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Cisco Prime [EOL] vs DX Spectrum comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Prime [EOL]
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
DX Spectrum
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
117
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (6th), Network Monitoring Software (21st), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (21st), Network Troubleshooting (6th), DX NetOps (1st)
 

Featured Reviews

ZeeshanAli1 - PeerSpot reviewer
Robust, cost-effective, and provides good visibility, but the scalability could improve
We are extremely satisfied with the reliability and robustness of Cisco Prime Infrastructure, which we have been using for many years. Compared to newer products such as DNS centers or others, it has proven to be much more stable, which is important for large-scale operations. Stability is a primary concern for us, and we are glad that Cisco Prime Infrastructure meets our expectations in that regard. Furthermore, in regards to Legacy Plus new hardware, Cisco Prime has proven to be a reliable and adaptable solution thus far. Not only can it support older hardware, but it also has the capability to handle new features with the latest updates. If we consider new solutions such as DNS Center, we may have to sacrifice some legacy features that we still rely on. We may need to continue using these legacy features for a few more years due to various reasons such as budget constraints or the site not being a high priority. However, if we switch to a new product at this stage, we may lose a lot of the monitoring and other capabilities that we have with Cisco Prime. We have a close relationship with Cisco and understand that they are not prioritizing investments in Cisco Prime as they are encouraging customers to adopt the Cisco DNA Center. This means that we don't anticipate many new features to be added to the product in the future. While we know that we will eventually have to transition to a new solution, in the meantime, we plan to do a quick refresh of our legacy products.
DickBaker - PeerSpot reviewer
An all-inclusive monitoring solution that adapts to emerging technologies
The product helps to correlate events.  The solution's most valuable features are its integration with Broadcom tools and scalability. DX Spectrum needs better documentation on its complex features.  I have been using the product since 2005.  I rate DX Spectrum's stability an eight point five…

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The most valuable feature of Cisco Prime is its excellent audio and video conferencing with clear quality and no interruptions."
"Cisco Prime is helpful as it provides us with real-time monitoring. This allows us to be proactive in our environment."
"It helps us manage and monitor analytics and fix issues."
"As a large organization, it is difficult to individually monitor every device. Instead, we use Cisco Prime to keep an eye on the network and services. We do not use it as a node tool, as we have other tools for network operation centers. When services go down, it can cause issues, we rely on Cisco Prime to monitor and notify us of any service disruptions. We mainly use Cisco Prime Infrastructure for configuration-level tasks."
"We use Cisco Prime for network mapping and surveys."
"The most valuable features of Cisco Prime include its comprehensive functionality as a one-stop solution for basic SNMP port management."
"Cisco Prime allows us to do a lot of functions with the users and it is flexible."
"The dashboard is a valuable feature. It's very clear, and the metrics make it easy to see the current network situation."
"The most valuable feature is automatic discovery."
"The performance manager is very good."
"I have found the cross analysis feature to be the most valuable."
"It is easy to understand and determine when and/or where the network is failing."
"It's a good tool. It's simple to do the configuration."
"The most valuable features have been the interface and the ability to do equipment management."
"We can plan changes and replacement of end-of-life products in our environment very well because it's very accurate."
"​It covers a lot of different types of hardware. It can do a lot and saves us time.​"
 

Cons

"The product's performance monitoring feature could be more intuitive."
"Cisco Prime needs to have lower prices and more customization options."
"This solution could be improved if it could monitor configuration changes."
"Cisco needs to improve Prime's monitoring tab. If any device goes down, there is a 15-second lapse before we know. It would be much better if we were alerted two or three minutes before a device is about to fail, so we can dispatch a field engineer and avoid network downtime. I would like to see a feature that allows you to access the devices directly from Prime's monitoring tab. That would make work easier for us."
"The product needs to improve its interface and reporting."
"The reporting could be simplified and the information made clearer to the user."
"Maybe it could be a little cheaper."
"The reporting feature of Cisco Prime should be improved."
"There should be a facility to integrate with other monitoring applications that are currently running in the environment."
"The CA Technologies sales team destroyed their relationship with our business units."
"I think the management or configuration of devices needs some improvement."
"We have a lot of different monitoring tools in the background, so orchestration has been a little bit of a challenge."
"The platform is complicated to use."
"The interface is not nice and needs to be improved."
"For us, the implementation was quite complex but it's because of the large number of different environments we're dealing with."
"Make it easier to certify devices."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I would rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
"We update the license every five years."
"If we have a license for Cisco DNA, we can use the same license for Cisco Prime."
"The cost is quite high."
"Cisco Prime is an expensive solution."
"I would rate the pricing of Cisco Prime a seven out of ten."
"The product is expensive compared to other vendors in the market."
"You need to get special quotes from the company for each order."
"Spectrum is expensive."
"The price is very high."
"DX Spectrum's pricing depends on the license number. It is affordable."
"The cost of some of these products are a little cost prohibitive, which is unfortunate. We have to find lower cost solutions for some of the things that we have to pull in. For the most part, CA has capabilities in pretty much everything that you would need. You just have to figure out where are you going to spend the most money for what you have to actually get done. You can do all these things but, which ones do you have to do? And that's hard to choose sometimes because you want to do them all."
"The price is good enough to expect an ideal solution. It's expensive."
"The solution's pricing could be better."
"It is expensive compared to other tools in the market."
"Currently, a perpetual license but some services are moving to a subscription"
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Government
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco Prime?
The most valuable features of Cisco Prime include its comprehensive functionality as a one-stop solution for basic SNMP port management.
What needs improvement with Cisco Prime?
The product's performance monitoring feature could be more intuitive.
What is your primary use case for Cisco Prime?
We use Cisco Prime for centralized configuration management backups and monitoring.
What do you like most about DX Spectrum?
The solution's most valuable features are its integration with Broadcom tools and scalability.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for DX Spectrum?
We are a customer of Broadcom, we use a group license that covers various CA products, including DX Spectrum. The company purchases the licenses they need from this group license, and we do not hav...
What needs improvement with DX Spectrum?
DX Spectrum should have an automatic ticketing mechanism with ServiceNow. I need to use other tools for event management. It has a dashboarding mechanism and monitors devices and network switches t...
 

Also Known As

Cisco Prime Infrastructure
CA Spectrum
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Mohawk Industries, Universidad EAFIT, Halton Healthcare
National Informatics Centre India, Banese, Olympus, AlphaServe Technologies, Sicredi
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Fortinet and others in Network Management Applications. Updated: February 2025.
838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.