Item: Cisco Catalyst Center
Rating: 10
Author: Paulo Thame

Overall Satisfaction with Cisco Catalyst Center

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Cisco DNA Center to monitor our network health, and use the features for troubleshoot on wired and wireless network, as it has an excellent information about the end user wifi connection too. The IA feature is a good start point when review problems, it can give you the right way for resolve the issue. Before DNA Center, we spend so much time at troubleshoots. Also, it has the automation feature, like to schedule switches updates, without need a manual intervention.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Clear analytics
Automation
Easy management

Cons

Implementation
Support third-party device

Return on Investment

+ Automation
+ IA feature
+ Heat map with 3D maps

Integrations with other Cisco products

Cisco Catalyst Switches, Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controllers, Cisco Catalyst 9100 Access Points, Cisco Aironet 1800 Series Access Points and Cisco Aironet 2800 Series Access Points

With Cisco DNA Center we have clear analytics from our network, in more than 100 buildings interconnected with fiber optics in the city, the troubleshoot are made easy with the help of the solution, also it has a good IA that give good recommendations with the steps-by-step, also can execute commands on the switches directly from the DNA Center. At wireless we got many features, that separate 2.4G, 5G and wifi6, showing what user use and so many clear information about the connection of each device.

Alternatives Considered

As our switches are near 100% from Cisco and all our wireless solutions are from Cisco, we don't evaluate others solutions, we have few old switches that are not from Cisco, but as they will be replaced, they will be from a Cisco switch, in this way Cisco DNA Center was the best choose for us.

Key Insights

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

Yes

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

Yes

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

Yes

Did implementation of Cisco Catalyst Center go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Cisco Catalyst Center again?

Yes

Likelihood to Recommend

For troubleshoot network problems and wireless problems, it has a clear dashboard, it saved much time when troubleshoot some wireless problems, for example, it can report if the user cellphone isn't compatible with FT (fast transition) feeature because he need update the firmware driver of the cellphone. The AI feature show the miss match configurations, it gain a lot of time when you try to found the "why", also it can suggest some configurations.

Cisco Catalyst Center Support

Support Rating

We had a problem during the upgrade, as we needed to change the IP's on Cisco DNA Center, in this way we needed to make a backup and change some things, the support was excellent with good knowledge about the solution, in few minutes after start the support process we are in talk with an engineer that given to us all the steps to complete the process with success.

Using Cisco Catalyst Center

Usability

With the Cisco DNA Center we can schedule switches upgrade, as it has an automation feature. We choose the IOS version and define what switches will update, during and after the process, we can see what switches have failed or succeeded. All the process are very safety, we never had any problem during the automation process.

Comments

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Cisco DNA Center - Wired and Wireless

Modules Used