Cisco Catalyst Switches Reviews

Our company is in the financial sector and we are customers of Cisco. 

The solution is good for computation and backup. 

We need to rely on other devices to provide management features. Other solutions provide more features and Catalyst Switches is not user-friendly. Even the configuration is difficult for our new engineers. Cisco has some weaknesses. 

I've been using this solution for 13 years. 

The technical support is very good, but anything support-related is based on payment. Without paying you won't see any service from Cisco. The same goes for training which requires payment. Other solutions provide training without payment but not Cisco.

The technical support license is very difficult because you can only get support if you've purchased the hardware. After you own the devices you still have to pay for support and pay for the license. Everything is an added cost. 

There are alternative solutions now penetrating the market and because of difficulties with configuration in this product, there are now more appealing options. 

I rate the solution seven out of 10. 

I've been using Cisco Catalyst for switching.

I find the quality of the solution to be valuable. I also like that many organizations use Cisco.

I think it is a reliable and scalable solution.

The licensing process should be back to how it was before. Now, you have to register online, and it makes staging a bit trickier.

Pricing could be cheaper as well.

I've been using this solution for more than ten years.

I have found it to be reliable and stable.

I think that Cisco Catalyst Switches is a scalable solution.

I have used Dell and HP switches before.

The initial setup was very easy and took only a few minutes.

I implemented it myself.

I think pricing could be cheaper, depending on the range purchased.

On a scale from one to ten, I would rate this solution at seven.

It is a reliable and scalable solution, but I think pricing could be cheaper. 

I also think that the licensing process could be improved so that staging is not tricky.

Typically, the solution is used for a client's official network and several times as a replacement. A client may use it to replace the total network LAN switch. 

Mostly the LAN switching is the most valuable aspect of the solution.

Clients often do not emphasize specifications of Catalyst features. They just need a switch for an office LAN and other segments. 

There are several versions of Catalyst, and yet, they are quite similar. If, in the simplest one, they could create a Catalyst segment where all the possibilities like QSFP, SFP, 10G, that would be ideal. MikroTik, a Latvian company, has that as an option. They include 1G and 10G and QSFP all in one switch. Cisco, however, divides it into several switches across these features. Cisco is likely doing it to make money. However, clients sometimes don't want to pay more for the switches and they ignore Cisco and grab other brands like MikroTik. As distributors, it makes it hard to sell Cisco when features come at such a high price. 

Another issue is the restrictions on the product. Cisco applies restrictions in relation to renewals on a yearly basis. Many other brands don't have restrictions. If Cisco lifted them, they wouldn't lose so many clients to competitors.

We've been using the solution for a long time. It's been about seven to nine years.

The product is quite stable. It doesn't crash or freeze and there aren't any bugs or glitches. It's quite reliable.

You can scale the solution and you can choose different versions that fit the sizes of a variety of organizations.

Our clients range in size. Some are smaller organizations. Others are enterprise-level companies.

We talk with the support that is based in Bangladesh. They have an office in our country and provide support as necessary. We have contracts for one to three years and they provide technical and phone support to us. The support is fine, but it takes time sometimes to get the assistance we require. 

As resellers, we work with other solutions, including Huawei, Juniper, MicroTik, and some other brands in China (as well as Cisco).

Recently, Huawei has been doing good in switching segments. They're bringing some new features that are better than or compete with Cisco, and they are very aggressive in pricing. 

The problem is they're doing only Enterprise segments. They are not doing SMB.

The initial setup isn't too complex. However, we have very well trained technicians that really understand the process. For them, it's easy.

If our clients request it of us, we can maintain the switches for them after implementation.

We can assist our clients with implementation if they request the service.

The pricing of Cisco products is quite expensive. Huawei, for example, costs much less.

There aren't extra costs for additional features. All features are standard.

We are resellers and distributors. We're partners with Cisco.

We use a variety of different versions of the solution, including 3003, 29603, and 9003. Those are three of the most popular. Which we use depends on the client and their particular needs. Sometimes we only resell the product to our clients and sometimes we also provide the solution and install and configure the Catalyst for the clients. It depends on the client's query.

Overall, I would rate the solution eight out of ten. Overall, our clients have been quite happy with the results they get from Cisco products.

We use Catalyst for campus switches.

As an access switch, it really hasn't made an improvement in our organization. Access switches are similar, in most cases. It's just and end-user switch, so it doesn't really differ if it's Cisco or any other device.

Perhaps the reliability is an improvement.

VLAN gives us segregation.

Cisco should focus more on this type of product instead of on data center switches. They stopped improving the software of these switches and they are focusing on the data center. They should focus on this type of product, more than any other thing.

It might also help if they integrated their security products with the switches.

I had some hardware failure, a defect, on arrival.

There are no issues with scalability.

I would evaluate the tech support as "fair". They have multi-tiered support and especially the level-one and two don't know what they are doing. They collect a lot of information, wasting your time, and then they keep moving the tickets from level one to level two and level three, and when the issue is solved, usually level-three are the ones who solve it. They're not good at the lower levels of support.

The initial setup is straightforward.

The ROI for this product is three to five years.

I would rate the features-to-pricing ratio at six out of 10.

My advice about licensing is that you should have a perpetual license, not one that is subscription-based.

I use a lot of switches on the campus: Juniper, Extreme, etc. I use multiple vendors. However, Cisco and Juniper are my preferred vendors.

The most important thing I can say is that Cisco is using a proprietary protocol, so you should design your network accordingly so that you don't get vendor lock.

I would rate Cisco Catalyst a seven out of 10 because of the pros and the cons I have noted.

The most valuable features, to me, are CDP, VTP, ACLs, and routing.

These products help me dissect my network based on the users within a particular location. They've also provided me the capability to separate network traffic as necessary.

As a user, I would like to see the Layer 2 Switches to have NBAR capabilities as well. It would be nice if the new ISRs have firewall capabilities as well.

I've been using these products since 2008. I have a Cisco ISR 2821 and 2911, Cisco Catalyst 4500, 2960 and 3750 Series Switches.

No stability issues were experienced.

It would be nice to see these products have built-in wireless access points like MikroTik.

I am sorry, but I always go to the forums and not to technical support. I like understanding the system myself. That way it is easier for me to fix issues in the future.

I previously used D-Link Switches (which was a pain) due to the budget constraints. I switched because Cisco was the best option at the time compared to D-Link.

The setup was not complex. I already knew what I wanted and what I needed to do.

Get the best that your money can buy.

Don't ever sacrifice performance, it will stab you in the back if you do.

Cisco was the best and only option that I considered.

Real-world scenarios will always surprise you.

The best feature is the technical support.

An area for improvement would be the high price.

The setup was complex, as we had some issues with the new SMARTnet and DNA.

I would rate this product as ten out of ten.

My primary use case of this solution is for my company's network connection. 

The most valuable feature is how easy it is to use. 

This product could be improved with cheaper pricing. 

I have been using Cisco Catalyst Switches for five to six years. 

This solution may be scalable, but I don't have much knowledge on its scalability. It's used for my company's networking and there are about 500 users. 

I installed this solution myself. 

I implemented through an in-house team. 

Cisco Catalyst Switches are a bit expensive. 

I rate this solution a seven out of ten. I am satisfied with the performance of these switches and would recommend them to others. 

I use Cisco Catalyst Switches for an SD-Access solution.

The solution works well with analytics.

Cisco Catalyst Switches could improve by having more integration with third-party products.

In the next release, I would like the solution to be able to integrate easily with third-party WFi products.

I have been using Cisco Catalyst Switches for approximately five years.

Cisco Catalyst Switches have very good performance and are reliable.

The solution is scalable.

I have been satisfied with the technical support. They are very good.

Cisco Catalyst Switches are complex to implement, it takes a lot of time. You need to take a lot of time to learn out to configure the solution.

Cisco does the maintenance of the solution for us.

The price of the solution is expensive compared to other products from America or Europe. They should have more competitive pricing.

I would recommend this solution to others.

I rate Cisco Catalyst Switches an eight out of ten.