Cisco DNA Analytics and Assurance vs. IBM Netcool Network Management

So not everyone is in need of a smart AI checking their network metrics looking for issues before they happen or finding and alerting on problems that the network staff may not have noticed, but if you have the budget for it, it could be a huge time saver for your whole department.

Incentivized

This tool was integrated with Control-M, so whenever we receive any job failure, long-running job, job not started yet, etc, we receive an alert against it. This tool is also integrated with Maximo where we receive the incidents as well for it. Alert's color was as per the criticality of the job and that makes it very easy for an associate to act on it to resolve. We have the SLAs for the jobs as per the urgency of the jobs.

Incentivized

• Push configs to new floors or during switch upgrades
• Assurance to troubleshoot issues
• Inventory
• Keep track of infrastructure OS levels

Incentivized

• This is one of the best monitoring tools.
• Very simple to user.
• Color code makes it very simple as per severity.
• We receive the heartbeat alert every hour that shows the system is running up and fine.
• We have black, red, yellow, and orange color alerts that show the critical, urgent, major, and minor incidents.

Incentivized

• May require an implementer to get this set up and running.
• For a software based service that you can run on your own VM's, price is still very high.
• The first setup can be a bear and you will need much help from TAC.

Incentivized

• Sometimes color differences of the incidents as per the criticality .
• We don't receive the heartbeat alerts sometimes.
• If the tool is down and we don't receive the alerts on the console we wait for the heartbeat alert and it makes some extra delay in resolving things.

Incentivized

Cisco DNA Analytics and Assurance definitely has a steep learning curve. While it's had an upgrade to its onboarding, it's still a very technically heavy application that requires knowledge of Cisco networking and terminology. I think keeping that in mind helps with the expectations, but anyone can use the application with a little training and experience.

Incentivized

Mainly we did have some funding remain and major our network gears are Cisco shop.

Incentivized

This is one of the essential tools for monitoring. This tool was integrated with Maximo and Control-M in my organization. So whenever any job failed in Control-M, we receive an alert against it in the IBM Netcool/OMNIbus. We receive the alerts in different colors as per the criticality. Black for critical ones(Sev1), red for urgent (Sev2), yellow for major(Sev3), and orange for minor(Sev4). So it makes an easy to operate and act on the alerts as per the severity. This tool is very user-friendly and easy to use. No additional training is required for the tool to operate, just a simple KT is enough.

Incentivized

• I thinkCisco DNA Analytics and Assurance can have a positive ROI as it frees up labor resources to do other things.
• We've saved countless hours of troubleshooting with our end user device team using it as well.

Incentivized

• Color feature of the alerts as per the criticality is the amazing feature.
• Heartbeat alert is also an unique feature.
• No additional training is required to use this tool. just a simple KT is enough.

Incentivized