Cisco Catalyst Switches Reviews

We have not deployed on the cloud because the company's core business is on yachts. Yachts are not familiar with the cloud and online solutions.

We have been integrating Cisco Catalyst Switches in yachts that are 100 feet in length to 100 meters in length. With simple infrastructure such as two or three switches connected with copper, and with large infrastructures we use a three-layer level with the backbone of a multimode fiber.

The switches are related to simple switching infrastructures, without the implementation of routing protocols. The routing protocols are referring to routers and layer three switches. They are not required with this kind of infrastructure.

I like the management of streaming both audio and video. On a yacht, the network infrastructure is not related to data usage, it is mainly for audio, video management, and distribution. 

When compared with other brands, they are not as reliable as Cisco Catalyst Switches.

There is always something better. The price could be better.

The service contract for technical support should be included for at least the first year of purchasing the product.

I have been working with Cisco Catalyst Switches for more than ten years.

Cisco Catalyst Switches are reliable. It is very stable and performant. There have only been a few failures. In general, there is a very low level of failure.

If we refer to shipyards, then we have six or seven shipyards in Italy and outside of Italy. When referring to Yachts, I have installed these switches on more than 100 to 200 Yachts.

Technical support is very fast and highly skilled.

The only issue with the support is that without an active service contract, they will not address any of your concerns. Even if you are a Cisco partner, they will not address your concerns without an active technical contract.

For networking and switching, we have used most Cisco solutions.

For Unified Communications, we have used BE6000 and 4000. 

Switching solutions we the new brand 9000. 

We started with the low level 9200 to 9500. We use the Cisco Firewall ASA 2100 and we have Wi-Fi solutions such as the Wireless LAN controllers 2500,3500, and 9800.

At one time, we also integrated Nexus switches.

In the past, my company used to propose low-level Cisco products such as Linksys. They were not reliable and the return on investment was not as high as Catalyst. This strategy was a failure.

The physical installation is not difficult. There are four factors for all devices that are almost the same. The main factor is the configuration.

If you speak with someone who has five to six years of experience in Cisco products, it is really fast. If you have someone with little experience then it takes longer. Cisco Catalyst Switches can be configured using the command-line interface and not the web interface. The web interface would be fine for people who do not have a lot of experience with the product.

Using the command-line interface is a faster way to configure for skilled people who have experience, and not for technicians who are not as experienced.

It requires a complete team from the beginning. This includes the system engineer, the installer technician, the standard technician, and two or three IT engineers to configure and maintain these switches. 

The price for Cisco Catalyst Switches is not cheaper than other solutions.

Licensing fees are something that you pay at the time of purchase. During the year, I have not had any customers request to renew the license. I have only had customer requests to activate our systems contract when there has been an issue with the device. Cisco products have been shown to be very reliable and stable. It's something that rarely has to be activated.

I think that the price should be cheaper and they should include at least one year of basic service for technical support for each product, and not just the 90 days from the time of purchase.

Oftentimes, when my company purchases the Cisco products, they are not installed until three or four months after the date of purchase. The installation is done at least one year after the building and delivery of the Yacht which makes the warranty is not useful.

I would recommend these switches to others. Over the years, I have been working with Cisco, and Aruba HP Enterprise devices. I can say that if you use Cisco, you will have good results and reliability. With comparisons, I would suggest not to use Linksys products if you don't have a stable environment, and you have an environment that is moving all over the world such as a Yacht.

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

We are using 29 series. We have three switches that we use for common switches and routing. We also have a number of access switches that we interconnect to the devices in the network, such as telephone, CCTV. We have defined a number of VLANs that are running traffic between the switches, and we have done interconnections within the switches, cable, and fiber. 

It is very reliable.

Its price should be improved. It is very pricey. 

Its installation can be simplified. Its installation is a bit complex.

I have been using this solution for four or five years.

It is very stable.

It is very scalable. You can almost do any new thing that is coming. 

Our users will always be around 80 to 90 because the interconnections occur within the switches.

I've just been working on Cisco switches.

Cisco solutions are a bit complex to install. They are not easy, and they require training and knowledge. When we changed our switch, it took 30 minutes to one hour.

I installed it on my own, but most people prefer to hire a consultant.

It is very pricey. You have to pay for support.

I would recommend this solution. It is good. 

I would rate Cisco Catalyst Switches a nine out of 10.

We use this solution in our server room for end-user network conductivity.

One of the main features of this solution is it is easy to manage.

The security of the solution could be improved, it is really important to us.

I have been using this solution for two years.

The stability of the solution is good but could always improve.

The solution is scalable and we have approximately 1,000 computers using it.

The support is good.

I have previously used HP and other Cisco switches.

The installation could be easier.

We have five technicians for the deployment and maintenance.

I would recommend this solution to others.

I rate Cisco Catalyst Switches a seven out of ten.

We generally work with small, medium and sometimes government organizations. We do layer 3 switches, as well as 9200 as layer 2 switches. I'm an integrator and we are customers of Cisco. 

We don't use any specific protocols. For us, the hardware and the security are the product's valuable features and performance of this solution is good. 

The cost of this product is very high and not all companies can afford it. Government entities can but corporations these days are hesitant to get Cisco. They're looking for other options that can cut their costs by 30% or 40% from the cost of Cisco Catalyst Switches. I think the command line in the platform could be improved because it's divided and can complicate things, maybe they can go direct to GUI. Using all the commands is a bit difficult. 

Cisco is stable. There are no issues with outages or integration. Once it's up and running, configuration is okay, and once it's on the live network, it's fine, no issues. 

Scalability is not an issue. Cisco is their own market and it works.  

If I have Smart Net, I get good technical support. Whenever I have an issue I contact them. They're very good. 

Initial setup can be a bit complex depending on the organization. Deployment time depends on the configuration. I did an installation with around 44 switches of Cisco 3850, which took me around one week to do the installation, configuration, and handover. It depends on the number of switches and configuration required. 

When we propose Cisco to a company, the only issue they are concerned with is price and the yearly subscription. You have to buy Smart Net to get a warranty and that is also expensive. 

Cisco is similar to other solutions such as D-Link. They have the same features. 

I rate this product an eight out of 10. 

We have the Cisco Catalyst 2940 Series switches. We usually use these switches for connections inside our office. We have a three-story building, so we have quite a number of switches to connect specific departments. These switches are mainly used to share a connection among computers in a specific department. 

They are stable. We haven't had any particular problem with them. 

Their price should be improved. They are a little bit expensive.

We have been using these switches for around five years.

They are stable. We haven't had any problems. There was a time when due to power failures or outages, we lost some switches and had to replace them. Power is very unstable here, and we are experiencing outages due to heat.

In one of the devices that I am using, I notice lights blinking from time to time. I don't know whether it is related to the equipment, but it seems that the connection is not going through. It only occurs from time to time. I am yet to understand the reason behind this. It is not a big problem, and we are able to use it.

Our network doesn't grow so much, and it has more or less the same things. We are a public university, and we have three sites. I am at one of the sites. At this site, we have about 60 to 70 people. We also have our campuses where some of these switches are used. All in all, we have about 1,000 people.

We are setting up a national research and education network for which we have acquired some Cisco Catalyst 9000 Series switches, which are new to me. When we start using these, I would have more to say about what they can achieve in terms of scalability.

We don't have external technical support. Unfortunately, this is not something that works very well in a country like ours. We have to rely on our own technicians. 

We have had the opportunity, although not so extensively, to use MikroTik. In my experience, they are easy to use, and they are cheaper. Our financial department opted for Cisco, but we are satisfied with Cisco. 

It is easy. We haven't had much trouble.

I can do it by myself.

They are a little bit expensive. We are a public institution, so we go through other traders, and sometimes, they put in their own surplus price because it is a government contract. Cisco products are expensive, especially when you compare them to Huawei.

I would surely recommend this solution. We plan to keep using these switches. 

I would rate Cisco Catalyst Switches an eight out of ten.

We primarily use the solution for the switching capabilities.

The initial setup of the product is pretty simple and straightforward.

The solution is adding more automation capabilities.

The quality of a Cisco switch is very high. They are extremely stable.

Cisco should work to lower its costs. It's quite expensive right now. They force the customer to buy the DNA license and that shouldn't be the case.

Instead of making automation cheaper, they are making it more expensive and clients don't like it.

They really need to simplify their licensing and simplify moving to a controller base. 

The scalability is limited.

Cisco also owns Meraki, however, they keep these switches as separate products, and customers are confused by that. Meraki has a lot of features and a customer questions why those features are there and not here. Meraki also allows for more integrations with solutions such as HP, and it's harder to integrate Cisco. 

The same is true of Nexus switches, which basically do the same thing and yet everything is siloed. It's confusing for the clients. 

I've been using the solution for about 20 years. It's been two decades. I've had a lot of time to get to know the product.

Cisco switches are of very high quality, which makes them very stable. It's a very strong selling point for the product. It doesn't crash or freeze. There are no bugs or glitches. It's very reliable.

The scalability is limited. There are other solutions that can do it better. Cisco is not number one in this respect - especially as more companies head toward the cloud. Luxul, for example, offers better scalability - if that is what a company is looking for.

We tend to use the solution quite extensively.

I've used Cisco for 20 years or so and therefore have had encounters with technical support. I would note that the first 15 or so years had been very great and I would describe them as very helpful and responsive. However, as of the last five years, I find they are going south. They aren't as good as they used to be. It's still okay. It's just not as good as it was.

Whereas in the past I've given them five out of five stars, now I would rate them at a four.

We didn't previously use a different solution. We're mostly a Cisco shop.

The initial setup is not overly complex. To set up a switch is not a big issue. I see Cisco is trying to go into the DNA to do some automation.  

Every site is different in terms of deployment and the number of switches/users. On every site, we have two engineers and we're also doing web support. The setup is a one-time thing and the switches are pretty stable, and therefore it doesn't take us much time to do an implementation so long as there are no hardware failures.

I handled the implementation myself. I did not need the assistance of a consultant or implementor. I have enough experience to handle it at this point.

I've used a few different switches and I wouldn't say that you necessarily get a better ROI just because you use Cisco.

The cost of the solution is quite high. There are other cheaper options. On Cisco, you're paying probably double or triple times the cost. 

Many people don't like the complexity. It should be simpler and offer a low cost. The reason people are looking for automation is that they are looking to lower costs, however, if you go to Cisco solutions, the automation solution is very expensive. This is the opposite of the customer expectations.

I do not do the purchasing directly and therefore I can't estimate an exact cost for the product.

I've used Juniper and HPE switches, and, if you were to compare them, I'd say there isn't too much of a difference. The functionality is pretty much the same.

You can also compare the solution to Luxul, which has better scalability.

We are a customer.

Cisco tries to move clients over to their own ecosystem so that they are only using Cisco from end-to-end.

The solution is very good for enterprises, however, it might be a bit much for a small company that may only need one switch.

If the costs are not a concern for an organization, I would recommend the product.

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten. We've been very happy with the stability on offer, however, the pricing isn't the greatest and the licensing is confusing. 

We pretty much use the solution primarily for everything that connects to a network. For example, we use it for user work stations or some endpoint equipment.

The solution is quite stable.

We've found the product to be very easy to use.

The solution is extremely flexible.

You can scale the solution by simply adding another device.

The solution is very easy to set up.

The solution is expensive. They should work on their pricing model to try to make it more affordable for customers.

I've been using the solution for more than a year at this point. It hasn't been too long.

We haven't had any issues with the stability. It doesn't crash or freeze. There aren't bugs or glitches. It's been good. It's a reliable product so far.

The solution is not stackable. To gain any kind of scalability with the solution is just about adding another 2960 Catalyst device. IN that sense, you can scale it however you like.

In our organization, we have about 3,000 users on the solution.

I've never contacted technical support and therefore I can't speak to how knowledgeable or responsive they are.

I did use Ubiquiti switches at one point in time, however, they were not enterprise-level products. They were more designed for small or medium-sized organizations. It's hard to compare the two.

The installation of the solution is not complex. The implementation is very, very straightforward. If you have a prepared configuration, a basic configuration, for example, it takes about, 10 minutes to configure the switch. Installation is just plugging power into it, and connecting it. It's very easy. You don't need to be too technical.

We had three people that handled deployment and maintenance.

We do plan to increase usage. We bought some more devices at the end of last year. We're just waiting for them to arrive. It's my understanding that the 2960-Plus is going out of sale this year. Therefore, we'll have to find some replacement series if we want to buy more switches.

I've handled the installation myself. I did not need the assistance of anyone. We didn't need to hire consultants or integrators.

The solution is a bit expensive.

We use the Catalyst Series 2960 or the 2960-Plus and some L3 switches for distribution-level switches, such as the 3850, which are out of sale and at end-of-life now. We're using the current versions of the solution for the most part.

I'd recommend the solution to other organizations.

Overall, I would rate it at a nine out of ten.

We deploy various Cisco solutions, such as Catalyst 3850 to 4500, 9000 Series, and Nexus lineup for data centers.

We've got various clients, ranging from financial services to hotels and higher education facilities. There are many use cases, such as data centers, disaster recovery.

Our clients are able to get analytics on how often people are in rooms or using a certain area of a building. By doing this, in the future, they can often opt for a slightly smaller space and use multi-purpose rooms instead. They have higher efficiency and lower overhead for rent and other things.

The PoE capability of Catalyst Switches is great for using WAPs and other PoE equipment, such as security cameras.

I would like to see better efficiency. They are powering all the PoE ports 100% of the time instead of powering only when there is a draw on them.

It has too many options. Therefore, there is a reasonably high barrier to entry in terms of learning about this stuff. A lot of times, you need to be a CCNA, which is like your ticket into the industry, but it is not the easiest thing to get.

I have been using Cisco Catalyst Switches for five years.

You expect reliability and security when you're using Cisco. If you're getting a switch from some manufacturer on the other side of the world, it may fail after 10,000 hours.

It is pretty good. Our clients are more on the large side. 

With 4500 Series, you can add extra blades pretty easily, which makes things easier. You can also just stack them on top of 3850s or something else, add ports, and connect with fiber or ethernet. You're good to go. It is pretty easy.

I have not used them.

I have always used Cisco.

Depending on the use case, it can be pretty complex, but it is all done by people who are trained on it. The fact that you need somebody trained to do it means that it is pretty complex.

Cisco switches are expensive. Their price range is based not only on what the product does but also the name in the industry. 

They are good at what they do. If you need a better product, there are other lineups available.

Make sure that you buy the right product and it does what you want. Don't get something that won't be what you think it will do.

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

We primarily use the solution as access switches they get connected to the end-users and access points and IB fronts. 

The solution is fairly simple to use.

We're able to use L2 switches with this product. We are using normal VLANS plus spanning trees.

The installation is very straightforward.

The overall functionality is very good.

The solution is already at the cutting edge in terms of innovation.

There aren't any features that are missing. It's quite a good solution.

There are two different families, the older family is not programmable. The newer family is programmable and everything is there, so for now, most of the improvement is in the capacity and the speed and other items.

They could use more layer trees or VXLAN. Any modern setup which uses the SD axis and other features would benefit from this. It would definitely be more stable as we could remove all spanning trees. It's already technically there in Catalyst 9K.

Any improvements that they make should be in the wireless area of the product.

We could see more 100 GB interfaces and higher speeds in the future.

The access levels could be improved.

I've been using the solution for six or seven years now. It's been a while.

The solution is good in terms of stability. Everything you need is right there. It's reliable.

The solution is very scalable. If a company needs to expand the product, they will be able to do so.

Our whole organization is currently using the solution. If I calculated all employees, it would be over 70,000 users. All of them definitely go through access switches, unless they are on remote access, in which case they don't access the switch.

We do plan to continue to use the solution going forward.

As a Cisco vendor and a company that deploys the solution to our customers, we tend to handle the technical support ourselves. We assist our clients if anything happens with the solution.

I cannot recall using any other switches. We've always used Cisco.

The solution is not complex in terms of setup. It's rather simple and pretty straightforward.

I cannot recall how long the deployment took. It actually doesn't take that much time. It takes a couple of days for the setup and to connect everything.

The number of people you need for deployment depends on the size. For simple use cases, if you just want to plug in a new switch, you do not need many people. However, in our case, we had a campus and that takes a bit more staff.  

I handled the implementation myself.

I'm not sure of the exact version of the solution we are using. It might be version 15.

I'm technically a Cisco vendor.

I would recommend this solution to others.

On a scale from one to ten, I'd rate this solution at a nine.

Our installation is totally on-premises. It is a backend solution supporting the entire campus. This is used as a three-tier network for our overall networking. We use it as a call switch at the backend, it is also used in the distribution, and it is used on the server farm switches. We use them for these three different kinds of purposes in the data center at the same time. All these servers can function on the network through these switches.  

The improvement the product provides to our organization is the backend throughput over all the sites. It can give us about 1.4 TB backend throughput overall. We have variable multi-gate support through the ports. So we can connect on the same switch with the 1G, 10G, 25G, 40G, and 100G. In that way, we get multi-port throughput on the same switch. Because of this capability, scalability is not a bottleneck for us now.  

We have used Cisco Catalyst Switches to achieve our goals with stability and blanket level of performance. The documentation and help capabilities provided for users are transparent and widely available. You can find and read about solutions to fix your own issues. Virtually anything you want to study about the product or if you want to verify something, information about it is available and doesn't require calls to support and potential wait times.  

The volume possible with the throughput is the feature that is most valuable to us. It helps to get things done. For example, we can program the logic and can get more details through the SDM (Service Desk Management) to deliver a better level of support to users.  

The solution is good but the support from Cisco makes it that much better. Even the task of logging into the system is really good. All those things together boost the end user's confidence in the product and performance.  

One thing I think should be improved is that billing should be customizable for end-user. If the customer wants a particular feature or upgrade or does not want the feature or upgrade, it should be their choice. If the user rejects the additional services those should be cut off from the pricing and not forced on the billing. Instead, they just include these things and the end-user has no choice. That is a concern for end-users who are trying to be cost-conscious and know what they need — and what they do not need — in their environment.  

We have been using the Cisco series since incorporating an older series about six to seven years ago. Right now, we are revamping our architecture with the new series that has the Cisco DNA (Digital Network Architecture). It is the latest solution in the Cisco Catalyst Series. We can use multi-gate ports and 100 GM port gate uplinks with the latest high-availability features along with DNA and deploy the latest technologies.  

The stability of the product is quite good. Cisco is a brand that developed a reputation by taking care of the reliability to perform at least as well as any product on the market. The support level also contributes to that stability. Because they give me all the details, all the documentation, all the product details, and they supply that in a good manner, we can get the things that we need to resolve any issues as soon as possible. They are well aware of the product they deliver and we easily benefit from their knowledge and willingness to help keep our systems running.  

My impression of the scalability is that it is there if you need or want it. But some scalability is also built-in. We are getting the multi-gate switches, and the multi-gate can be scaled. If you have a 10G right now, you can change to 25G later, then 40G even after that. You have opportunities to scale out in different always. In our case, we already knew what we planned to do so we had already thought that through. 

As far as handling a volume of users, all the traffic of our whole organization is going to be passing through these switches. These switches are deployed on the call side, the distribution, and the server farm. Because of the setup, the whole of my data center and any user accessing the system is passing through it. We are a large educational organization and we have between 30,000 to 40,000 users total. On a daily basis, there will be 20,000 users on the system.  

Technical support from the support team is good. Overall with the availability of documentation and resources, it is great. For me, on a scale of one to ten, it would be between seven to eight.  

We did not really use a different system. We were using a Cisco solution already and just upgraded to the newest version of the product so we could have its advantages.  

The setup is not very complex. You will spend more time planning the concept than in installation. We need to migrate the things and the migration is not a complex one. We had some new features to incorporate but this was not hard.  
 
If you include all the testing and the proof of concept, the deployment took around about a month. We just needed to get the things for new features tested and working. We did need some support from the OEM team, but it was not on site.  

For maintenance and management, we did not need anything additional as that was already done by our team. We have about two or three people only. One who sometimes shares some responsibilities, so it is two, only, full-time.  

Because we have a good team in the organization already who were already familiar with the previous equipment and we have good access to support materials use an integrator, we did not need a reseller or a consultant to help with the deployment.  

I am not exactly sure of the final cost of the upgrade as we are still just finalizing in terms. The teams have to finalize the pricing and their exact needs. They have not placed the entire order yet. We should have the whole thing completed in one or two months.  

One thing I am sure of is that the pricing is a little higher for the new product on average. 
It is also a little bit higher than its competition. That includes any competition with Cisco in this category of solutions, like Juniper, Dell, or anyone else. But the thing is if the customer wants the kind of reliability, support, and transparency that a solution provides, then they need to pay a premium for it.  

Advice that I would give others who are not using this Cisco solution is that maintenance is not a big deal for Cisco products. They deliver on customer support if it is even necessary at all. The Cisco team is always available to provide you the facts about the root cause of any problem or to answer any question. Because they have an excellent knowledge base, you can even research things and find solutions on your own.  

Whether you need this kind of dependability will have to do with your use case. If you are working on some kind of critical industry or environment, you can trust Cisco to be a reliable solution. But if you do not have very critical operations, you want to review other options. Cisco might be a solution you would pay more for and you do not really need it. If you do not need it, then you can go with another product like Juniper or Dell — or any vendor or solution that can supply the services and capabilities that you actually need. But knowing that depends on evaluating your situation and the reality of what you need to do.  

On a scale from one to ten where one is worst and ten is the best, I would rate Cisco Catalyst Switches in terms of technology and all the capabilities as a whole as a seven right now. It is a seven to me just because there are problems that I see. The consideration of the rating is just not about the technical capabilities and documentation which are excellent. The problem is that they charge you for what they have supplied that you wanted as well as what they make it mandatory to buy. In the licensing, they include licensing for architecture, for new parts, for the software design, and for the future scheduled upgrades they have over the term of the contract. All these additional things are bundled in the licensing costs. The end-user can not exclude things from the license when you license the new switch. So even if there are items that you feel are not required for you as an end customer, they go on the billing.