What is our primary use case?
Our primary use case is for ethernet switches. We mainly use switches and routers as edge distribution switches. Some of the plants have been with the big pharmaceutical company Aragon. We have also been with a North American company, and others. Most of their switches were Cisco in pharmaceutical company where I worked for 10 years.
Some of the switches in the plants were used as a core. Many of them, especially in Bulgaria and in Europe, I installed myself. Others in America are responsible during the shift time for the configuration changes and so on. They are used in any level, as a Layer 3, Layer 2, whatever. All kinds of switches are used in the different places in our LAN.
How has it helped my organization?
Cisco Ethernet Switches are great devices. I remember when we decided to replace all the HP switches from the American company when they acquired us. We replaced all the core switches with 3850, except in the bigger and biggest sites where we used the 4745 switches. That was great. They are very useful and very easy to configure. It was not much trouble at all and we got a more stable network.
What is most valuable?
We have been very satisfied with using Cisco 2960 series X with EIGRP Cisco proprietary protocol. This saved us much money and worked very stably.
We also installed 47 and 3850 Switches to the main servers on the 10-gig in some places and Nexus devices using 40-gig connectivity.
What needs improvement?
We are less in the Cloud because the Cloud technologies didn't work so well. That happened in all of the companies where I've been engaged.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Cisco Ethernet Switches for a few months in my current position but I would say 20 years or more in other companies.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability is great. Some Aruba devices are more stable, but with Cisco, we never had problems, with some little exceptions. It is very stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is very scalable.
In this company we have a single usage. I first started with Cisco routers in 1997, now we install Cisco routers all the time.
How are customer service and technical support?
The technical support for the core switches especially, but for the rest as well, is very good. It's excellent support. Especially for the core switches we had 24/7 support. On some sites in Bulgaria we one time had a problem at midnight and they delivered that switch in time. They brought the switch very fast. Very good, excellent, technical support solution.
Also, with previous accounts with the pharmaceutical company we had access to a dedicated engineer for the project. We had access to their WAP environment. So, all told, tech support is brilliant.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have used Aruba which is very similar to Cisco. It is also easy to manage and to install. Installing it is straightforward but I don't have too much experience with the priority. We were responsible for their LAN but they have some special requirements which we didn't touch. We didn't use all functionalities in the Aruba. We just used them as Layer 2 switches or as access switches on the main site, and on the bigger sites they had still some old HP switches.
Also, if I remember correctly, Comware had all those old HP switches. We used Aruba just as Layer 2 access devices and didn't use much of the functionalities.
I prefer Cisco. Of course, Aruba is cheaper overall but not necessarily for those small Layer 2 device access switches. I don't know what the price is now, I didn't compare each comparable device. If I had to choose, I would definitely go with the Cisco.
How was the initial setup?
In terms of the initial setup, for me, with much experience, it's straightforward. With most of the switches we had a good team and prepared more than the configuration on the access sheet and then automatically generated the configuration file, just moved it to the note part, visually checking for a minute. Then copy, paste, and done. Start installing. Mounting and connecting. Straightforward.
It takes about one day for the device, if you don't count the cabling and the rack mounting and moving those and so on, and including the break, between 30 and 60 minutes, not more, for each switch. If they are stackable with some stack devices, for all of them, let's say an hour to hour and a half. Not more because we had all the configurations prepared in advance.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I you have a big client or if you have a big project and register it, the discount is good. In the companies that I have worked for, mostly for switching, we had a 55% discount or more. So with that good discount, who cares? It's cheap enough.
What other advice do I have?
Cisco Ethernet Switches are appropriate for small and medium businesses. They also are large enough for our data centers which we had in Tel Aviv, Israel and in California. We had such big devices there.
On a scale of one to ten, I would give Cisco Ethernet Switches a 10.
I would advise others who are looking into implementing Cisco to buy and implement it.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Private Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.