overview

What is Cisco Catalyst Center?

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…

Read more
Recent Reviews

Cisco Catalyst Center

10 out of 10
February 12, 2024
Incentivized
Supporting customers to understand the benefits of what Cisco Catalyst Center can offer from automation through to device deployment, …
Continue reading

Cisco Catalyst Center

10 out of 10
February 11, 2024
Incentivized
We check availability and compliance for our equipment, check users connectivity and upgrade os switches. Now we are ongoing to merge it …
Continue reading

Lots of potential

7 out of 10
February 09, 2024
Incentivized
We use the Cisco Catalyst Center for the asset inventory. We have a big problem with the Cisco Catalyst Center that we can't configure the …
Continue reading
Read all reviews

Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

Reviewer Pros & Cons

View all pros & cons

Video Reviews

2 videos

A Cisco DNA Center Review: University of Cambridge relies on Cisco
08:16
Cisco DNA Center Review
03:51
Return to navigation

Pricing

View all pricing
N/A
Unavailable

What is Cisco Catalyst Center?

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…

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

Would you like us to let the vendor know that you want pricing?

66 people also want pricing

Alternatives Pricing

What is IBM Cloud Internet Services?

IBM Cloud Internet Services is a set of edge network services for securing internet-facing applications from DDoS attacks, data theft, and bot attacks, as well as optimizing their web apps or ensuring global responsiveness and the ongoing availability of their internet-facing applications.

What is California Telecom SD-WAN Platform?

Software-Defined Wide Area Networking (SD-WAN) is a technology that offers benefits to organizations seeking to optimize their network infrastructure. California Telecom blends the benefits of SD-WAN with support and a team of Tier-3 Network engineers to provide a helping hand to come alongside…

Return to navigation

Product Details

What is Cisco Catalyst Center?

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 public cloud service such as Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Whether scaling a network or simplifying IT operations, Cisco Catalyst Center helps to harness the full potential of the enterprise network—empowering IT teams to deliver unified experiences to users and measurable value to the organization.


Cisco Catalyst Center Video

Cisco DNA Center

Cisco Catalyst Center Technical Details

Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo

Cisco Catalyst Center Downloadables

Frequently Asked Questions

Nagios Core, Zabbix, and SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM) are common alternatives for Cisco Catalyst Center.

Reviewers rate Support Rating highest, with a score of 8.9.

The most common users of Cisco Catalyst Center are from Enterprises (1,001+ employees).
Return to navigation

Comparisons

View all alternatives
Return to navigation

Reviews and Ratings

(327)

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-25 of 127)
Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
Score 5 out of 10
Vetted Review
ResellerIncentivized
We have Cisco Catalyst Center deployed for several customers. We mostly use it for network inventory and SWIM.
  • SWIM - It's made easy and now when it's possible to choose which devices to upgrade in which order on a site, the upgrade does not fail as often.
  • Network inventory - It's easy to get a good overview of all network devices, and especially the EoS feature is nice.
  • ZTP - This takes a lot of time and effort to implement. Sometimes the templates are too long to run and you have to do several iterations.
  • WLC integration - It's a little flaky when you add the WLC to Cisco Catalyst Center. Sometimes after WLC failover or upgrade you have to remove and add it again.
SWIM and network management. And also the assurance feature, but it's too expensive for most company's because of the license cost.
February 13, 2024

Cisco Catalyst Center!

Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Cisco Catalyst Center for a variety of NOC activities and inventory management. We have had great success using the SWIM feature upgrading the IOS across 500+ switches.
  • SWIM
  • Inventory
  • Analysis and insights
  • XFSU IOS upgrade
Well suitable to enterprise level organization was 100/1000s of device that need to be managed.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Easy deployment of the specific software upgrade kit. Nice history and compare of specific config. Archive of config and change audit.
  • Software upgrades
  • Config management
  • Audit
  • We are using it for short time so I am not aware of any
For now it more than adequate change for Cisco prime.
February 12, 2024

Cisco Catalyst Center

Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
ResellerIncentivized
Supporting customers to understand the benefits of what Cisco Catalyst Center can offer from automation through to device deployment, helping with reviews of estates and lifecycle journey to enable them to maximise benefits and ensure relevant utilization. This covers all areas of Cisco Catalyst Center and supporting business cases that the customer would be interested in.
  • Assurance to support troubleshooting
  • Device details
  • Version control
  • Timelining
  • Complicated menu options which makes finding things difficult
  • License management which has option to open sync’ed smart account
  • Device details require a lot of clicking through new windows to see everything
Well suited to support engineers with seeing latest issues within the network to be able to drill in and resolve effectively.

Mixed vendor environment with little to no functionality or definitions available.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use it to manage our wired and wireless catalyst network update, monitor and visualize. The business problems relate to that always promised but never delivered single pain of glass and the lack of two way programmability between Cisco Catalyst Center and Space’s especially with regards to AP positioning. We are a hospital with a 9500 core and distribution layer and 9400 and 9300 access layer 920 wireless access point spread between 9120 and 9136.
  • Onboard switches and AP’s and apply standard policies
  • Visualize the network
  • Push out software updates
  • Provide monitoring on multiple aspects of the network function
  • Price
  • More integration with spaces
  • Easier to rename claimed devices
  • Easier to move devices between maps
  • Easier to move maps within the hierarchy as the hierarchy may not solely be defined by location
Cisco Catalyst Center has been in its element when building and managing our new network. It is not the single workspace promised, but the single pane of glass is a well known Cisco Myth.
February 11, 2024

Cisco Catalyst Center

Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We check availability and compliance for our equipment, check users connectivity and upgrade os switches. Now we are ongoing to merge it with Cisco ISE for more visibility. We have these days some discussions with some Cisco employees to make a pilot for testing PNP connectivity and upload templates on new switches and to make tasks for scanning the network for new devices.
  • Telemetry
  • Availability
  • Automation
  • Scan for more subnets
  • More stable updates/versions
It's Cisco's prime successor, so it's a good inventory platform with constant checks for vulnerability, version, and compliance. This is the best part for us.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Cisco Catalyst Center manages campus network spreading across three sites with around 60 switches implemented. It allows secure access to the network infrastructure using 802.1x. Secure Group Tags are used to restrict users to only allowed services and destinations.
Switch management is one of the important functions of Cisco Catalyst Center, providing seamless upgrade of software. Assurance is the part of Cisco Catalyst Center used on everyday basis in monitoring campus infrastructure.
  • Network Health dashboard
  • Everyday Inventory activities (after LAN Automation or PnP or Discovery)
  • Ability to manage and monitor infrastructure using Cisco Catalyst Center API
  • UI slowness
  • Task deployment failure troubleshooting
  • ISE integration (fails often, troubleshooting almost impossible)
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.
February 09, 2024

Cisco Catalyst Center

Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use the Cisco Catalyst Center to achieve greater levels of automation and segmentation within our network.
  • Zero touch provisioning/ZTP
  • Segmentation
  • Software defined campus network
  • Improve code/QA quality - reduce number of bugs.
Modern campus network
February 09, 2024

Lots of potential

Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use the Cisco Catalyst Center for the asset inventory. We have a big problem with the Cisco Catalyst Center that we can't configure the products normally.
  • Inventory
  • Monitoring
  • Configurations the products
The AP analyzing is a good thing for the Cisco Catalyst Center, but the switch configuration and updates are a little bit bad.
February 08, 2024

Cisco Catalyst Center

Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
ResellerIncentivized
I'm a partner, we install products for our clients. Globally the assurance is the most important feature. The second one is the automation with templates. Interconnection with ISE and micro segmentation is for me (as partner) one of the most valuable features. Wi-Fi capacity planning is also something who is appreciate by customers.
  • TrustSec with ISE
  • Assurance
  • SDA
  • ZTP
  • Cli Template
Cisco Catalyst Center is well suited for very big customers with a dedicated Network team. It is good if we need interconnection with other (Cisco) products like SD-Wan or Umbrella or TE. It is not very appropriate for an enterprise that doesn’t have big network or many sites. Or if the enterprise has a lot of different manufacturers.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
ResellerIncentivized
Helps to diagnose issues with user wireless through rapid intuitive tools. Also helps me maintain the network in a compliant state with an easy workflow to allow software updates. The Cisco Catalyst Center also offers simple workflows to ease the RMA process through simple guided workflows
  • Software management
  • Automation
  • Troubleshooting
  • Licensing of devices means the product does not meet all its potential
  • Remaining an established product is daft
Wireless troubleshooting works really well.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Auomation and assurance of SDA networking for the healthcare sector and their hospitals in mid-Norway. It is our single point of administration for templates, configuration and zero touch configuration. It helps us have a consistent configuration and insight into our networking infrastructure. However it does not cover all possible configurations and we've ran into a few minor and major bugs that has contributed to a longer deployment time of the solution.
  • Zero touch provisioning
  • GUI configuration
  • Overview of templates and settings
  • Consistent configuration deployment
  • Some features are missing
  • Backup / restore has had issues
  • NFS share has caused the whole system to crash
  • Better SD-WAN integration
In these fields we feel that Catalyst Center is very helpful and is a positive solution that we think helps in our deployment and management of the infrastructure.
SDA design
Management and deployment of large number of devices
Automatic onboarding
Software updates
Assurance
We can't think of any particular scenario where it has a negative or less appropriate use case. Perhaps in smaller scale, SOHO solutions as it would be costly.
February 07, 2024

DNAC

Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Deploying switches and doing configuration changes.
  • Config templating
  • Provisioning
  • Network mapping
  • Easier custom automation
  • Direct ap management for wlc managed aps
  • Searchable config backup database
Templated configs is good and helps deployment specific to site. Managing eWLCs and wlc managed aps should be easier.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Very efficient in management of the WLAN and LAN, provides assurance and effective tool for root cause analysis and performance troubleshooting. We have reduced time to resolution heavily on the incident tickets and introduced operational excellence. I recommend working together with a trusted partner in order to map the requirements into the solution and a smooth deployment.
  • Assurance
  • Administration
  • Operations
  • The software itself, GUI
WLAN and LAN management
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use it for inventory management and configuration of the switches, but we encountered some configuration errors with the 9300 switches. For inventory management it is a very useable application. In addition we use it for 9117 AP management and overview. For AP management it is our core app besides the WLC application.
  • Switch management
  • AP management
  • Configuration of devices
  • Easy to use automation for beginners
It is well suited for inventory management but not so appropriate for clear configuration.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use this as a core switch-core service for our manufacturing factory. We migrated from Aruba technologies and this brought us a lot of visibility and stability of the environment. Combined with Meraki devices it is a mature technology that fulfills our needs. Problems? Yes. Can’t deal with IP conflicts generated by engineers!
  • Stability
  • Visibility
  • Flexibility
  • More integration with Meraki
  • Not really another problem
We have a large factory with hundreds of Wi-Fi ap and moving objects. Cisco Catalyst Center brings the needed stability.
Score 5 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use it for telemetry, as well as monitoring our network infrastructure. The inventory part is used to keep track of our assets. SWIM is used to update our switches, routers and WLCS.

We are also leveraging the APIs to drag out the the information from Cisco Catalyst Center and display this information to our customers as we are a MSP.
  • Very nice interface
  • The documentation is easy to understand
  • The inventory system with SWIM is very well made
  • Telemetry gives an overview
  • APIs, the rate limiting can be daunting
  • Multi-tenancy support could be nice
  • Option for third party devices, after the multivendor SDK was discontinued
We are an MSP, Cisco Catalyst Center works well for single-sites but not so well for other sites. For example we have hit over 90% of the data sheet recommendations and we see very odd behaviors.

The service containers can restart, as well leaving us with outage. This can be very annoying.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I use Cisco Catalyst Center for full SD access control.
  • SD-Access
  • Monitoring
  • Troubleshooting
  • Device 360 for Sensors
I give Cisco Catalyst Center a seven out of ten for how it handles AP locating.
February 06, 2024

DNA

Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use it for rollout and assurance. Especially the assurance part is important for us.
  • Assurance
  • Rollout/Provisioning
  • Monitoring
  • Upgrade procedure
  • Device support
Assurance for wired and wireless is really useful. That helps us a lot to be proactive.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We are implementing Cisco Catalyst Center for Auto Provisioning and Configuration Compliance Checks. We've just visited some Cisco Catalyst Center Meetings on Cisco Live and we will also look into implementing the API.

We currently have a problem with the cleanup of the old AAA Configuration because the Cisco Catalyst Center does not allow the cleanup. But we will hopefully figure it out.
  • Auto Provisioning
  • Firmware Updates
  • API
  • Better Introduction
Firmware Updates and Auto Provisioning.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We used to have a legacy L2 based campus network. DNAC, together with ISE, leveraged our Campus LANs into Intent based networking. We have 30+ fabric sites and using fancy features like LAN automation, PnP, SWIM and templating. Developer toolkit helps a lot to build automation through APIs, SDK is quite useful as well.
  • Sd-access (SDA)
  • Templating
  • SWIM
  • Compliance Check
  • Assurance
  • Tools and features are not customizable as expected
  • More API capabilities
  • Better GUI
Cisco Catalyst Center acts as Sd-access management plane/orchestrator. Its integration with ISE leverages micro segmentation in the network. Not only SD-access, Cisco Catalyst Center also addresses quite interesting challenges in non-fabric environments. SWIM, templating, compliance check are a great feature to govern non-fabric environments. It suits well in a LAN environment.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
ResellerIncentivized
We use Cisco Catalyst Center in some Managed Service environments, but mostly consult and implement customer installations. The most frequently use cases evolve around software and configuration management and compliance. But we do everything from basic automation to full SDA.
  • Software Management
  • Compliance monitoring
  • PnP for rollouts
  • RMA process for LAN Automated Fabrics
  • Guiding through Assurance setup
It is very well suited for commonly used automation tasks.
Return to navigation