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Cisco Catalyst Center in&out
February 09, 2024

Cisco Catalyst Center in&out

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Modules Used

  • Automation

Overall Satisfaction with Cisco Catalyst Center

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)
  • Managing switches, introducing new switches to the fabric works well
  • Two engineers are enough to maintain campus infrastructure
  • A good amount of software bugs make management less satisfied with the product
  • Cisco AnyConnect
  • Cisco Secure Access by Duo
DUO enrollment was the main challenge. It is more a procedure issue than of the product itself. Another challenge was that push notifications sometimes do not arrive on time (AnyConnect session times out) or at all.
We had to improve access to HQ infrastructure and we did that deploying 2FA with DUO solution.
Additional layer of authentication has positive impact on organisation and its security aspirations. Users, on the other hand, gets a longer process to access HQ infrastructure and services.

Do you think Cisco Catalyst Center delivers good value for the price?

No

Are you happy with Cisco Catalyst Center's feature set?

Yes

Did Cisco Catalyst Center live up to sales and marketing promises?

No

Did implementation of Cisco Catalyst Center go as expected?

No

Would you buy Cisco Catalyst Center again?

No

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE), Cisco 5520 Wireless Controller
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.