Cisco Ethernet Switches Reviews

The solution is basically issue-free. They are constantly upgrading their technology.

It's an easy solution to set up. 

Technical support is helpful and responsive. 

It's a stable product. 

The user interface could be improved. 

The licensing is too expensive. It's one of the main reasons customers leave Cisco. 

I've been working with Cisco products for more than ten years. I've used the product for a very long time. 

The stability has been very good. It's quite reliable. There are no bugs or glitches and it doesn't crash or freeze. 

It's a scalable product. If a company needs to expand it, it can do so. It's no problem. 

We've used it in a large company and had no issues. 

Technical support is the best. Compared to other solutions, like Aruba, Cisco is top-notch. 

Typically, the agents are good and helpful. Sometimes we may run into issues, however, 90% of the time, they are great. 

Positive

The solution is easy to implement. The process is not overly complex. Technically speaking, it's pretty simple. 

The solution is not cheap. Cisco is quite pricey.

We're customers and end-users. 

I'd advise users to try out the product. I've been happy with its capabilities. 

I would rate the solution nine out of ten. 

We primarily use the solution in the access layer for connecting EP-phone, PC, and access points. We use Cisco, like 3850, for the aggregation layer, and we use 6500 catalyst switches for the core layer.

They have very good throughput and backup for their energy. We find, stock-wise and energy-wise, it's easy to use with the CLA command.  

I can create a lot of interfaces, or SDI interfaces for VLAN and SNMP. I can show it with my SNMP platform. I can gain much access to them. They are really, really, good switches.

The solution is stable.

The scalability has been great.

We find the setup process to be simple. 

Technical support has always been helpful.

Stock-wise, the solution can improve.

The patching and updating could be better.

We'd like the pricing to be lowered. 

The stability is quite good. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze.

The scalability of the product is great, If a company needs to expand, it can. There is a lot of stacking and cascading that can happen.

Technical support from Cisco has been great. They are helpful and responsive. 

We primarily use Cisco in our company.

It's a very easy to deploy product. It's just a question of buying the cable for stacking and getting it done.

The pricing of the solution is pretty high.

Compared with other switches, such as Huawei or HPE, it's very, very expensive. ON top of that, the campus network, it's not an area that has a high budget. We have to have work towards minimizing this price.

I'd rate the solution at a nine out of ten.

I would recommend the solution to other users and companies. It's great for small to large enterprises. Just the number of ports that we can create makes a difference. We can use a lot of switches with 48 ports. In the smaller cases, we can still use 12 ports. 

 Cisco Ethernet Switches are used for directing network traffic.

One of the most valuable aspects of Cisco Ethernet Switches is many engineers can work on the equipment. You can find qualified engineers that can configure Cisco equipment more than any other networking equipment.

The ease of use and features sets are very good in Cisco Ethernet Switches.

I have been using Cisco Ethernet Switches for approximately 20 years.

The stability of Cisco Ethernet Switches is very good.

The support from Cisco is great. We have trained engineers working and when we need to speak to the technical support of Cisco, it is only because we see there are some errors in the software that we cannot solve ourselves. 

I would rate the support from Cisco Ethernet Switches a four out of five.

The implementation of Cisco Ethernet Switches is a straightforward process.  We're a partner for Cisco via the machine-building program, we integrate ourselves together with those solutions.

I would rate the implementation process of Cisco Ethernet Switches a four out of five.

They have changed over the years and now you need to purchase a three-year obligatory license and then after three years, you are free to use it or not. The model is a bit difficult for customers. This is why we have been shifting away from Cisco equipment.

The price of hardware replacements can be expensive.

I would rate the price of Cisco Ethernet Switches a two out of five.

When we compare Cisco Ethernet Switches to other solutions it comes down to what you need to purchase besides the hardware. Cisco Ethernet Switches' main issue is not with the hardware, but with the software and support that might not be needed.

My advice to others looking to purchases Cisco Ethernet Switches is you pay perhaps a little bit more on the equipment, but there are available engineers to help with the programming, set up, and implementation of the switches. This makes it worthwhile to choose Cisco. If you perhaps have cheap equipment, but if you don't have the people that know how to configure it, do troubleshooting, or analysis, you cannot move forward. 

The equipment might be more expensive, but when you take total ownership of the configuration, maintenance, and analysis, then it's a large benefit. Sometimes customers see only the first cost of the switches and don't look any further. This is a weak point of Cisco.

I rate Cisco Ethernet Switches an eight out of ten.

We are a financial institution and we use Cisco Ethernet Switches as part of our network infrastructure.

The Cisco product range is quite good and they have a lot of features available.

For each of the features that I want to use on a Cisco device, we have to purchase a license. For example, if we want the security features then we have to purchase that in another bundle. The price becomes more expensive than products from Juniper.

The local support resources for Cisco in Bangledesh are very poor and should be increased.

We have been using Cisco Ethernet Switches for approximately three years.

Cisco products are stable.

Cisco Ethernet switches are scalable. We have approximately 1,500 people using them in the company. We have a plan to increase our usage of Cisco by implementing an SD-WAN.

Cisco technical support on the backend, from the OEM, is very good. They are very experienced. However, the local partner and technical support in Bangledesh need to be improved.

Currently, I am also using a Juniper product. The split between Cisco and Juniper devices is approximately 50/50.

We are switching to Juniper because they are more cost-effective.

One of the reasons that we still have Cisco devices is that they have offerings that are not available from Juniper. Juniper is good, but they only have routing and switching products, whereas Cisco has products such as Cisco ASA that we use. In that regard, Cisco can provide more value-added.

The initial setup is really straightforward.

Our deployment took quite a long time. It was between three and six months.

We have six people in our network team and they are in charge of maintenance.

Our local Cisco partner assisted us with the implementation and deployment.

The technical person from the local partner was not as skilled as we expected, which is something that should be improved.

This is quite an expensive product.

We do not pay on a monthly basis. The fees are included when you purchase the device.

When we want an extra feature then we need to purchase another license bundle.

We are looking to gain some experience in using Mikrotik routers and switches.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

The use cases that we have delivered to our customers include for hotel enterprises, government organizations, even military locations. This includes access switches and also distribution switches - perhaps for some organizations in call and data centers, as well.

The features that I have found most valuable are the core reliability and the switching group. All the features are very generic switching features with high reliability. That is the main key point I can highlight.

Feature-wise, almost all the features are there, but an improvement would be to change their market intention. Almost all the Cisco switches are now coming with a license called DNA. D for Delta, N for number and A for apple. That feature is required, he must purchase it and it is a mandatory thing that has been introduced. This is not matching with the Asian market, because let's say you are purchasing a vehicle and you don't want to have a reverse camera, right? But if the manufacturer is forced, fully telling you that you definitely should buy it, this is not fair in that way. DNA licenses, in most cases, are not required, but it should be told to the customers and added to the quotation, because we cannot remove it. This is not matching or suitable for the Asian market. It is not a requirement of the customer and it is forcefully added by the vendor. It's just a license, which you have to purchase for one year or three years, and it will never be used in some cases. In some cases, some specific customers may require that there should be the option to add it. But if it is not required by the customer, it should be optional.

In terms of what I would like to see in the next release, it would be good if they could introduce a switch which can work on cloud and on a local deployment. Maybe the same switch will work. Because some switches are only working alone with local deployments, and some switches are working with cloud based environments. So if the same switch could work on both cloud and from its node, that will be great.

I have been using Cisco Ethernet Switches for probably six to seven years.

I'm an integrator. We are using the latest version. I'm doing the designing and selling. I'm selling the latest version of these switches.

Cisco Ethernet Switches have the best stability.

Scalability in the sense varies with switching. Some switches are fixed, which we cannot expand with the design, but some switches are those you can expand. It's basically the design. So scalability is good.

They have great, great technical support from 100 miles to 200 miles.

Initial setup is straightforward to complete. It is very user friendly for the engineer to configure the deploy.

Implementation time depends, but in general, if it is a basic pre-plan implementation, it'll take only a few hours to configure and complete the installation. Maybe one or two hours, also we can complete it if it is a pre-plan, simple deployment. If it is a complex kind of networking fast structure, it'll depend on the solution and the configuration.

It also depends on the solution. If it is one switch, just one one engineer can deploy it. If it is two switches, also one engineer can, but if it is a complex network, it depends on how many switches and how complex it is. Basically, for switch one you can put only one engineer and that also can be done using a technician level person and by remote logging or you can manage it with over the phone instruction.

Cisco is the leader of networking and I would recommend it for anyone.

On a scale of one to ten, I would give Cisco Ethernet Switches a 10.

The features that I have found most valuable with Cisco switches are that once you get your configuration you can rest assured that it will work. The OS is not going to be failing intermittently or anything like that. Once you get your configuration end-goal right, the firmware and the OS are usually stable enough to work a long time without support. Support is only needed once in a while. My experience is that the Cisco switches are usually rocket.

In terms of what could be improved, there is the bulk issue that is sometimes experienced with the Cisco products we've used. I don't know how it could be possible to be done, but it would be very good if there was an automated patching system. It would be a very big and difficult one, because some of these routers or switches or products are not even within an internet environment. This is especially limited with the switches. Routers can be connected to the internet and switches might not even have internet access and might just be for the local area network. If it has an internet connection, that would be great and if it has an automated parking code inside of the POE this would help them to patch without the user's input.

In the next release, I would like to see bulk fixing. That is basically what I do now. If we could have an automated patch for Cisco to just be standard for patching switches or routers or firewalls by default without the input of anyone adjusting, that would be great.

I have been using Cisco Ethernet Switches since 2009, so probably for 13 years now.

In terms of scalability, normally you have a 24 port switch or a 48 port switch, which are fixed to scalability. So you can't really go beyond what has been provided. If it's a 24 switch, it's 24 users, if it's 48 it's 48, except if you're using the switch as an extender for a wireless device. That is a different conversation, but if you're using it in a LAN environment and for a connected, wired connection, then you can't scale.

But you can connect multiple switches to themselves and stack them and make it one switch depending on your design.

The setup is pretty easy. It's usually easy to configure, especially when you are using it for basic switching. It is usually easy to configure the VLAN, the PTPs and all of that.  The major work lies with your architecture and your design and how you want to use the solution, because once you get the architecture right, then your configurations and all will be very simple. But if you don't, you might have to do a lot of work when it comes to configuring.

A lot depends on how you configure it from the beginning. It's going to influence how it's going to work the rest of the time.

When it comes to switches and routers, I will always prefer Cisco over any other.

On a scale of one to ten, I'll give Cisco Ethernet Switches a seven because switch-wise, I think Juniper switches are also very good in performance. Especially the high end switches.

I am using it for core data infrastructure. I am using model 9600. 

Its performance and reliability are valuable.

Its management should be improved. 

It is not easy to scale.

I have been using this solution for seven years.

It is stable.

It is not easy to scale. We have between 1,000 to 2,000 users.

I have not interacted with them. We have a contractor for support.

We also have Surecom and NETGEAR, but Cisco comes under a different class. They differ in price. Cisco is the best for our company. 

Its initial setup is simple. The deployment duration can take 10 to 30 minutes depending on the model.

We deployed it internally.

It is expensive. There are additional costs besides the license cost.

I would recommend it for its features and reliability. I would rate it an 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.