Cisco Catalyst Switches Reviews

We use this solution for LAN and WAN networking.

We are system integrators, and we provide maintenance services for our clients.

The most valuable feature of this solution is the Virtual LAN.

This technology is completely mature and I don't think anything needs to be changed.

Scaling can be quite costly.

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

We are using the latest version.

It's an extremely stable product.

It's a scalable solution, but at a high cost.

Our clients have large-sized companies.

We have contacted technical support. The support is excellent and they are efficient.

We are using other brands but the volume is very small compared to the Cisco Catalyst Switches.

Cisco has advantages in terms of stability, reliability, and scalability as well.

The initial setup was complex but has since been simplified.

To deploy with one node can take 10 to 15 minutes.

This solution requires long-term maintenance.

The price is in an affordable range and everything is included.

I would advise going with Cisco because they have an outstanding support team.

They can support up to the extent of installation. They have other services as well, such as RMN. 

Your network downtime is minimal, and your business will not suffer in case of any trouble in the network. I would definitely recommend going with Cisco only.

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

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.  

We use this solution for LAN connectivity. We also use it for routing capabilities. It can become an L3 switch.

Cisco has a well-maintained library of maps and features that we use to monitor. 

One of the most valuable features is the IP SLA feature that allows you to connect the routes or to switch the routes when there is static. Also, the flow exporter tells you which host is using a lot of traffic or where they all are transferring data.

It gives you transparency into your network.

It supports multicast routing. We use Ganglia to monitor the Condor Grid. Ganglia transmits statistics that are multicast. Because it has multicast forwarding routing capabilities, it is also usable.

IP SLA or NetFlow are things that are presented in Catalyst and are extremely easy to use.

It also supports QoS. Basically, it can configure layer 2 or layer 3 QoS to prioritize the traffic that we want.

They have a robust monitoring system.

Most of the time, I struggle with the bugs. I don't find it very challenging to configure these because I have been using them for the last eight years, so I am pretty comfortable with the CLI. With these bugs, I don't know the configuration for a one time task, you configure it, you deploy it, and you forget about it.

The biggest issue we are having is with bugs and memory loss, which occurs when developing the IOS.

We also had an issue with Nexus 3548. The CPU started stalling and the switch became unresponsive. We had to call support and have someone remove that cable immediately, as we are not able to travel due to the COVID situation. Once the cable was removed, the switch came back to life.

I searched through the log and learned what happened. The CPU was stalled for 11 seconds. I searched Google and on the Cisco bug tracker, and I found that it was a bug. There is no workaround for that. It was a huge loss for us and we lost money as a result.

There was nothing that I could have done to prevent this from happening. This is a management interface that is supposed to be used to manage the device. I connected the cable not knowing that the bug existed.

I have been working with Cisco Catalyst Switches for eight years.

We are going to be upgrading to the latest version because there are a few bugs in the release that we are currently using. We are facing issues with it causing the memory to be depleted. The bug is in the operating system itself.

Despite the bug issues we are facing, it is a stable solution. It is partly our fault as we have not upgraded to the newer version.

This solution is scalable. I don't think that it is stackable, but with a recent Catalyst that we have purchased, it provided four 10G uplinks.

Catalyst is installed in a central location. Everyone who connects to the company network goes through a Catalyst switch, one way or another. The switch is placed strategically so that we have the data of every incoming and outgoing connection. There can be 100 to 200 users.

We raised a case with the memory leak issue that we were facing and they said that we will need to update our device. In general, they are very good at what they do.

The initial setup was extremely simple. We are engineers and know the plan beforehand how it will be used, how many ports will be used, what kind of configuration it will have, where the ports will be connected, and where the device will be mounted.

It's easy for us to configure and deploy. It takes two to three hours.

The device goes into the co-location center, where our cabinets are. The switch is mounted and we configure a management IP on that interface. 

The deployment doesn't always involve us, as we are not always able to travel to the locations. Instead, we ask them to contact the vendor to install and connect the device.

The implementation is done through a vendor and our team.

They install licenses for 24 ports and then an additional 24 ports. The client is able to use the 48 ports or just 24 port if they want.

The cost of a license before COVID and before the lockdown was approximately three lakh 70,000 in Indian Rupees. After this COVID situation, the cost has gone down to two lakh 46,000 rupees.

The additional cost depends on where the device is being installed. If it's shared then we have to pay the rent for that cabinet where the device is being installed.

The device has only the chassis cost and the licensing cost.

In two or three years, we renew the support contract and that is an additional charge.

Our environment includes a heterogeneous network. It's not all in the same place geographically, where some of the servers are in India, some are in Delhi, some are in Mumbai, London, Chicago, and Brazil.

The monitoring of the device is in the day-to-day operations.

We don't have a lot of traffic, we run simulations. We need high-capacity servers. In terms of network devices, we don't need much. When we need better switches or better devices, we have Nexus. They are used so that there is the lowest latency possible and maximum throughput.

We have point-to-point lead lines to connect to those sites, as well as architect tunnels.

Overall, it's a very robust switch and it's very nice.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

The product is reliable. The performance is good.

The product could be more user-friendly. The tool is not easy to manage or integrate.

I have been using the solution for five years.

The tool is stable. I rate the stability a nine out of ten. We need to dive into it and know what we're doing. It's not straightforward. We can’t just go to the web GUI and check.

I rate the tool’s scalability an eight out of ten. We need to know the command lines to expand them. It is not GUI-based. The number of users varies from 100 to 5000. The usage depends on the requirements.

We have to go through a long process. It is not quite straightforward.

Neutral

We used other solutions before. We chose Cisco because of its reliability. The choice also depends on the cost versus the performance of the solution.

The initial setup was complex. The deployment takes an hour.

The price could be improved. We must have a relevant partnership with Cisco.

Overall, I rate the product an eight or nine out of ten.

I use Cisco Catalyst Switches for the connectivity of my client's local area network.

I have found that the protocols that Cisco Catalyst Switches support are beneficial for my customers.

I have been using Cisco Catalyst Switches for approximately one year.

Cisco Catalyst Switches is a stable solution.

I have found Cisco Catalyst Switches to be scalable.

We have five customers using Cisco Catalyst Switches.

The support from Cisco Catalyst Switches is good.

Cisco Catalyst Switches has a straightforward installation.

The pricing of Cisco Catalyst Switches could be better in general. There is an annual license required.

I would recommend this solution to others.

I rate Cisco Catalyst Switches a nine out of ten.