Cisco Ethernet Switches Reviews

We have distributed locations, and we have them at different locations behind firewalls.

Being able to deal with multiple VLANs to segment the network logically is the biggest feature for us. The management of these switches is okay for us. These switches work very well, and they meet our needs. 

The pricing can be improved to make them more suitable for SMBs.

In terms of features, they tick all the boxes as of now. That could be because we tailor the solution around the product. I have not seen anything that pulls me back or is not working well for me. However, there could be better integration with the network monitoring systems. It doesn't mean it is currently not there, but there could be better discoverability with some of the network monitoring systems to be able to have more visibility. When you're setting up a control room, you can have more visibility into what is going on in the network. It has been doing that, but it can do that more.

I have been using this solution for over five or six years.

Their stability is very good. Even when they are reaching the end of life, they still have a lot of life in terms of stability. They are very durable and stable. They can run for a lot more time, but for a business, security is important, and it becomes necessary to upgrade to new models and let these devices die. We have to upgrade to the latest models because of company policy, but there is no problem with their durability or robustness.

We usually over-spec, and there is no problem with scalability. They're able to handle everything very well. In all the fields where we are using them, we haven't encountered a situation that they are not able to handle. They work fine.

In our company, they are being used at different levels. They're basically serving everyone, and there are about 500 people in our company. They serve right up to the data center.

In terms of our plans to increase its usage, a lot of discussions are going on about moving to the cloud, SD-WAN, and things like that. With the ongoing situation of the pandemic, there have been discussions about scaling down the local network and moving towards service provision for remote workers, as opposed to on-prem. We might scale down the local network and move things to the cloud and other remote access technologies.

I've not interacted much with them because I've not had a lot of issues. If there is anything, I get a lot of information from FAQs and online forums. It does not really go to the point where I've to go to Cisco's support desk. There is a lot of good documentation. They've done a good job with the documentation of it. It has always helped me.

We didn't use any other solution previously on this site. It was our go-to solution from the start because of its security and market sentiment. At different locations for different clients, we use different products, but this is what we have been using on our site.

It was straightforward. I have a lot of experience with them in different organizations and through my own career path, so it wasn't hard for me. I'm used to them.

The project was deployed in phases. Most of the time was spent on the server-side of things. The setup time for switches was very less. It took two to three hours to get them up and running. It was not a problem.

It was done in-house. We have in-house expertise.

We have four people for its deployment and maintenance, and we are able to handle it well. There are two technicians from the IT department, and the rest of them are in the management role, but when it comes to the deployment, they are able to do the physical work.

Quality comes at a price. I've been around the block a bit, and I know that good quality comes at a price. However, some of the organizations don't have big budgets, so you have to develop different solutions for them. They don't have the budget to get some of the high-end features. Cisco can consider providing entry-level hardware to suit SMBs.

I have complete confidence in this solution. It is my go-to solution when I'm organizing any network for a client. Of course, for many people, its cost could be an issue, but when you consider running a stable implementation and the risk of downtime in case of any issue vis-a-vis the initial purchase cost of the equipment, it is a no-brainer. I would suggest people take this route. If someone has the budget, they shouldn't skimp on it.

I would rate it an eight out of 10.

I'm a senior security network engineer and we have a gold partnership with Cisco. 

The valuable features of this solution are bandwidth, speed, low latency, and performance. Those are all features we need for our data center. 

I'd really like to see more programmability for the switches. We need more Python scripts because what we currently have doesn't cover all the configurations in the switch configuration. It would be helpful to have ASIC fast switching. I'd like higher speed and we're always looking for additional bandwidth.

We've been using this solution for over three years. 

The solution is stable. 

The solution becomes more scalable as more switches are connected to the ACI fabric. We currently have 2,000 users and this is increasing all the time. We just increase our switches as our users increase. 

If there are issues regarding the iOS or something similar, we open a ticket with Cisco tech support and they are very helpful. We're able to deal with most issues ourselves. 

The initial setup is relatively easy although I'd prefer if it were automated. If we have 100 sites and every site has nine or ten switches, it's a lot of work. For a small or medium implementation, it doesn't take long but for the enterprise sites, it takes some time. The initial configuration on one switch takes about 30 minutes. 

We pay an annual license fee and there are no additional costs other than when there is hardware failure. 

I recommend this solution, it's very dependable.

I rate this solution eight out of 10. 

Product counterfeiting is a big problem in the Kenyan market. Many people trust Cisco because you won't find a fake Cisco product, at least not in this use case.

You have to be Cisco-certified to work on Cisco products, so we can't get into Cisco to do even basic configurations. I may be speaking from ignorance, but in my experience, Cisco products lack a GUI. You can barely get around the basic system, so the interface is something I would improve. The overview and configuration are good for security purposes, but it's bad if you want your products to be the product of choice of the average user. Cisco should do work on making its switches less cryptic.

We've been using Cisco Ethernet Switches since 2000. We recommend Linksys for customers who can't afford Cisco, but Cisco has always been our dominant product. 

The greatest advantage of Cisco switches is their reliability. For example, we bought some 500 series switches back in 2002 or 2003, and they ran 24/7. I never had an issue for seven years. 

I think Cisco Ethernet Switches are quite scalable, with lots of options. It's not an issue at all for anyone to expand. 

You can get professional support in this market. We have quite a lot of guys working with Cisco in Kenya, so it's not too hard to get a Cisco specialist to configure your network for you. It's not hard to get a Cisco-certified professional in the market. They might not be cheap, but they're there. 

Setting up a Cisco switch isn't hard. You take it out of the box, switch it on, mount it, and connect it. Then it's up and running. It's more complicated to do port configurations, customization, or anything fancy. 

Cisco is quite expensive. In our market, a lot of customers are forced to go with something else because they cannot afford a brand-new Cisco even though they know a Cisco switch will be more reliable. They'll for a Linksys switches because that is what they can afford. It's mainly an issue for medium-sized businesses. Pricing is negotiable and if you are a large enterprise, you're less worried about the price.

I rate Cisco Ethernet switches eight out of 10. I would give them a higher rating, but they need to be more sensible on their pricing. They may want to maintain that high price because their products are higher quality. At the same time, other vendors are coming in and filling this space at the bottom of the pyramid. They might end up being a niche market product for people who know or prefer Cisco. I don't think this was their original strategy. I'm sure their original plan was to corner the market on switches for anyone who needs one. The advice I would give to potential Cisco customers is to make sure you know exactly what you want, so you get value for the money. Think about the scalability of your business and your requirements. 

We have a local network and we have four Cisco Ethernet Switches that have 48 ports.

The management of the solution could improve.

Cisco Ethernet Switches are stable.

The solution is scalable.

Cisco technical support is good. We have a better experience because we have local support when we have some technical problems. The team support is very good.

The setup of the solution is easy.

The price of Cisco Ethernet Switches here in India is too high. There are other cheaper solutions available.

Our management has decided we should look into other solutions, and we are currently evaluating Juniper switches. We are checking the performance of the solution.

Cisco products are good, but nowadays technology is changing, some other products are available in the market. We are checking some different products available. I'll see how the performance is and how it works on the network.

I rate Cisco Ethernet Switches a nine out of ten.

We don't work with the latest version, which is why I am currently conducting research. We wish to see if we can move from the existing solution to an upgrade. We have been using 2960 switches for a very long time, say... five, six or seven years, and they have reached the end of their lives, which is why I proposed a change. 

When it comes to switching routing, we have no doubts about Cisco. It's a robust solution. One cannot find latency, such as attenuations, even within our cables. It's really stable. In contrast, some other switches can switch over, but we found Cisco Ethernet Switches to be stable and robust, even taking into account Africa's infrastructure.

I would like for the solution to have more security features and be more user-friendly. It should have a GUI graphical user interface which would allow the person to interact with it. The look and feel should be addressed. As people are in the process of moving away from CLI, it should be something that anybody can manage.

I have been using Cisco Ethernet Switches for more than 10 years.

the solution is really stable. 

We may switch to another solution, although this will depend on the cost. The dollar has multiplied five times over the past ten years, which means that certain things are not affordable in dollars at the moment. I am not saying that the best product would be be cost prohibitive for us. This said, one's budget and the cost of materials must be weighed. 

Cisco is consistently at the top of its game when it comes to quickly routing our security. Other solutions with which I have experience are less so, such as concern identity service engines. The problem with this is the support. Switches are appliances that, once put in place, hardly require support. However, this is needed for firewalls, routers and other security appliances, but is hard to come by in Nigeria

I'm not saying that I am dissatisfied with Cisco's technical support, but I am looking at what is involved in reaching it and having the app escalated to the second party. 

Generally speaking, it is not possible to reach second-line support. One would usually reach the original equipment manufacturer at first-line support. Generally speaking, they would prefer not to escalate an issue. Take, for example, the Cisco security appliance we currently have deployed. It must be unplugged and we are not benefiting from the support that we need. 

The solution can be comparatively cheaper. 

I am currently in the process of comparing the solution with that of Huwei switches, which I know can be cheaper, taking into account the exchange rate with Yuan and the dollar increase in Nigeria. 

Although I am not looking for a cheaper solution, I am doing so for one that is affordable. 

There are between 2,000 and 2,500 people making use of the solution in our company.

I rate Cisco Ethernet Switches as a nine out of ten. 

We primarily use the solution in our data center or campus connectivity. We're using bridges to connect end-user devices and terminals.

The solution comes from a solid company that always offers good quality products. It's a real market leader in this area and can provide end-to-end solutions.  

The initial setup is straightforward. It's not too hard.

The product offers very good customer support. It's likely the best in the industry.

There is very good distribution around the globe. 

The products are very reliable.

A single switch is very easy to manage.

Cisco doesn't do everything 100% perfect. There are competitors that have developed simpler and cheaper options, for example. The solution really should offer better pricing. It would help them stay competitive.

The product is a bit difficult to manage as there's a different management system now.

The network management system could be improved. 

I've worked with the solution for 25 years now. I've used it for decades. I have a wealth of experience with this product.

The solution is quite stable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable. The performance is good.

The product scales quite well. It works for any size organization. A company can also expand it out if they need to.

We have around 2,500 customers and half of them use Cisco.

Technical support is excellent. It's the best in the industry.

As an implementor, I've worked with a variety of solutions, including Aruba, Mellanox, Juniper, Ruckus, and more. I've worked with most of the vendors in the industry.

The initial setup is not overly complex. It's pretty straightforward. 

The deployment depends. It can take from a couple of minutes to a couple of months. It depends on the project and it depends on the size of the network.

How many people you need for the deployment depends on the size of the job. Some companies have their own on-site engineers.

The solution does not come cheap. It's quite pricey.

You do need a license in order to use the solution.

I work with the latest version of the solution. I'm an implementor and my company is a Cisco Gold partner.

I would recommend the solution to others. I would rate the solution at an eight out of ten.

We are using Cisco Switches in a data center for access at the core level and the access level as well.

What I like the most is the performance and the latency that Cisco provides.

Once you have the Cisco box, you can put it in its place, switch it on and you can forget that it is there.

The GUI is not that easy. They need to work on the CLI, and to do that you have to have technical resources in-house if you want to do it yourself.

I have been using Cisco Ethernet Switches for approximately two years with this company. I have been using Cisco for two years, but in my entire career, I have been using Cisco for 15 years.

It's a stable solution. There are no issues with stability.

There are no limitations to scalability. It depends on what you choose. Once you choose the product you want then collaborate with getting that box which is important.

You need to know what your plan is two years in advance, and how you want to upgrade it. You will need to select the box as it is.

If you make your own selection, there may be an issue. Cisco provides many scalable options.

It has never been a case of getting support from Cisco directly. I have purchased Cisco from my vendor and receive 100% support. I have no issues with support in my city. From whatever vendor I purchase from, I get full support.

The initial setup is not too complex, but you will need to have technical resources if you want to configure it properly.

They are plug and play. You can just plug and start working with it, but in order to use the full features or basic features, you need some kind of technical expertise.

In Cisco, the GUI interface is not that easy. 

If you are not a technical person, you can install it, but you can't use it to its full potential. You will be working with a simple switch and for what you are paying, you won't be getting anything out of it, as it won't be configured properly.

The price could be reduced. Cisco is costly.

Price is a major concern with Cisco. Companies tend to move away from Cisco because the price is on the higher side. In addition to the fees being high, you pay for support which is also on the higher side.

Many companies tend to go with other options because of pricing.

We did a comparison between Cisco and Ruckus because we were looking at changing our wireless system.

We use Cisco, but have not used Ruckus before and wanted to evaluate which was better.

The PoC that was completed showed that Ruckus was more successful and useful than Cisco. Also, the cost of Cisco is much higher than Ruckus is.

When comparing cost, the ROI, and the cost of support, Cisco is way above Ruckus. We have decided that we will be changing to Ruckus.

I would 100% recommend Cisco Switches to others who are interested in using them.

Being an IT head, and running a data center, my top priority is to have zero down-time.

Once you have Cisco, your mind is at ease, there will be no issues.

If my rating is based on technical and functionality then I would rate this solution a ten out of ten. If you include the cost and the support then I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We use Cisco Ethernet Switches as part of our network infrastructure at two different sites.

Cisco switches has helped provide efficient and stable switching in the organization. Once configured and setup right they work fine without any worries and has helped free up resources to concentrate on other tasks. 

I love the fact that they can be configured to do exactly what you need them to do, which in my opinion is what anyone with Cisco experience would enjoy doing. They can be set up and configured nicely.

Ease of configuration for none cisco experts would be an improvement.

Pricing can also do with some improvement to make it more competitive with competitor products with similar functionality.

We have been using cisco switches for over ten years.

This is a stable product.

Cisco switches are scalable. I manage two large sites and at the first site, we have about 200 people. The second site has about 300 people. We do not have any plan to expand, per se. I do have plans to upgrade the switches and probably redesign the environment for better efficiency. 

Cisco has a good technical support and I love they way the come in to help when you are doing a research on their site. I have not had any serious need for cisco technical support and so I would not be in the best position to give a conclusive evaluation of this but I must say they do a good job with their certifications so people would need very little of such services.  For a few minor challenges I was also able to get answers from the cisco forums. There is a pretty good database online for any conceivable problems one would face with the cisco switches.

We did not use a different solution prior to this, although we are going to be buying a few Meraki switches that we will add to our environment. We are going to test them to see how well they work with Cisco.

The initial set was complex. When I came into the project, the features were just put in with no consideration, whatsoever. This meant that I had to start from scratch to design the network, draw up the configurations and setup vlans to easily manage the network.

It was implemented in-house.

The price of the product is on the higher side, I feel you pay for the  name of the product as well but it's still manageable for corporate customers. Licensing is simple and straight forward which is something going well for cisco switches.

My advice is that if you are going to be implementing Cisco then you should at least have someone in the organization who is knowledgeable and can manage the features. The alternative is to use Meraki because they are easier to manage.

We have some pretty old switches in our environment and some of them are only 100 megabits. I would like to upgrade them all to at least one-gigabit.

Some of our uplinks are on ethernet, but I want to upgrade them to fiber to improve the performance.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

We primarily use the solution for our data center and edge switches. Like a lot of companies, we use (in the data center) core switches on Layer 3, and (on the edge) switches in Layer 2. 

Cisco as a whole is flexible. 

The solution can be configured to our specifications.

The solution allows you to monitor CPU utilization and memory usage.

You can only configure both switches and routers via the command-line. They should work to take on the newer HP and Aruba approach where you can configure from a URL or command line.

It could be useful if they developed the GUI interface to enable us to configure all features such as VLANs, port assignment, routing, DSP, through the GUI. That would make it easier for beginners. 

Cisco products are expensive compared to any other solution. Now, there are many competitors that give the same level of services - such as Juniper or Aruba.

We've been using this solution for about eight years. It's been a long time.

The solution is quite stable. Cisco offers very reliable products. All of their hardware is quite reliable.

The solution is quite scalable. However, the pricing is a concern. If I need to add switches, I tend to look at cheaper options like Juniper or HP.

In my organization, there were about 150 switches or more. That covered about 4,000 users and covered both wireless and LAN, wired and wireless.

We may not continue to use it, as it is expensive and there are alternatives.

There are many vendors in Egypt. Therefore, we can always find someone who can help us with technical support.

On top of that, we've found the website to be quite good in terms of finding documentation to help with troubleshooting.

We also use Aruba switches. I've used HP in the past as well.

Depending on the project for configuration, and considering deploying only one switch at a time, it may take about five minutes to handle one switch. Aruba, in contrast, might take ten minutes.  

We had about four people who handled the deployment.

The pricing of the solution is quite high. There are lots of comparable products out there that are nowhere near the cost. 

We're just customers and end-users.

We use Cisco switches at Layer 2 and Layer 3.

I wouldn't necessarily recommend Cisco to other organizations. After using HP, I found that they had just as good of a product with more features and better pricing.

In general, I would rate this product at a seven out of ten.