Cisco Nexus Dashboard

Our main use case for Cisco Nexus Dashboard  is to ensure that all devices have the correct code and to identify any configuration changes between the leaves. If they are not in sync, we try to have that notify us so that we can go and rectify it.

What I like the most about Cisco Nexus Dashboard  is the easier way to know exactly which device is connected to where. It paints a pretty picture, and if there is a link that is down, it color codes it to indicate that you need to pay attention there, among other things. Those are my favorites.

I think Cisco Nexus Dashboard can be improved by making it easier to onboard devices because it is a little hard to onboard devices in my opinion, at least from what I remember. At least that was the case with the previous deployment where we were not using VXLAN technology. The newer version we are about to deploy again for this spine-leaf setup, and I hope it is easier to onboard.

I have been in my current field for a little over 15 years.

The first time when we got Cisco deployed, for some reason, it was not as scalable as how we wanted because the leaves stopped growing after approximately 150 or something. We needed to be scaled much larger, and that is when we pivoted from Cisco to Arista. However, I think it is coming back as they eliminated that problem.

On a scale of one to ten, I would rate technical support at a ten because if you do not know something, the TAC guys are going to walk you from end-to-end.

Prior to adopting Cisco Nexus Dashboard, we were using Cisco devices as one of our main switches that we work with.

I would describe my experience with deploying Cisco Nexus Dashboard as not that bad.

We do not use any of the providers like AWS , GCP , or Azure .

I have been using Cisco Nexus Dashboard for three to four years initially, and then got switched to Arista, and now it is coming back again as we just deployed the servers for those who are in the process of setting it up.I do not think Cisco optimizes the experience of a hybrid or distributed enterprise setup because we have Arista in our network too.I do not know how end-to-end visibility from Cisco affects my organization's troubleshooting capabilities.The first time when we got Cisco deployed, for some reason, it was not as scalable as how we wanted because the leaves stopped growing after approximately 150 or something. We needed to be scaled much larger, and that is when we pivoted from Cisco to Arista. However, I think it is coming back as they eliminated that problem.I would rate this review at a nine out of ten.

Cisco Nexus Dashboard  serves as a dashboard to ensure that all Nexus devices are properly set up.

The feature I appreciate most about Cisco Nexus Dashboard  is the ability to control everything in one centralized place.

This centralized place feature benefits my organization because most of our devices are Cisco, so I can see if something is going on with the device, if something is going wrong with the port, and other issues. It is literally a centralized place where I can see everything.

Cisco Nexus Dashboard is pretty solid, so I do not know what can be improved or what additional features should be included.

I have been using Cisco Nexus Dashboard for almost two years.

My impression of the end-to-end visibility offered by Cisco Nexus Dashboard is that it is excellent because you can see from one side to the other side.

Cisco Nexus Dashboard scales with the growing needs of my organization. We are a large organization, but not enormous. I will assess scalability further as my organization continues to grow, but for now, it works well.

I evaluate customer service and tech support for Cisco Nexus Dashboard as good, but sometimes it is challenging, and I have to escalate the case.

When I write a ticket for support, they respond immediately. I have no issues with that. It is just when they need to fix the problem that some people have to escalate because they do not have the knowledge or understanding of what is going on.

Prior to adopting Cisco Nexus Dashboard, I was using a solution called Splunk to address similar needs.

I considered the change to Cisco Nexus Dashboard because at the time I got Splunk, it was more command line oriented, with people doing coding and other technical tasks. Cisco Nexus Dashboard provides GUI visibility, so you can see what is actually going on through an interface rather than through commands.

My experience with deploying Cisco Nexus Dashboard is that everything went well because once you connect with the engineers, they will help you get everything connected. It is not difficult to do.

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Cisco Nexus Dashboard is that it is expensive. They are not going to lower the price. If you want it, you are going to have to pay for it. It is good though. Once you have it, it is very good. Cisco Nexus Dashboard is expensive, as are most other Cisco products.

I did not consider any other solutions before selecting Cisco Nexus Dashboard because I always have Cisco equipment, so I am not going to any other provider.

I do not have any specific challenges with hybrid and distributed enterprise networks that Cisco addresses, because everything is set up so well that I do not have any problems.

The end-to-end visibility affects my organization's troubleshooting capabilities in that I do not use it as the main software. I have other software that I use to troubleshoot issues, but it is one of the tools that I can use. Most of the troubleshooting I do is through another software called Splunk, which is also owned by Cisco, and I prefer the coding part because I can track things better than just looking at Cisco Nexus Dashboard.

I rate this review as a 10.

Cisco Nexus  is used in data centers with a simple Nexus OS deployment model. In our environment, we do not use programmability with Cisco Nexus . The switches are used very basically in our infrastructure.

Cisco Nexus is typically used for data centers and layer two connectivity. We do not use ACI, layer three, or any programmability, simply switching. I am currently migrating from the Nexus EX series to the Nexus FX3 series switches. I encountered an issue where different models within the same series, the 95308 DC, do not support VPC between the EX series and FX3 series. Although I asked our account manager to provide a solution for a smooth transition from the EX to FX3 series, we currently have significant work ahead of us. We need to obtain downtime from management because we have VPCs enabled with two switches per cabinet, and we need to replace these two switches with the FX3 series because the EX series is now end-of-life. I am installing them in parallel to minimize downtime. If Cisco could support VPC between the two different models of the same series, the transition would be very smooth.

The biggest problems during migration were corporate issues, including dependencies on other devices such as F5, HSMs, and firewalls from Palo Alto. Everything was connected over the core switches, which made this a quite difficult part to manage and to onboard the teams and to understand the impact of the migration.

We encountered an issue where we have two data centers, and unknowingly we were configuring the devices with the same VPC number on both devices. By doing that, we were not able to terminate the lease lines over those core switches. According to Cisco, we had to change the VPC number of one of the data center's core switches since they are in a VPC. We are still waiting, and it has been more than five to six years just to change the VPC number and migrate back the lease line. Now we are having cabin switches for the lease line and then the core switch. That VPC number issue was quite surprising for us.

However, we have a very frequent issue with Cisco Nexus, particularly with the SFPs. Every time a port or the SFP heats up, it gets faulty. We have almost sixteen Nexus switches per data center. In a year, we experience one or two port issues per annum. We have standard Equinix data centers with standard installations, but somehow the temperature is always maintained and there is no ducting, yet the ports and the SFPs heat up or become faulty. This is a very frequent issue with the SFP-based port.

I have been using Cisco Nexus for about nine years.

Cisco support is helpful. I would rate the support of Cisco an eight out of ten.

We transitioned from the Catalyst  2960 and the Catalyst  6500 series switches to Cisco Nexus switches, which follow our traditional spanning tree and core distribution and access layer models. We kept the same hierarchical models and did not introduce ACI or any other spine-leaf configurations, so VXLAN is not used in our model.

The deployment of Cisco Nexus was very straightforward.

I was part of the team that deployed Cisco Nexus. We have a collective team to deploy Cisco Nexus because we were actually migrating from the Catalyst 6509 to the Nexus 9508, which was our core switch. Although the Nexus configuration was quite easy, the whole migration process was quite difficult and involved almost onboarding all the company.

I participated in the deployment of our core switch 9508 model, Cisco Nexus 9508.

Dependending on the experience and the expertise, I believe a single person can deploy Cisco Nexus.

The migration took about two or three months.

I do not use Cisco Nexus to support multi-tenant environments.

Regarding micro-segmentation, segmentation of the tasks on Cisco Nexus is quite useful.

We do not use the VXLAN feature with Cisco Nexus because VXLAN is used for ACI, and we are not using ACI.

I manage the licensing for Cisco Nexus, but the pricing is handled by a third team, the procurement team. Therefore, I have no idea about how much the cost of all the renewals and the new devices is.

I would rate this product a nine out of ten overall.

We are dealing with Cisco switches and Fortinet firewalls.

I have worked with Cisco Nexus  as well.

In the field, I have been working for the last 20, 22, or 24 years.

I have been recommending Cisco Nexus  because it's good.

Cisco Nexus is good to work on, but we are mostly working on Cisco core switches and edge switches.

I would recommend Cisco Nexus for large enterprises and the government sector, as they can afford it.

Cisco Nexus may not be very popular because of the requirements that we come across, as it will go into the core data centers, whereas we work with most of the corporate sectors, so Cisco Nexus is not a frequent seller, and you'll find more edge switches selling in the market.

It might be pretty expensive for other companies.

I don't think there are any other particular disadvantages of Cisco Nexus besides their pricing.

I have been working with Cisco overall for almost six, seven years.

In my opinion, Cisco's technical support is good.

We are a reseller, and we sell products to our customers.

We deal with Aruba, Cisco, and HP Aruba, so we mostly deal with Cisco.

It's not necessary it has to be Cisco, but mostly we deal with Cisco.

I can share my experience dealing with Fortinet and Cisco now.

I have to check the technical features then; I don't remember them by heart, honestly speaking, so I need to put it to my technical guy for the interview.

If you wish to align a detailed interview, then let's schedule a proper time for that, as I've been receiving calls continuously for the last three, four days.

On a scale of one to ten, I rate this solution a seven.

We are not using AWS  and have never used it. We are using the interface onboard. We are using the web application and trying this solution. We want to try Radware solution for cloud WAF .

We tried some software such as Check Point and FortiNet web, though I don't remember the exact names for these types. We are using Microsoft, Cisco Nexus , and normal products on-premises.

There are no special problems at this moment. It runs efficiently. We aren't using special features on the switch.

Regarding maintaining infrastructure, we have achieved uniformity. For us, we have a time advantage because we know the solution, and the technological refresh is easier. The advantage is approximately 20%.

All solutions are very expensive and not an economy solution.

The solution is on-premises and stable.

We haven't tried integration with the network software.

I rate this solution eight out of ten.

The installation is handled by our partners, so this is not our concern.

The solution is on-premises and stable.

We have a partner that solves our problems through contact with our Cisco Nexus  partner.

Regarding maintaining infrastructure, we have achieved uniformity. For us, we have a time advantage because we know the solution, and the technological refresh is easier. The advantage is approximately 20%.

We have never used other solutions. We use Dell for a specific case, but it is installed by Dell for Dell machines. We don't administer these types of switches as the solution is managed by Dell, not by us.

The installation is handled by our partners, so this is not our concern.

We have a partner that solves our problems through contact with our Cisco Nexus partner.

The return on investment is more than 20%.

All solutions are very expensive and not an economy solution.

We have never used other solutions. We use Dell for a specific case, but it is installed by Dell for Dell machines. We don't administer these types of switches as the solution is managed by Dell, not by us.

We are trying this solution and want to try Radware solution for cloud WAF .

We tried some software such as Check Point and FortiNet web.

The installation is handled by our partners, so this is not our concern.

This is private information for Cisco Nexus networking.

The solution is on-premises and stable.

Regarding maintaining infrastructure, we have achieved uniformity. For us, we have a time advantage because we know the solution, and the technological refresh is easier.

I rate this solution eight out of ten.