Cisco Catalyst 6800 Series Switches vs Cisco Catalyst 9600 Series Switches

Likelihood to Recommend

Cisco Catalyst [6800 Series] Switches provide good selection of models with various port densities and capabilities. We use Catalyst switches in most location in various functional setups. Chassis switches in Data Centers, stacks of multiple switches at many locations within campus, 24-48 port models at larger branches for routing and switching.

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Jurek Plona

IT Infrastructure Planner/Architect

FortisBC Energy Inc.Utilities, 1001-5000 employees

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Still highly recommend this switch over others. Scalability makes these a great choice. Setup and ease of use make the switches something you can implement very quickly with little downtime. Despite the licensing portion, still highly recommend it.

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Lochan Kalicharan

Desktop Support Specialist

Mount Sinai Health SystemMedical Practice, 10,001+ employees

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Pros

In general Cisco Catalyst Switches are a nice piece of kit both in hardware and software.
You can keep these guys running for years without nary a reboot necessary.
Even if you have to reboot you have multiple fail overs and redundancies.

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Verified User

Manager in Information Technology

Government Administration Company, 501-1000 employees

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Support of VLAN architecture that in our environment is somewhat complicated
Interface well with Fiber backbone provided by third party
Secure configuration and operation of network infrastructure
Uptime has been outstanding with no outages noted

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Verified User

Executive in Information Technology

Government Administration Company, 201-500 employees

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Cons

There are some known bugs that cause interface errors and are listed as "cosmetic" and they do not plan to address them. This makes troubleshooting very difficult to determine what are real errors and what are cosmetic.
We have had a few batches that get stuck in random reboots.
Cisco foolishly has discontinued R&D for this line of Catalyst when they were finally showing some innovation that set them apart from other vendors.

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Tim Lillis

Sr. System Engineer

Kent Intermediate School DistrictEducation Management, 501-1000 employees

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The annual support can be a killer for some organizations; buying a hot spare can be more feasible
BOM for units should be clearer for the procurement teams
Firmware upgrades could be simplified for mid-level techs

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Verified User

Professional in Information Technology

Oil & Energy Company, 201-500 employees

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Likelihood to Renew

Cisco Catalyst 6800 Series Switches 9.1

Based on 3 answers

Because they work well at what they do. They are highly innovative with their hub and spoke firmware deployment. Once again Cisco was extremely stupid to stop R and D on them.

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Tim Lillis

Sr. System Engineer

Kent Intermediate School DistrictEducation Management, 501-1000 employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Usability

Cisco Catalyst 6800 Series Switches 8.6

Based on 2 answers

Cisco Catalyst switches are the standard for usability. The Cisco command line is 1 of 2 formats for a command line interface in the computer networking industry. They literally define the standard for the industry, so naturally the usability is going to be high -- simply because that's what everyone uses. I rated them as 9 because they have some consistency issues within the IOS for different versions/platforms.

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Verified User

Engineer in Information Technology

Government Administration Company, 1001-5000 employees

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No score

No answers yet

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Support Rating

Cisco Catalyst 6800 Series Switches 9.0

Based on 2 answers

They are easy to get a hold of and are very effective.

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Verified User

Manager in Information Technology

Banking Company, 5001-10,000 employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Alternatives Considered

The Juniper lineup offers better pricing versus the Cisco line up but you do definitely lose some hardware prowess, and stability that you can count on with Cisco devices. Also the support is not as robust from Juniper as it can take longer and be more frustrating getting a support ticket going with them.

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Verified User

Administrator in Information Technology

Government Administration Company, 501-1000 employees

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They have more robust protocols; also you don't need to pay subscription. Pretty much those switches are configured once.

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David Orellana

IT Network Specialist

Wood's HomesNon-profit Organization Management, 201-500 employees

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Return on Investment

It's all about making the right choice in the right time. Let's face it - CISCO Catalyst switches are not cheap. But if you take the time to research and design your network the ROI rate will be faster than you imagine. Having a stable and scalable network is the most important aspect of Catayst - upgrading the core and backbone infrastructure allows you to push the older devices to the outer edges of the network or to new, under/undeveloped regions.

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Ivan Tushev

CIO (Chief Information Officer)

UltraNET LtdInformation Technology and Services, 51-200 employees

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The switch is very reliable and for that reason, the operation of a business is very stable and without interruptions.
Because it is relatively easy to use, the organization doesn't need very highly qualified engineers.
Because of is high price, it is not so good ROI.

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Daniel García Arias

CCIE/CISSP, ISO/IEC 27001 Administrador de Seguridad y Riesgo & Gerente de SOC

TI-AmericaTelecommunications, 51-200 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

General

Free Trial

—

Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No