Item: Cisco Spaces
Rating: 10
Author: Brittany Burch

Overall Satisfaction with Cisco Spaces

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Cisco Spaces makes our hybrid environment work more fluidly. Cisco Spaces not only tells our technicians when space is at a max level but also tells us when rogue devices are on our network. Cisco Spaces works by providing insight on not only what resources are used but if the bandwidth is being used beyond capacity and where. There are so many different types of metrics that you have access to that you can customize to your dashboard to see only the metrics you need for your business.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Connecting the Hybrid Environment
Indoor Analytics
Location of devices

Cons

Be able to better lock out devices outside the active window
More precise location tracking
Better integration for the switches with the cloud

Return on Investment

Ability to see my Cisco Equipment in the cloud
Able to see my manage all my devices anywhere
Insights into what load each device is taking on

Cisco Spaces Applications

Our company has benefited by using Cisco Spaces to see what devices are on our network, what devices are trying to connect to the network that shouldn't be connected, and where the devices are whether they are remote or on-premise. These insights have helped out by allowing our Cisco networking and access points to be in the cloud, which allows our technicians the ability to manage them anywhere, anytime.

Cisco & Partner Integrations

Cisco Aironet 3800 Series Access Points and Cisco Catalyst 9600 Series Switches

We benefited by having our physical infrastructure in the cloud. Making this shift allowed our company to have better analytics in one dashboard then having to look at 3 separate dashboards. The Cisco equipment all integrating with each other, we can see if we have any gaps in our network that could be a cause for concerns when it comes to cybersecurity.

Behavioral Insights

We have noticed that our employees that have a hybrid environment work much better from mobile workstations. The employees find it much easier to transition from work at-home to the office when everything is done mobile. This also gives our employees the confidence that they will not miss a beat no matter where they work.

Asset Management

Cisco Spaces shows us what our utilization of our Access points and what bandwidth we are using. The assets management also allows us to see what area is used the most with mobile devices. We can also see how many cell phones connect to our APs and when they connect or disconnect.

Alternatives Considered

Cisco Catalyst Center and Cisco DNA Analytics and Assurance

Cisco spaces works hand in hand with Cisco DNA and the catalyst center. The single pane of glass that Cisco has for their products allows everything to be controlled in one place j stead of having to go to multiple IP addresses. This also helps with diagnosing and repairing technical issues.

Key Insights

Do you think Cisco Spaces delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Cisco Spaces's feature set?

Yes

Did Cisco Spaces live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Cisco Spaces go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Cisco Spaces again?

Yes

Other Software Used

ScreenConnect, Fishbowl Solutions, Trend Vision One Endpoint Security

Likelihood to Recommend

Cisco Spaces is well suited from Small businesses to large businesses. The ability for Cisco Spaces to scale as your business scale is an important feature to leverage, especially for small businesses. The insights for the Cisco Spaces are helpful to the organization with utilizing what access points we have where and what load the access points are taking on. Our business also likes the fact that the switches, access points, and other Cisco equipment can be seen all in one, anywhere anytime. This makes it easier to manage our equipment.

Cisco Spaces Feature Ratings

Using Cisco Spaces

Users and Roles

5 - They represent from management down to employee. Each person in spaces has a role related to their job. It allows us to have insight into shaping our policies and cybersecurity protocols for our business.

Support Headcount Required

1 - We have a single IT staff since we are a smaller company. But we also have really good technical support with Cisco if there is a problem we run into that we cannot fix. Cisco’s IT team is very helpful. Especially, when they help you diagnose your problem and they can either walk you through the solution or help you implement the solution.

Business Processes Supported

Overview of where people are in the organization
Connect users in the environment
Create a safe space in real time

Innovative Uses

Allowing users in the office to work with users in the field
Allows our company to work with other companies securely

Future Planned Uses

Expand on the collaboration
Be able to assign people to certain areas

Likelihood to Renew

Cisco Spaces is important in our day to day operations. As well as working with other companies. The platform provides a safe space to work and collaborate from employees to partners.

Evaluating Cisco Spaces and Competitors

Products Replaced

Key Differentiators

Other

The most important decision was if the Cisco spaces was going to work on my environment. We want all of our networking to be seamlessly integrated and work like a well oiled machine.

Evaluation Lessons Learned

I would not change a thing.

Cisco Spaces Support

Support Rating

Support staff is very helpful and responsive. When they give you a window of when they will get back to you, they try to aim to wait as minimal as possible. Support tries to have a least an idea of what the problem is and ask what troubleshooting have you done. They would prefer not to have to go over troubleshooting steps that didn’t work before.

Cisco Spaces Customer Support Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Quick Resolution Good followup Problems get solved Kept well informed No escalation required Immediate help available Support understands my problem Quick Initial Response	None

Premium Support

I did not because I have 8x5 support with next business day. Since I have a technical background and do not use support that often, we did think premium would be the best fit. Most of the problems I can resolve except with a few that land up being an issue with connecting Cisco and Dell

Bug Resolution

Exceptional Examples of Cisco Spaces Support

Every time I had to call Cisco I had a rather exceptional experience. I cannot really think of a time when Cisco was not able to help me. The last time I had to call Cisco was when my licenses didn’t want to work and the technical team asked what steps have I taken to apply the licenses. I explained that I used the account like I was suppose to but the license didn’t want to register. So the support went into the account to find out that the licenses weren’t released to our smart account. Once released the license was able to connect to the Spaces. The support team was very responsive .

Using Cisco Spaces

Usability

Spaces is very easy to use. I am glad that Cisco took the DNA platform and made it more user friendly. It is a simple single pane of glass that has every thing you need in one place. To me, it is very self explanatory.