DNA Center alternatives

[heath]

We are a pretty heavy Cisco shop.  Servers, route/switch, firewall, video and collaboration, etc.  But, as Cisco is making the push toward DNA Center, we're starting to push back.  Like most people, we don't carry maintenance on our access switches.  Just keep a couple spares on hand for a quick swap and rely on the lifetime warranty for an RMA if one dies.  We only carry the maintenance on core devices and critical equipment.  So we have not had an annual cost associated with the majority of our network gear.  We do have Prime and have the annual Prime licenses.

Cisco is (slowly) replacing Prime and moving to DNA Center.  And with the new generation of switches, they are moving to a subscription model for those DNA features.  Our Cisco Account Manager thinks he can get us the DNA appliance at no cost to ease with the transition.  And, yes, the switch purchase comes with 3 years of DNA, but continuing renewal after that is just not economically feasible.  If we replaced every 2960X in our network with a 9200 series switch, the DNA license costs would be several times higher than our current Smartnet each year (which is already higher than it should be).  So even if we tried the DNA features, we would not be renewing those licenses and would go back to managing the switches traditionally as we do now.  At that point, a free DNA Center appliance is like the points on "Who's Line Is It Anyway?" - it doesn't matter.  Not to mention the 3 years of DNA we are forced to purchase with the switch is just throwing money away.

So I feel we're at a crossroads and it's time to seriously look at other options for route/switch.  Is anyone else facing this situation?  And what are you doing about it?  The thing is, I really like the demos I've seen of DNA and would love to be able to implement it.  But the subscription route Cisco has taken makes it near impossible to do so.  So I'm just wondering how others feel about it and what approach others are taking.

[deanwebb]

Brace yourself because *all* the vendors are being driven to subscription-based models. Customer-grade gear will likely be the last to fall under that model, but the day may come when even an unmanaged 4-port switch has a license renewal process to keep it running...

So what happens if you don't have DNA Center? What's the risk and the cost - including non-monetary costs?

[wintermute000]

Your closest analogue (Aruba) is also going subscription based cloud managed, however they don't force the licensing on you and you can still run your own boxes without internet/subscription/services if you want.
Also the CX range, whilst it has all the modern Arista-like goodness, is also approaching Cisco pricing (the old HPE based stuff is still much cheaper, and adequate for most customers I find).

You can basically cobble together a lot of the functionality with various tools, even achieve a decent level of automation if you know some python/ansible and are happy to roll your own. There's a million 'traditional' solutions out there for stats, config backups, logging and all the stuff that hasn't really changed since 1991. However you won't get the analytics/smarts, let alone the automated workflows. And you'll need to spend time (and if you want automation, some programming/linux chops) to achieve this. For example you could define your entire infra in netbox and then push all configs via ansible all via open source tooling interfacing with IOS-XE. Check out pyATs for another example.  Most smaller ISPs/providers are running heavily customised open source monitoring stacks (from old school Cacti/Nagios to logging via ELK stacks with custom dashboards). Its all possible, how much time/money do you want to spend or just pay the fee and get the turnkey?

To be blunt if you're going to do this then I'd question your vendor choice full stop. If you really need Cisco proprietary magic then in a lot of ways you may be better off with what they offer.

From my anecdotal, totally non-representative POV I'm seeing more pushback from customers for precisely the same reasons you've stated (licensing and cost). Some eventually bend, others make the big jump to another solution. Both have costs (in time or money and well time is money as well...).

The other big names in campus switching are Aruba and Extreme (Meraki if you count it as not Cisco which it is but anyway). All are C-level justifiable.... see below



There's also wireless and identity ecosystems to consider, I wouldn't make any decision like this in isolation. This is a really big call-out I feel. 

[deanwebb]

Blow their minds and get a quote from Belkin!

[Otanx]

Looking at the Gartner quadrant Belcan isn't even on there. I am assuming it is because they are off the graph to the top right.

-Otanx

[deanwebb]

Looking at the Gartner quadrant Belcan isn't even on there. I am assuming it is because they are off the graph to the top right.

-Otanx

Exactly. Class all on their own, and it BAFFLES everyone at Cisco!