Cisco Catalyst 1000 Series Switches vs Cisco FabricPath

Likelihood to Recommend

These switches are extremely affordable and do a very good job of providing multiple network drops and connectivity for labs, classrooms, and offices. Since they do provide PoE, they are excellent candidates for offices that require PoE for VOIP phones as well. They are easily managed and are great "replacement" switches. We have used them in certain scenarios where Access Points require PoE. In some instances, we have had to add a power brick, (long runs) but they will support AP's. A little more power per port would be better, but depending on the situation, they will work. Overall, I'd say they are a very good solution and would have no problem recommending them.

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Garry Bowers

Network System Administrator

La Porte Community School Corp.Education Management, 501-1000 employees

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Cisco FabricPath seems to be well suited for larger datacenters where you need the scalability and flexibility that's provided. We've been able to provide our customers with much more bandwidth than they previously had throughout our datacenter and with applications generating much more east/west traffic now rather than large volumes of north/south traffic FabricPath and the nexus switches have given us the ability to provide our customers with the bandwidth that's needed to serve today's applications.

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Verified User

Professional in Information Technology

Information Technology and Services Company, 10,001+ employees

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Pros

SFP for both (Fiber & Coper)
C1000 gig ports are very useful for wireless AP's and smooth connectivity
VLAN Management is outstanding
RSTP
NTP

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Irfan Mew

Staff Manager

Pak Suzuki Motor Co.Automotive, 1001-5000 employees

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It scales fairly well.
It's been fairly easy for people to learn and work with.
It has simplified network administration by utilizing Fabric Extenders which are all configured from the same switch and treated as an extension of the switch rather than as a separate entity.

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Verified User

Professional in Information Technology

Information Technology and Services Company, 10,001+ employees

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Cons

If you're not used to how Cisco names stuff you might search a while to find the right option.
Sometimes active- and backup configuration can be a bit confusing.
The price tag is rather high. You might be able to save with cheaper brands if you don't need all the features it offers.

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Verified User

Engineer in Information Technology

Telecommunications Company, 501-1000 employees

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We've had a few bugs that have caused random reloads of switches when modifying VLANS.
We've had a bug that reloaded an entire fabric at once.

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Verified User

Professional in Information Technology

Information Technology and Services Company, 10,001+ employees

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Pricing Details

General

Free Trial

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Free/Freemium Version

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Premium Consulting/Integration Services

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Entry-level set up fee?

No

Starting Price

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General

Free Trial

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Free/Freemium Version

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Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No

Starting Price

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Likelihood to Renew

Cisco Catalyst 1000 Series Switches 10.0

Based on 1 answer

They are consistently reliable and this switch in particular is a very affordable solution. We can place the Cisco Catalyst 1000 Series Switches gear in areas that we normally would not place a switch because it is affordable enough to make it justifiable. And because it is a reliable solution, we are confident it will continue to provide service over the long haul.

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Garry Bowers

Network System Administrator

La Porte Community School Corp.Education Management, 501-1000 employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Usability

Cisco Catalyst 1000 Series Switches 8.7

Based on 12 answers

With some great features like PoE, it makes easy to install the switch in our network. You can install it anywhere you have a network socket. The fanless design is also one of the key features because it consumes much less power.

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Zahid Zahoor

Network Security Engineer

SophosComputer & Network Security, 10,001+ employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Support Rating

Cisco Catalyst 1000 Series Switches 10.0

Based on 1 answer

I honestly have not had to call upon Cisco support for any of our [Cisco Catalyst 1000 Series Switches] we've deployed at this point.

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Garry Bowers

Network System Administrator

La Porte Community School Corp.Education Management, 501-1000 employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Implementation Rating

Cisco Catalyst 1000 Series Switches 10.0

Based on 1 answer

The implementation of the Cisco Catalyst 1000 Series Switches is fairly seamless, especially if you are familiar with Cisco products. We have had Brocade switch gear in place too, and the differences between the manufacturers [are] not a major issue.

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Garry Bowers

Network System Administrator

La Porte Community School Corp.Education Management, 501-1000 employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Alternatives Considered

We have used 3Com and Broadcom switches in the past, and while they delivered more 'bang for your buck', they did not provide us with the level of assurance that we have gotten from Cisco products. In particular, higher failure rates and unsatisfactory support experiences led us to explore other options, and we eventually settled on Cisco.

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Verified User

Manager in Information Technology

Maritime Company, 1001-5000 employees

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In comparison to Cisco ACI, Cisco Catalyst, and Juniper EX Switches the Nexus switches have stood their ground and we've been fairly happy with them. I like that similar to Cisco's ACI and the Juniper EX switches that I've worked with I can manage multiple chassis from one place. ACI can do this on a much larger scale though. I think Juniper limited the number of devices in a single virtual chassis to 10 or less depending on the device type. ACI can do a few hundred leafs plus their fabric extenders so if you're looking for one place to manage all your devices it can scale well beyond either the Cisco FP or Juniper EX series switches, but it also has a much steeper learning curve and completely different interface. The loop prevention built into FP has been a great improvement vs our old Catalyst switches.

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Verified User

Professional in Information Technology

Information Technology and Services Company, 10,001+ employees

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Return on Investment

Positive impact is smooth connectivity, no downtime in production area at all
Management of VLAN in the production area where we required multiple connectivity
Security feature is awesome in different scenarios
Negative impact is due to the licensing cost being too high we are thinking about other products with the same features but a lower licensing cost

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Irfan Mew

Staff Manager

Pak Suzuki Motor Co.Automotive, 1001-5000 employees

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FabricPath is easy enough to learn that the adoption on the team has been fairly quick. This allows us to quickly troubleshoot and allows us to meet and beat SLAs that demand we maintain 99.99%+ uptime for our paying customers.

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Verified User

Professional in Information Technology

Information Technology and Services Company, 10,001+ employees

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