Cisco DNA Center Reviews

We are an educational environment that is similar to a university, but we only teach management and leadership. We have a variety of visitors every day, more than 2,000 of them, and they are unknown to us. This makes it very difficult to centrally manage using a traditional network.

We are currently in the second round of the implementation phase for this solution. We have two buildings with the solution implemented now, and we are working on other buildings. We are on the same campus but we are doing the work in four phases. Now that two are complete, we have two more that we are about to finish.

Everything is secure in our environment, so we are using the overlay of the DNA Center to separate the visitors and the employees and the trainers. We are using a multi-segmented network, so DNA was a very good solution for us to deal with this type of environment.

Prior to implementing DNA Center, it was very difficult for us to create a large number of VLANs for our switches. This has made it possible for us to meet the need of maintaining connections when people move between buildings on the campus or travel to another campus.

The most valuable feature is the DNA analytics, which is very good for us.

It is very important for everyone to be able to see everything that is happening in the network from one location. It is simple to manage and it is all done from a single dashboard.

We set up the identity service and it is amazing for us to have an identity for each user. All of the network policies are set according to one's identity.

The ability to trace attacks if they occur is very good in terms of security. The security is part of the network layer. Generally, security has been improving with Cisco solutions because it was not as good in the past.

If a device is lost then it is very easy to replace. I just drag and drop the configuration from the old device to the new one and after a few seconds, the new device is working with the same configuration that we had before. It does not have to be configured manually.

The network, data center, and SD-WAN are all being treated as different services, but I would like to have only one solution to manage all of them. Data is traveling from the inside to the outside layer, and I want to be able to fully control all of the data going in and out. It should not be set up as multi-service, but rather a single one.

If you have old Cisco hardware such as switches or access points, or they are from another vendor, then they will not work with this solution. The hardware will still function but you will not be able to control it with DNA.

I have been working with Cisco DNA Center for two months.

This solution has been stable since it was installed two months ago.

The scalability is one of the reasons that we chose Cisco DNA. We have ten buildings within the same campus and when we implemented the PoC, Cisco said that scalability is very important for us.

We have had about 3,000 people using this solution to this point, but we are not yet at full capacity. We expect to have more than 4,000 concurrent users.

We have not been in contact with technical support.

Prior to using Cisco DNA Center, we had a traditional network. We had switches and routers from Cisco, HP, and Dell. We switched because we are joining all of the buildings together and given their size, the number of visitors, and the scalability that we need, we had to switch to DNA.

The initial setup is straightforward except for the issue that this solution is incompatible with switches or access points from other vendors. That is very bad.

It takes us about two weeks to deploy this solution in one of our buildings. This includes installing the hardware, software, access points, and everything.

We have a technician from Cisco to do the implementation for us.

During deployment, there were eight people from our staff and five people from Cisco.

For maintenance, for each building, we have two or three technicians at various levels. We have other administrators as well, although they are responsible for different solutions such as SAP and ERP. The same person is responsible for multiple technologies.

Our licensing agreement is for three years.

The Cisco Digital Network Architecture is the first solution with these types of capabilities that I have used. It allows me to monitor everything in the network, including end-to-end packet travel and tracking the specific packets.

This solution is really stable and scalable.

My advice for anybody who is considering this solution is to consider the size of the environment. If there are a very large number of switches or visitor access points then I recommend DNA. However, if there are a small number of switches and access points then I would recommend the Cisco Meraki because it is fine for small and medium-sized networks.

The biggest lesson that I have learned from working with this solution is that this technology is much easier now. I think it's a revolution in networking and wireless communication where it is becoming easier and nothing like traditional networking. It is now an overlay and an underlay network. All of the people working in this field have to be up to date with the technology. It is very new and there are many capabilities when it comes to network control, analytics, and security compliance. IT people have to adapt to new technologies.

I have not yet tested the IoT for our smart building because we don't use it in our current location.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

My experience with Cisco DNA Center is with selling it and receiving feedback from my customers. I have not personally done any configuration or management with it.

I have worked with the demo and also presented it to customers.

My clients use this solution to give them more visibility into their network, and the management mode helps with to troubleshoot and fix problems.

People like to use the dashboards to get an overview of their network.

If you have a bottleneck in your network then this solution can fix it.

DNA Center is easier to use than Fortinet FortiManager.

The pricing of this solution could be improved.

There is a limitation with the number of VRFs that you can have in your network, and this has caused us problems with some customers.

This solution does not support IP version 6.

I would like to see better integration with Cisco Meraki.

I have been working with this solution for about a year.

It is easy to expand this solution because it is easy to configure, add new sites, and get bigger because you already have the plan. With the configuration already done, it's just plug and play.

The only problem with scaling DNA Center is that it doesn't support IP version 6 yet.

Our clients have between 3,000 and 8,000 users.

We have not been in touch with technical support for this solution.

I have experience with several solutions including FortiManager. Cisco DNA center is easier to use. Also, competitors like Fortinet and Aruba do not have a similar system. They are working on it and trying to get it, but they just don't have a DNA Center.

The initial setup is easy and straightforward if you follow the steps and you have a normal network. However, if you have an advanced network and a lot of things to think about then it can be an issue. For example, if you have a network with a lot of VRFs then it may be an issue because DNA Center can't handle it. If you are starting from a greenfield rather than a brownfield then it should be easier.

My advice for anyone who is looking into implementing this solution is to start with Cisco Assurance and do the mapping of the network. I would suggest asking for help from the partners to help with the installation. You can do it on your own but you will easily save the money that you spend on the consultants because they are experts. You will not waste time getting it up and running, and you will be back on track quickly.

This is a good solution but nothing is perfect. That said, they are ahead of the other vendors. 

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We use the solution as a management platform for campaign work. 

The solution helps with the management and orchestration of campaigns. It helps with visibility and analytics. I also like its SDA configuration. 

Cisco DNA Center should improve its configuration management. It is better to have a dev version before pushing it. 

I have been using the product for the last two years. 

I rate the tool's stability a six out of ten. 

I rate Cisco DNA Center's scalability a five out of ten. 

Cisco DNA Center's installation is complex. 

Cisco DNA Center is too expensive. 

I rate the product a six out of ten. 

The availability endpoint is in the Cisco DNA Center dashboard, which allows us to push configurations and address compliance issues to all devices on Cisco network from a single location.

Cisco DNA Center provides operational support, compliance support, security vulnerability detection, and automatic scheduling.

They should include UTM features in the product. 

I have been using Cisco DNA Center for five years.

The product is stable.

The technical support services need improvement.

Negative

Cisco DNA Center can be deployed as a server or an appliance. It is up to you to choose which one meets the requirements. DNA Center can manage various endpoints, automatically adding new devices to DNS and integrating them with other Cisco devices. To do this, the DNA Center must be able to access the Cisco website. Therefore, this box should have internet connectivity with support for the Cisco website. DNA Center will then fetch the 802.1x authentication and client deployment information from the website and automatically deploy it to the box. It will take at least one or two days to do with automated and manual. We need to check both sides so that it's covering entire devices. Its maintenance is easy as well.

Cisco DNA Center is a good product. There could be more features added to the dashboard. Overall, I rate it a ten out of ten.

I use DNA Center for network administration. Four people in the IT department use this solution.

There are some software problems from version to version. It takes a long time for DNA Center to recognize the video and control access devices.

I've used Cisco DNA Center for about one year.

DNA Center is scalable. 

At the first level of Cisco support, no one can give you a solution, but the second level can help you.

A third-party integrator installed DNA Center for us.

Cisco's suite is expensive. The full solution, including DNA Center, costs more than a million US dollars for a five-year license.

I rate DNA Center seven out of 10, but it's not accessible to all companies who would benefit from the solution.

Our primary use case is for real-time data transmission. I'm a senior manager and we are customers of Cisco. 

I think the processing is a good feature and the product also has a high level of accuracy.

I'd like to see them focus more on the digital side of things. 

I've been using this solution for four years. 

We've had some stability issues recently and that's something they could work on. 

The solution is scalable, we have around 100 users. 

The initial setup is quite complex and requires some expertise.

There is some room for improvement so I rate this solution eight out of 10. 

We are using Cisco DNA Center for four key major areas. The first area we use it for is for setting the policy for multiple devices and from one single point of configuration. 

The second use is for provisioning because we will have a lot of switches and access points. The provisioning has been very helpful for us. 

The third use is the assurance module and the fourth use is automation. 

We have not started the automation phase. We used it for policy, provision, design, and assurance.

Since using the solution three or four people can do what 10 people could previously. It has been a benefit to the organization.

We have many people from the team who manage a lot of devices. By using Cisco DNA Center, it has taken some of that burden away, we are impressed with it. We did the investment in CAPEX, but in the OPEX was very low. 

The unity of configuration is a benefit. Only one trainee was configuring all devices. It was very helpful for us because, if we have a lot of people configuring, it was confusing. We can unify the configuration through all devices and create a standardization for the organization. The automation is available but I have not started with it at this time.

I have been using Cisco DNA Center for approximately two years.

The scalability is good, it is quite extendable.

The support is close to us in proximity and very helpful. We have never had a problem working with them. 

Cisco DNA Center was a new technology for us, at the beginning, it was not easy to do, but Cisco did a lot of training with us to a level we could handle everything. The team is managing itself now without the assistance of Cisco.

After we received all the hardware, it took us around one month for the implementation and another month for training. The solution was up and running but we were training on that solution.

The implementation of the Cisco DNA Center was done internally.

My advice to others is if you are a large enough company to have the Cisco DNA Center technology, you must try it. It may be useless for small enterprises, but for the large enterprise, for multi-site organization, it's impressive and it saves a lot of money and time.   

I rate Cisco DNA Center a nine out of ten.

We use the solution for location tracking. We have to monitor the traffic in our environment since we have more than 3000 visitors per day.

We can monitor all devices and get the required information using the product.

The solution needs to improve the dashboard. The dashboard is very difficult to understand for someone using it for the first time. We took around two months to connect our environment to Cisco.

I have been using the solution for six months.

The network team uses the solution in our organization.

When we struggled to connect our environment to the solution, we raised the issue thrice. However, the team was not able to resolve our issue. Finally, we figured out that we had to upgrade our wireless controller and install the proper certificate. I am not happy with the support.

Cisco should invest some resources to educate the users about the product. Overall, I rate the solution a six and a half out of ten.