Cisco Catalyst Switches Reviews

The switches are the easiest to deploy and maintain out of other competitors.

In terms of technology, Cisco is the leader in everything. I'd rather buy a second-hand Cisco switch than a brand new switch from a competitor. They're that reliable and resilient.

Cisco offers many ranges of switches and you'd know exactly if you were buying an access switch or a core switch distribution. They are definitely among the top companies. They just know how to predict things and what will evolve in the following years.

Out of the competition, Cisco switches are easily the most expensive.

There's something at Cisco called a console that is used for basic configuration and everything and I think that they excluded a normal USB. Instead of that micro USB they should put in the normal one. It would make things a bit easier.

I've had experience dealing with the solution since 2010. It's been about ten years now.

The stability of Cisco is unmatched. We don't experience bugs or glitches or have any issues. There's been no worry of crashing. The technology is impeccable.

The scalability is quite good. We've never had any issues with scaling if necessary.

If the company pays for a given device's Smart Net - that's Cisco's official name for support -  then the support provided is huge. It could be challenging for people that want to fix an old switch or a router but do not have paid support anymore. That's not the case for us. I do think Cisco could be a bit better at assisting in those instances instead of just putting customers in a position where they have to buy a new device where an old one just needs a repair. Beyond that, we have no complaints and have been satisfied with the level of service they provide.

For me personally, the initial setup was very straightforward. I have experience with the product so it helps. if you are a user who has the experience, it shouldn't be too difficult to implement. Otherwise, you will have to spend some time learning about it and how it works.

Everything depends on the size of the network that you want to design and implement. Of course, you need a consultant if you need something with 200 users or so. Or if you don't have any expertise in IT. The question is, is Cisco switch easier or harder to configure than some other brand or our vendor? And the answer is that, in my opinion, Cisco switches are not among the easiest ones to deploy, however, they are definitely the most reliable switches. 

Cisco is easily one of the most expensive on the market, but users are buying quality and reliability.

The company I work with is a Premium Cisco partner. I've even based my career around Cisco vendors.

The solution is on a Private Cloud that we are renting (including equipment and the data center space and the LANs). We have obtained everything from Alban India, and our customers are mostly on our product site with the cloud. The customers include various financial companies, payment providers, etc. We're a systems integrator.

I would easily rate the solution ten out of ten. It's really great.

In terms of advice for other companies, I'd say that whether Cisco would work for them or not depends on the size of the network they want to cover. The small and midsize network users just really don't need to spend that amount of money on Cisco equipment, but the larger organizations and mission-critical environments definitely require Cisco.

I am a network engineer and work primarily on Cisco products, including the Catalyst Switches.

The most valuable feature is the ease of configuring a switch. It gives you a lot of control.

The community support is good.

I am satisfied with the documentation that is provided by Cisco.

Reducing the price would be an improvement.

I have been using Cisco Catalyst switches for the past year.

This solution is definitely stable.

I would say that this product is scalable.

I have never used the Cisco technical support. The community support is pretty good and there are a lot of resources available online.

I have not used networking products by another vendor.

Catalyst switches are pretty easy to install. It takes between 20 and 30 minutes per switch.

I am the only person who is maintaining the switches.

This is a product that works find and I definitely recommend it. Interface-wise, it is pretty straightforward and I haven't had any issues with it.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We use this solution for networks linking SMB Offices and remote access VPN.

They don't ever fail and they have a long service life.

The price is high and it should be improved.

I have been using this solution for twenty-five years.

The service is good.

Overall, I'm satisfied with this solution.

This solution is capable of high-quality L2 & L3 switching at several different layers of our enterprise with a high rate of availability and reliability.

It has excellent dynamic routing capabilities. We manage a large WAN environment that requires the use of OSPF.

Cisco Catalyst Switches perform these two functions very well.

The most valuable feature of this solution is managed switching.

We rely on heavy segmentation to secure and isolate several business units.

The dynamic routing capabilities are excellent.

Licensing is somewhat expensive and should be improved. Cisco should provide customers with a more advantageous licensing model included with the purchase of the equipment.

They have done some good by providing low-cost multiyear DNA center licenses with the purchases and have increased the number of benefits provided with the HW warranty, but must still work on lowering smart-net cost.

This solution is extremely stable.

The technical support for this solution is excellent. They are very knowledgeable, courteous, and adamant to meet their SLA.

I have used non-Cisco equipment, especially in the IoT environment of this municipality. In my experience, the competition falls short when it comes to features and reliability.

In the enterprise environment, there are several others that compare to Cisco and it is up to you to pick the right solution for your environment. For me, it is all related to budgeting, previous environment, expertise, and training needs.

The initial setup of this solution was simple. I included professional services and cross-training for my team.

We have experience in both cases.

 More complex and mission-critical deployments are handled by consultants. Less complicated deployments are handled by our staff.

ROI for this solution is excellent.

My HW lifecycle schedule is seven years. Some of these switches stay in production and performing ultimately for ten years.

Try to buy everything you need in bulk purchases and ask Cisco for volume discounts.

Prior to choosing this solution, I evaluated the IoT environment Antaira, Cradlepoint, and Sierra Wireless. Cisco's solution was superior.

In an enterprise environment, I have evaluated Juniper, Extreme, and HP. Cisco's solution fit my operational, budgeting, and logistic needs better.

This is a solid solution.

When choosing them vs others, it all depends on your budgeting, previous environment, expertise, and training needs.

Our primary use case is system integration on the client end. We propose this solution to our customers based on their individual capacities and requirements. We have also been using the basic functionalities of the tool internally, very basic not to any high-end degree. 

I personally have never faced any kind of issues. The system is running very well and does what I need it to do. If there are any failures or problems we can resolve them quickly. We are able to get things up and running again and accomplish tasks after a failure within a few hour's time. We are very happy with what we are getting from our Cisco Catalyst Switches solution.

The new series has lots of great features; it's really lovely. From a management perspective, a policy creation perspective, and a utility perspective; the functionality we are seeing in the Catalyst 9000 series is great.

The current catalyst is probably outdated so we will most likely move to the newer version of the solution soon. 

Some additional features that should be included in the next release could include the ability to create real integration, standard policy pushing, and optimizations.

The product is very stable in all environments. We haven't experienced any problems.

The scalability is great. I have to say that the Cisco Catalyst solution provides the scalability directly in line with our needs.

Our technical support experience has been very good. We have mainly relied on our internal team for technical support and maintenance.

In the past, we used a different solution but it was a long time ago and I really can't remember what it was.

Since we are all certified engineers we found the initial setup to be straightforward. 

The implementation was done in-house.

I believe that our return on investment is excellent mainly due to the fact that we haven't experienced any downtime, no issues at all. This is one of the reasons I believe the production is a good solution; it's a sound investment. We are not losing any time.

The pricing and licensing are fine. To be honest we have found that this tool is able to meet all of our expectations at this time. This solution is agile and meets our expectations.

Overall, I can say that the Cisco Catalyst Solution is a very stable product. Technical support is good from our experience. Everybody seems to know and work well with the tool, including management cross-functionally it's a tool that we enjoy using.

I would rate it an eight out of ten. The only reason I'm not giving this solution a slightly high rating is due to the fact that we are seeing improvements in the new series of this solution. What we are seeing and what we are expecting are great improvements; the management team likes the new type of architecture we are seeing in the new series of the tool. 

We use this solution for provisioning.

We heavily use the SmartPort features. It has really helped us. The U.S. policies are handled by the auto SmartPort feature.

It's easy to use and easy to configure. It's easy to provision and plan ahead. 

They should make so that they let users know five to ten minutes before productivity is restored in the case of power loss. 

It's very stable. 

It is highly scalable. We have 120 users. It has high capabilities. We only require six or seven people for the maintenance. Cisco has guidelines for the maintenance that are straightforward. 

If I ask for any support, they're responsive. Their support is very good. We haven't had any problems.

The initial setup was very easy, not complex at all. 

It's very pricey. Compared to competitors, it's a lot more expensive. They should consider lowering the price for smaller organizations so that it's easier for them to afford. 

I would rate it an eight and a half out of ten. 

They should develop more customization features. It would make things easier for the engineers. 

Our primary use case of this solution is for routing, switching, and for interconnecting sites.

It has become easier for us to troubleshoot and find issues faster in the management software for the switches. It saves us troubleshooting time because if the network is down it has a big impact on production.

The stability is the most valuable feature. We have some outages but it's 95% stable. 

The newer models are not so stable. Other products like 6800, 3750, were stable but starting from 3850 it got worse. We have a lot of issues and a lot of bugs. It's a new product so it's understandable but it should be improved. 

Scalability is easy. It's easy to increase the size of our network, we use templates. 

We haven't had to use their technical support. 

We wanted a reliable solution so we chose Cisco. We began working with them ten years ago. We have everything on Cisco and it's not worth it to switch everything to another brand. 

The initial setup is a bit complex but we have templates so we just have to deploy our template configuration. The VLAN configuration was complex. We have STP and different protocols which are not on the V-port so we had to enable it.

We implemented it ourselves. 

Ten years ago we used Avaya and HPE. 

I would rate it a seven out of ten. Not a ten because we are highly satisfied with all of their products but with the newer products, some parts have problems that take a while to fix.

I would say to go for Cisco. It is a stable and quality solution. 

We use it everywhere in our company. The switches are in our data center and our stores. It performs really well, it's stable. There are some software issues but it's generally good. 

Cisco support is one of the most valuable features. If you have any problem you can find a lot of information online. If it's a really bad situation, you can have a technician help you. 

It should have better security and the prices can always be lower. The cheaper the price, the better but if the quality is good, it's worth it. They also have to improve the firewalling. 

SP access should be included in the next release. 

Stability is perfect. 

Scalability will depend on the specific product. 

Their technical support is very good. They know what to do and if they don't know what to do, they give me the person who does know. 

Sometimes we have complex setups and sometimes they're simple. 

We implemented with MTS Austria. They were really great. They know what to do. 

We also looked at HPE and Juniper. 

Look at the pricing. If you can afford it, buy it. 

I would rate it a nine out of ten. I like it, it works.