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Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) vs OmniPeek comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 10, 2024

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 Nexus Dashboard Fabri...
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
42nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
OmniPeek
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
50th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (38th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) is 0.6%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OmniPeek is 0.6%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM)0.6%
OmniPeek0.6%
Other98.8%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Jagdev Dhaliwal - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Engineer at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Flow monitoring has improved planning for east-west traffic and real-time capacity decisions
Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) helps to understand the flows and data plane capacities, which are the primary use cases. Usually, people struggle with east-west traffic flow when they need to decide on firewalls or products. People typically understand north-south traffic flows but usually miss the east-west traffic flows in data centers. I was focusing more on this so that people can accordingly plan, such as after F5, the number of servers, the number of sessions needed, and whether we need to plan the interface for groups from the line capacity perspective. This kind of information was valuable to us. The real-time telemetry feature was beneficial. When experiencing performance issues, I could determine if there were any issues related to flows or areas where bottlenecks were occurring.
Vinal-Patel - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Architect, internally known as Network Transformation Lead at a pharma/biotech company with 10,001+ employees
Real-time analytics and alerts improve application performance and network operations
OmniPeek's ability to convert application visibility into flow helps me quickly understand application performance over LAN, WAN, or wireless. Its real-time analytics, integrated with LiveNX, allow me to monitor business-critical applications and set up alerts for application performance issues. This centralized dashboard and alert system is highly valuable for maintaining network operations.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Fabric suite automation is a great feature."
"I like running the scripts. With the help of a Python script, we deployed within the configuration and built up the code."
"There are many valuable features in this solution: The automation of the ILS, the automation of the small changes, the lands updates, scheduling, integration - basically, the pushing of features that we used to do manually."
"VCNM provides a unique capability of managing the admin VDCs of Nexus boxes."
"It has a very nice dashboard so you can see what's currently happening in the network and the performance of the back story."
"The product has excellent stability."
"Data Center Network Manager is absolutely stable."
"It uses push technology, which pushes the changes to all relevant devices to ensure they are updated accordingly."
"The most valuable feature is OmniPeek is user-friendly."
"OmniPeek is a good product, but you should know its purpose for your organization."
"It's a solid piece of software. It's stable."
"The most valuable features are the voice bot, which checks the quality of service for voice, and the expert view that gives me insight on what and where to troubleshoot."
"OmniPeek's ability to convert application visibility into flow helps me quickly understand application performance over LAN, WAN, or wireless."
"OmniPeek shows the entire packet flow and structure, particularly in security-related scenarios, whereas Wireshark sometimes fails to capture all packets."
"The most valuable feature of OmniPeek is the ability to assign custom color codes to the different packets easily."
"The most valuable feature of OmniPeek was the ability it gave us to see the connection procedure."
 

Cons

"API lacks robustness."
"It's very costly."
"More integration features would be beneficial."
"The product is good but quite expensive."
"The tool's pricing strategy could be improved to compete more effectively in the market, especially against competitors like Huawei, Aruba, and Juniper."
"I would like to see improved integration with other tools."
"The visibility of applications is not great, which is why we study upscalability."
"It's a relatively expensive product for some clients so perhaps improvement could be made in that area."
"Making it more clear on how to configure the filters, or really automating them, would be an improvement."
"Sometimes setting up the filters for the product is difficult, and I can't quickly sharpen them from the home screen."
"I don't see a clear roadmap in the future for improving this software."
"Centralized management of configurations needs improvement."
"I would like to see the saving feature improved. We have had issues if you do not save your progress then you have to start from the beginning."
"I would like to see the tool work in an open environment the same as how it does in a closed environment."
"OmniPeek doesn't support Linux or Unix installations, which prompted the shift to Wireshark."
"I am not using OmniPeek for automation, we only do manual testing. Automation testing is tedious to do. The automation should be more user-friendly. I have exposed some APIs but the usage is not user-friendly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I would say that the pricing offers great value for the money."
"The price of Cisco Data Center Network Manager is expensive compared to other vendors on the market."
"When we purchase a Nexus box, the MDS CM license comes with it."
"We usually opt for a yearly plan, commonly for three or five years upfront. Some customers may not utilize all the features included in the product, and this can lead to them paying for functionalities they don't need."
"On average, Data Center Network Manager's pricing isn't too costly unless you choose a premier license."
"The tool is always expensive, but their service, product quality, and support are good. We're happy with it, but it's still an expensive solution. There are cheaper alternatives but no similar platform across all domains."
"The solution is very expensive."
"The product is licensed with contracts that work on a yearly basis rather than a monthly model."
"We have only purchased the add-on once and have not paid for any subsequent versions as it was too costly for us."
"There are different types of licenses available."
"The pricing for this solution could be improved, as it is a very expensive product."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
15%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
18%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Construction Company
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise16
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise7
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Cisco Data Center Network Manager?
I do not believe it integrated well with different infrastructures for hybrid environments. I am uncertain because we have never attempted that in our environment, so they could perform better in t...
What is your primary use case for Cisco Data Center Network Manager?
The main use case for URL filtering with PAN-DB is that it performs quite well. Earlier, when I started in 2012, there was a Blue Coat product available during that period. I am not certain whether...
What advice do you have for others considering Cisco Data Center Network Manager?
I do not have experience with Cortex. I worked primarily with Strata firewalls, Global Protect, and Prisma. These are the three primary products I have worked on. I am familiar with Prisma Access b...
What needs improvement with OmniPeek?
There isn't anything specific that needs improvement in OmniPeek, as it performs better than Wireshark for our requirements. However, OmniPeek could benefit from supporting different platforms. Pla...
What is your primary use case for OmniPeek?
I have been working with the OmniPeek product for almost two years at the start of my career, primarily using it for wireless 802.11 Wi-Fi packets, sniffer, and analysis. My experience with OmniPee...
What advice do you have for others considering OmniPeek?
I didn't explore much about OmniPeek beyond its basic features. OmniPeek is user-friendly and easy to start working with, especially on the Windows platform. For beginners, it is very easy to handl...
 

Also Known As

Cisco Data Center Network Manager
Savvius OmniPeek
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Banco de Guayaquil, Cox Communications, Kuwait Petroleum Italia, Roper St. Francis, University of British Columbia
Apcon, Aruba Networks, Avaya Inc., Cisco Systems, Ekahau, Gigamon Systems, HP, IBM, IXIA, Meru Networks, Napatech, NextComputing, Procera Networks, Qualcomm Atheros, Ralink Technology Corporation, Telchemy
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (Formerly DCNM) vs. OmniPeek and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
917,433 professionals have used our research since 2012.