We performed a comparison between Cisco DNA Center and Fortinet FortiManager based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Network Management Applications solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."What I found valuable in Cisco DNA Center is the Software-Defined Access Network, so the entire LAN network can be centralized and managed from a single dashboard. Cisco DNA Center is suitable for centralized management and lets you deploy switches in a centralized fashion. You can also do multiple switch port configurations simultaneously and segregate your traffic into multiple fabrics. Another valuable feature of Cisco DNA Center is enhanced security through Scalable Group Tags. Cisco DNA Center can be integrated with your Cisco ISE to enhance the port securities, and this paves the way for Software-Defined Networking in the LAN segment, which is the main advantage of Cisco DNA Center. I also like that you can use Cisco DNA Center for data assurance or correlation. The solution shows your network and client health parameters, which I find convenient for troubleshooting."
"It is very versatile in terms of analytics."
"The most valuable feature of Cisco DNA Center is the AI (Artificial Intelligence) that provides us with valuable information."
"Cisco VXLAN is a protocol that has been around for some time, but the practical implementation and operational capability of Cisco DNA Center bring it to life."
"We can monitor all devices and get the required information using the product."
"Has a good processing feature with a high level of accuracy."
"What's most valuable in Cisco DNA Center is the ability to manage any Cisco infrastructure and device through it. Setup was straightforward."
"The most valuable features of the solution are all of its security features...It is a highly scalable solution."
"FortiManager's most valuable features are web-based or web-rule-based policies, SD-WAN, and the ease of upgrading to new firmware."
"The integration is quite good."
"The solution brings device management into one single pane of glass and is a pretty good product."
"The best feature of Fortinet FortiManager is its ease of use. It is easy to manage the firewall from Fortinet FortiManager. Additionally, the interface is very good."
"For the whole security fabric from Fortinet, with a simple click you can see if some workstations or services are affected by an attack. You can really easily quarantine it, check the solution, and fix it."
"Fortinet has the option of synchronization in the cloud, so you can manage everything if you have a cloud account."
"FortiManager's best feature is the integration of administrator users."
"The capability of centralized management is valuable. We can configure all firewall boxes with the same configuration."
"The product doesn’t have good monitoring capabilities."
"The task failure reporting or provisioning failure reporting could be a little bit better in the UI, with more information given to the user."
"The solution's integration feature can be better."
"The tool's deployment is complex. It also needs to improve its GUI."
"The product has many features that do not work properly."
"DNA Center has been on the market for a few years and they need to update it."
"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."
"What I want to see in Cisco DNA Center in the future is more support for other platforms so that you can manage third-party products, such as Fortinet."
"When we have a specific configuration pushed it does take some time to be deployed on the actual firewall."
"The solution has some bugs."
"The dashboard could use some improvement."
"It would be better if it were easier to run a routing protocol. In the next release, I would like them to enhance some features in the GUI rather than CLI or OSP. For example, whenever a customer generates an ISP directly on the firewall, it's complicated to configure the routing protocol."
"The presence of Fortinet in our region (Nigeria) needs to be stronger."
"The FortiManager is more complex and they can make it easier to use the VPN manager. All other features are okay. However, the VPN manager is more difficult and can cause some issues in the environment, if you do not have the experience to use it."
"The product is not very stable."
"It requires a lot of resources. This is the main challenge."
Cisco DNA Center is ranked 1st in Network Management Applications with 37 reviews while Fortinet FortiManager is ranked 3rd in Network Management Applications with 61 reviews. Cisco DNA Center is rated 7.8, while Fortinet FortiManager is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Cisco DNA Center writes "Practical implementation of VXLAN is good and provides centralized control". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Fortinet FortiManager writes "Easy to set up with good integration capabilities but we've had troubles when moving devices". Cisco DNA Center is most compared with Cisco Prime, Aruba Airwave, SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager, Huawei eSight and Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, whereas Fortinet FortiManager is most compared with Fortinet FortiGate Cloud, Fortinet FortiOS, Zabbix, AlgoSec and Fortinet FortiWeb. See our Cisco DNA Center vs. Fortinet FortiManager report.
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