Cisco Catalyst Switches Reviews

I use the solution in my company as a data switch. The product is mostly used in the entertainment systems of luxury yachts and not in some banks.

The most valuable feature of the solution is reliability. I have seen Cisco Catalyst Switches working for more than six years without any kind of outage.

Products from Cisco that deal in areas like VLAN management, internal routing, and inter-VLAN routing don't seem to be compatible with other products. When users put Cisco Catalyst Switches in the same environment or infrastructure where other devices or products exist, like HPE, Aruba, and Ubiquiti, it doesn't work properly. The aforementioned area can be considered for improvement.

I have been using Cisco Catalyst Switches for more than twenty years.

It is a stable solution.

It is a scalable solution. Cisco solutions are always scalable.

My organization has around 200 users of the product.

There is a need to increase the number of devices or switches, or it can be done by implementing a change in relation to the old devices in an environment by moving from a 10 GB switch to 40 GB uplinks. A 10 GB switch is enough for now in my business.

Cisco's support team is friendly if you have a maintenance contract active with the technical support team of the tool. You will end up breaking your head on the wall if you do not have an active maintenance contract with Cisco's technical team since they are not responsive or supportive at all until you subscribe to the service contract Cisco offers.

After dealing with the product for more than twenty years, it has become easy to deploy the solution.

I have been installing the tool inside a luxury yacht to manage some internal data switches and for some of the entertainment systems where streaming services are required. VLAN is mandatory for managing the kind of networks in the aforementioned environment.

The solution is deployed on an on-premises model.

The time required to deploy the product depends on the dimension of the project undertaken by someone. If you install the system in a 30-meter yard, deploying it takes around four days. If you install the product on a yacht where around 100 meters need to be covered, the deployment process may take over a month.

The number of people required to deploy and maintain the product depends on the project size. One person is enough to take care of the deployment in a 50-meter yard area. Three people are enough to take care of the deployment in a 100-meter yard area. In an infrastructure with around 200 people, only one person can maintain the warehouse system.

I rate the overall product a six out of ten from a price perspective since it is an expensive tool.

There is a need to make yearly payments towards the licensing charges of the product.

From a technical perspective, I rate the overall product a nine out of ten.

There is a need to use professional devices like the ones offered by Cisco if someone needs a reliable infrastructure that is flexible and scalable.

Overall, I rate the product a nine out of ten.

The solution connects our hosts to the network. It's our core aggregation and access layer. It's used throughout the network.

I like the product’s performance. The solution is reliable. It provides support.

The support is not the quickest.

I have been using the solution for 20 years.

I rate the tool’s stability a ten out of ten.

The tool is scalable. We have more than 1000 users in our organization.

We contact the support through a third-party vendor. They are not the quickest.

The setup is quite simple. It is not complicated. We do not overcomplicate things. Otherwise, support-wise, it gets difficult. We follow the design given to us to deploy the tool. We use Cisco’s recommended best practices for installing switches. We try to follow it as much as we can. Deployment can take up to a year.

The implementation is done in-house. There might be contract resources that get involved in the deployment, but we don't go outside to another company to get people to do it for us.

Without the tool, we wouldn’t have service, without which we would not have revenue. Then, we wouldn’t be a viable business.

We do not use the solution much currently, but it is still in the network. We have replaced it with Nexus. The solution fits the purpose. I will recommend the product to others. Overall, I rate the product a ten 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 are mostly using the Cisco Catalyst 2900 Series, but some are the new 900 Series and a mixture of a lot of solutions. More than 300 people are working on Cisco Catalyst switches.

Catalyst switches are highly reliable. They have a good product life, they are balanced overall compared to others.

We sometimes have issues using Cisco Catalyst switches in a mixed environment. For example, we are using Fortinet's firewall, so if we jump to Cisco, then we have a problem. If we need another solution for MAC filtering, we need to go for IEEE or AAA. 

Cisco needs to improve compatibility with other solutions and other vendors like SolarWinds. We've had problems using Catalyst with SolarWinds. Some devices can't be put on SolarWinds due to some ID Values and so on. 

They need to show some flexibility because no environment depends on one product. And when we add new solutions for monitoring, troubleshooting, etc., we need integration with our Cisco devices. I think it would be great if Cisco could improve its integration with other vendors in the future.

We've used Cisco Catalyst for the last four years. 

Cisco Catalyst switches are stable. No question about it.

TAC is a wonderful service. They are cooperative and professional. They do great in the case of RMA or case of troubleshooting.

We tried Juniper HP and some other solutions.

Setting up Catalyst switches is complex. We have about four or five Cisco-certified technicians to look after these things.

The price of Cisco Catalyst switches is reasonable. 

I rate Cisco Catalyst seven out of 10. I definitely recommend Cisco switches as a complete 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 clients use it to build a network based on level two and level three Cisco switches, and that's all.

Sometimes, people choose Cisco because it's Cisco. And that's all.

We are a vendor for the healthcare sector, especially hospitals, and normally, we use a full Cisco solution for stability, especially for the stability of the Access Points and the security of switches.

This gives the client more comfort when choosing, for example, Huawei or other brands. They feel more comfortable with Cisco.

The biggest barrier to buying Cisco or using Cisco is the price and also the competition with competitors and with Cisco partners.  

We don't find any problems with Cisco switches except the competition pricing with other Cisco partners, especially because we are a seller and implementer. Sometimes, we find ourselves in front of partners who have better prices than us.

The biggest challenge in using the Cisco solution is the relationship with partners or Cisco partners.

Even sometimes we have clients who need to work with us. And even the needs and the bill of materials are established by us, but unfortunately, at the end, they don't buy from us because of pricing from other partners.

Competitors' prices are cheaper. 

I have been familiar with this product for more than ten years. 

Cisco Catalyst Switches are reliable. I would rate the stability a ten out of ten. 

It is a very stable product. 

The scalability is good. Sometimes, it has about 500 network points. 

Our clients are hospitals, for example, ranging from 50 to 200 beds.

Not big hospitals, but medium-sized hospitals. The most recent one was between 300 to 500 users.

The support is good. Even if we don't need a lot of support, what we got is stable enough. But when we need support, the support team is there.

Positive

It was a little bit difficult the first time, but now, because we have the model, it's very simple for us.

Because we work especially for one sector of the industry, which is hospitals, we have a fixed model to set up the network. So, it's very easy for us to set up a Cisco network in those hospitals.

A few years ago, we established a model for installation in those hospitals, and now it's okay. Our technicians know how to do it. So they can set up the entire network within one week.

The deployment takes one-week maximum. 

I would rate the pricing a ten out of ten, with ten being expensive. 

I would recommend using it because of its stability and high quality.

Overall, the whole solution is good. I would rate it a seven out of ten. The pricing and competition from partners are the main two issues. It's not fair competition.

I accept competition with another seller or integrator like me. But if I find someone in the market who is an integrator, reseller, and distributor all at the same time, it's not fair competition.

Our primary use case for Cisco Catalyst Switches for campus-wide local area networks. We have configured it to power and support LAN nodes and facilitate separate VPNs, terminating routers for secure remote communication.

The platform significantly improved our organization by addressing latency issues in our network. Previously, banking operations were impacted by switch-related disruptions.

The platform is reliable and easy to use.

The product’s pricing needs improvement.

We have been using Cisco Catalyst Switches since 2007.

The platform is stable. We never encounter any issues and receive regular updates. I rate the stability a ten out of ten.

We have over 400 Cisco Catalyst Switches users in our organization.

When we needed access to resources or encountered issues with the software solution, we utilized the help desk provided by Cisco.

Positive

We have worked with HP before. Later, we switched to Cisco to create a wide network area.

The initial setup was straightforward as there was ample availability of resources within our country trained in Cisco equipment.

Our deployment model primarily involved an on-premises setup for the Cisco Catalyst Switches. At the headquarters, we deployed the core and distribution switches to create a robust network infrastructure. The core switches served as the backbone, while smaller switches, likely the Cisco Catalyst 900 series, were deployed in branches for more streamlined connectivity. The network was interconnected through routers, facilitating efficient communication across the organization. Additionally, we implemented an MPS deployment to enhance network performance and management.

The product is worth the investment considering consistency in efficient operations without compromise. We experienced minimal downtime, attributed not to Cisco equipment but external factors like power issues in the grid. It is a robust solution.

We had to pay for the product’s licenses.

It is easy to access the console and troubleshoot the issues. It has effective protocols implemented within Cisco devices.

We mainly use it for user access in corporate offices, but we have been working on certain projects that require using XE access to support APIs and network connectivity. 

I highly appreciate the durability and the availability. It is also proven to be a very reliable solution that ensures stable and consistent network performance. 

Facilitating and adapting the security updates would be a good improvement because it usually requires use to reboot the router to get them. The whole process is slightly complex and it could be easier. 

I have been using Cisco Catalyst Switches for ten years. 

It offers excellent stability. There are some switches with twenty years of uptime which is quite an impressive number. 

Catalyst Switches provide scalability and accommodate different network demands. 

The quality of the customer support that is provided depends on the line of the product and the model that is used. Sometimes, the first level of support is basic, but mostly it is good. Their customer service is available at all times. I rate it seven out of ten. 

Neutral

The initial setup might be significantly challenging for clients who are not familiar with its intricacies. Their advanced features and configuration options require knowledgeable IT professionals to implement them. 

Once the solution is set up, the process of deployment and configuration is almost seamless. It takes around one hour to be fully completed.

I find the price to be just right, it is not cheap, but it is not expensive. The solution provides a good balance between the features and the cost structure. They offer many options regarding the licensing so it is easy to choose one option that adapts to the needs of the customer. 

I strongly recommend this solution because it delivers high-performance switching, enabling fast data transfer rates with minor to no bugs. I rate it nine and a half out of ten.