Cisco Catalyst Switches Reviews

It is an infrastructure tool, so it is just providing a backend service. Its most useful feature is that it operates on a regular basis. It is reliable. 

Cisco is weird about their pricing models, so that's one problem. Their operating system is also a little outdated.

I have been working with this solution on and off for about ten years. We are using the Cisco Catalyst 9000 series.

It is generally a very stable solution.

It is weird in terms of scalability. By the time you get to the point of scaling up any equipment, which it is capable of doing relatively easily, it is usually out of date. You end up having to rip and replace everything anyway. So, technically, it is scalable, but in practicality, it is not.

We're sticking with this one for a while. I am not aware of any plans to increase its usage.

Their tech support has always been very helpful to me. I have no issues there.

If you are trained, it is very straightforward. You have to be skilled in order to get it going. They do provide support for those who don't have these skills.

In terms of maintenance, one person could support a thousand people, but that would be a very busy job. It is better with a team.

The best advice would be to get your training done so that you get a good overview of all the solutions.

I would rate Cisco Catalyst Switches a seven out of ten.

Cisco Catalyst Switches are more for core switching because they are enterprise solutions. We mostly use Cisco for all of our infrastructure, so these switches are used everywhere as core switches. 

These switches are very stable. We haven't had any problems. We also have some old switches that are working for almost ten years.

Their price should be cheaper. We lose a lot of work because of the price that they have.

I have been using this solution for more than 10 years.

They are very stable.

We have a hundred users and maybe a hundred other ports for connecting servers with each other.

I have opened a case with them for the FirePOWER Services, not Cisco Catalyst Switches, and it is the first time that I haven't got a response. It has been a week since I've sent the request, which was just a question, but I don't have any response so far. For the previous cases that I had with tech support, they were very quick.

If you have experience in working with Cisco solutions, the initial setup is easy. Otherwise, it may be complicated. 

The deployment doesn't take a long time. We already have the guidelines, and we have been doing it and using Cisco for a long time. It usually takes a maximum of one hour to configure the switches. Two people will be enough for deploying these switches.

These switches are expensive. 

I would recommend these switches to others. We plan to keep using them. 

I would rate Cisco Catalyst Switches a ten out of ten. We are happy with them.

AWS Direct Connect.

• BGP
• Familiar CLI

We have used BGP over IPSec to AWS but there were problems with bandwidth. I migrated to the Catalyst C3850 because AWS Direct Connect doesn't need IPSec. We have to use the QoS (CBWFQ) function. I understand the function of QoS and it is easy to use.

It's a stable product.

Technical support is average.

The initial setup was easy.

The pricing could be better.

I would suggest looking into the Cisco Nexus 92160YC-X. It has a lower price than the C3850 and high performance, but the CLI is different.

LAN and WAN links in our offices and data centers.

When we started deploying Cisco switches in our new office, we were able to deploy them very quickly. There were no problems at the configuration stage and this allowed us to start work as quickly as possible.

Stability. We have many Catalyst switches now, and they work without any downtime. We work with government companies and we can't allow the business to stand idle.

It would be good if they added some machine learning which would allow us to abandon the rigid rules for processing traffic priorities and, at the same time, save money, because equipment with similar logic (like DPI) is much more expensive.

Soon, we plan to migrate to the cloud infrastructure. It would be good if the Cisco switches worked quickly in the cloud, like their hardware devices. Ideally, they would be like OVS-DPDK, but they would work out-of-the-box.

No issues with stability.

No issues with scalability.

We don't use Cisco support. In our company, we have our own support team with various CCNA and CCNP engineers.

Previously, we tried many different solutions but we had some trouble with stability and scalability.

The initial setup was pretty easy. The first setup was not that big and it was deployed in one day with only two engineers, one CCNA and one CCNP.

Cisco's prices are not cheap, but the stability is worth it.

We tried many vendors including D-Link, HPE, and some cheaper vendors.

It's a very good product but the price is high, so I would rate it at eight out of 10. Overall, it's worth it. Cisco switches have rich functionality.

Office network

Stable solution

Everyone knows Cisco as a product. It is definitely one of the easiest solutions to run and manage. 

It's a product that has dominated the marketplace for many years.

You have many professionals out there who are Cisco-certified, which makes them comfortable working with Cisco. Therefore, getting a trained workforce is easy when you look at Cisco from a deployment perspective.

The solution is stable.

The solution offers a bit of complexity and you need a specialized workforce.

The scalability can be a bit limited due to the stacking topology which limits the number of switches that can be added in a given stack

It's always a while before you can get through to technical support.

I've been dealing with the solution for a few weeks to a few months.

The solution is very stable. It's reliable. 

When it comes to scalability, Cisco is the one who has been pretty heavy on the switch-stacking deployment topology, which hinders your capacity to scale, especially when you compare it against their arch-rival, Arista.

We have about ten clients who have been working with Cisco forever. 

I'd recommend the solution to other organizations. When it comes to the budget, everything boils down to that and that's where Cisco would take the cake compared to Arista.

Technical support could be better. When you call, the wait times are quite long. They need to hire more support or to work to make the wait times lower in some way.

I also have some experience and knowledge of Arista products.

The initial setup is something like Arista, as they do have a central deployment model. The only complaint about Cisco is that too many units have to be deployed to have things done in a much better way, which makes it costly. They could improve on that and make it easier for the administrators to implement Cisco.

The size of the technical team you need for deployment and maintenance depends
completely on the size of the network and the kind of operations that you carry out as a company. With Cisco, you likely would need at least one person for every 50 or 60 switches.

The solution is less expensive than, for example, Arista.

I'd rate the solution at a nine out of ten. The only complaint I have about Cisco is the wait time when you call tech support.

We primarily use the solution for both corporate and data centers.

The solution is very stable and the performance is good.

It's easy to configure.

We find the product very easy to use. 

The solution can scale.

The installation process is easy.

You need to predict your scaling considerations at the outset. 

The product is expensive. 

I've been using the solution for five years. 

The solution is very stable. There are no bugs or glitches and it doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable. 

The solution is scalable, however, you need to plan for future scaling at the outset, otherwise, you will be limited. 

We are quite satisfied with technical support. They are helpful and responsive. 

The initial setup is very straightforward and simple. It's not overly complex or difficult at all. 

We handled the implementation ourselves in-house. 

The solution could be cheaper. It's a bit expensive.

There aren't any extra costs for licensing or customization.

I'd rate the solution at a nine out of ten. We're quite happy with its capabilities. 

I would recommend the solution to other users and companies. 

Generally, we are using Cisco Catalyst switches for the campus network. We are currently using the Cisco Catalyst 3800 Series switches with IOS XE, and we also recently onboarded the Catalyst 9300 Series and 9400 Series, mostly for the campus network. We also use the 3800 Series switch for wireless connectivity, which provides UPOE, supporting up to 60 watts for the PoE devices.

Performance-wise, Catalysts are so good in the LAN infrastructure, especially for a campus network. But for a data center environment, we mostly prefer the Cisco Nexus series.

Cisco Catalyst is one of the most famous and popular devices for campus networks, widely used in most of the country. They are the preferred networking switches with many features that help eliminate the need for a more complex OSPF. They are also easy to configure and manage. With the vulnerability assessment report, we can see there are more improvements coming from Cisco for campus area network switches.

HSRP (Hot Standby Router Protocol) is one valuable feature. In the 3800 Series, we have the Stacking feature which enables combining switches to get more bandwidth and produce high-availability. The Stacking feature can also actually eliminate the need for HSRP.

I would like to see hosting multiple applications on the existing IOS.

Stability-wise it is good. We have had multiple Catalyst switches running for quite a long period of time without even a single reboot. Performance-wise that is quite okay.

The way it is being deployed it is expandable. We can add additional devices, so it is good.

I have used support for Catalyst and it was good.

In most places, we were already using it, and we are continuing to use it. We could see the stability was better and it's quite easy to manage. We are also used to it. In addition, we're able to get technical support as well as vendor support.

Setup is quite straightforward. You need to understand some of the basic components, how to set up the basic requirements. Apart from that, it is quite easy. You won't struggle much if you have a basic understanding of it.

Another candidate would be Juniper switches.

The main thing is that Catalyst has been around for quite a long period. Cisco is one of the leaders in campus area networks, so investing in Catalysts, given that they are reliable, is safe.

My most important criteria when selecting a vendor are the

• product knowledge
• support from the vendor and the availability of the technical staff to support it.

I would give a Cisco Catalyst a nine out of 10 because most campus networks use Cisco and it is one of the best campus network switches. Its performance is quite good, it’s seamless, and stability-wise it is good.

1. Cisco 2960 catalysts switch has lots of security features (Port Security, block DHCP snooping, VLAN).
2. I can create a stack with multiple Cisco 2960 switch which improve availability
3. I can create a port channel by merging multiple port of multiple switches which help me transfer large amounts of data traffic between serveres and it also increases reliability if one switch port becomes damaged.
4. It provides PoE (Power over Ethernet) which helps me easily setup Cisco wireless AP and IP phones at any office location.
5. RSPAN (Remote Switch Port Analyzer) enables me to monitor network traffic flow with of NMS software.
6. VTP (VLAN Trunking Protocol) helps me to transfer VLAN configuration from one switch to multiple switches.

1. It does not provide any expansion slots so I cannot increase the number of ports.
2. If most of the switch ports get damaged than you have to replace the whole switch.

It is a nice product for enterprises and small businesses. It is a small switch with a lot of features.