Unfortunately, I haven't had an opportunity to look at other vendors of late, but predominantly Cisco has been a very good product and yet to see anyone else in the market is probably as close as possible to what they're able to offer in their ecosystem.
I use like 9500 series also different callus switches. I wish kind of like, I do kind of want like iOS xr, the version set of xe, what they have. That'd be nice to have it on their switches, but I know that's more of a routing platform.
Our environment is Cisco, so the only products I have compared the Cisco Catalyst 9300 Series Switches to would be other Cisco products. We find the same reliability and performance from the newer generation switches as we did with past generations. The Cisco Catalyst 9300 …
We have and use all of the mentioned devices, but each device has its role in the company. When we don't need as much "power" we use the 9200 series when we need a bit more "power" we use the 9500 series, but overall the 9300 series is the most versatile solution. It's a worthy …
Cisco Catalyst 9300 Series Switches are used as Access Switches for the Campus Environment which is connected to the Cisco Catalyst 9500 Series Switches. It is easy to deploy and stacked to support additional ports required.
Cisco Catalyst 9300 Series Switches are well suited for your small to large enterprise campus networks where high performance, scalability, and reliability are critical. The modular design of Cisco Catalyst 9300 Series Switches allows for easy expansion, and features like stacking enable simplified management. The PoE capabilities are ideal for scenarios where powering IP phones, CCTV cameras, and wireless access points.
The [Cisco Catalyst 9500 Series Switches] is very well suited for datacenter core and distribution models, they work very well as a replacement for the 3850 switches that many smaller organizations use for core switching. The Catalyst 9500 series switches also works very well as a top of rack aggregation switch for SFP and QSFP connectivity.
One of the things that I would like to see is in the Meraki space, Meraki is a little behind compared to Catalyst because Meraki provides weeks of traffic segregation. That's one of the pain points that we are facing right now. But overall we say that Meraki is comparatively cheaper than the Catalyst. So that could be one of the advantages of that.
Well the ACI, so the AP, the controller give us good chances to run everything, to configure everything. But the monitoring itself, it's not that easy. You need other products like Nexus dashboard or something else to do the monitoring. This is a little bit of a con. It's another technology so everyone has to think a little bit of others to adapt this knowledge and it takes two years I think for a technician to understand what ACI is really doing and what we can do with it.
Catalyst isn't even the family, it's bigger than that. The current "family" is the catalyst 9000 series. And Cisco keeps pushing the edge of the envelope with each new family.
Based on the site load and requirements, the switches meets our processing and fiber ports requirements. Also they have great potential for future programmability options we are looking into.
If you install the C9300 as a switch stack, the availability is amazing. This can even be a power stack setup, where the chassis power supplies can provide power redundancy for the other member switch chassis.
The C9300 is surfficiently spec'ed to support all the features it provides. We haven't yet experienced any hardware limitations, unless there's a loop in the network, which spanning-tree should take care of anyway
Honestly it really depends on who is going to take your case. You may need to contact your Cisco account manager if you don't get good support from the TAC.
Lately the 3850 and 9300 switches are affected by several bugs and sometimes it is frustrating when it's faster if you research the problem by yourself instead of rely on Cisco support. On the other hand I found also some really talented people in the cisco support team.
Cisco Networking Academy partners with many local Colleges and High Schools to provide great hands-on training. You do need to drive to learn the topic. The in-class session only go so far. You really need to apply this to the real world. Cisco makes it easy for business to connect via CLC or Cisco Learning Credits.
Our training for Cisco switches came from a third party instructor, e.g. CBT Nuggets. This was general training on switches and not in particular only the C9300 series. Nevertheless any hands-on experience from any other Cisco switching platform, will make you feel very acquainted with the C9300. The new switch platform just enables more perfomance and features.
It's essential to spend a few weeks on a Proof of Concept/Value test, to ensure that the equipment is ready for production. It's extremely hard to revert back to older hardware later. This testing period will also be a great opportunity for hardware burn-in, which will reveal any potential hardware failure due to production defects, etc
We do have other vendors. For example, Juniper, Fortinet, and there are quite a few others. And Cisco is pretty good because we know the workflow, we know how the operating system works. We are much more familiar with Cisco products and we know the support system behind it. So in terms of comparing with others, I think it stands out. It's one of our top products to go to
The Catalyst 9400 was not out when we were looking at new core switches. We thought about using a Nexus 9k but neither were as good of a fit as the 9500. Between price and performance it was a no-brainer for us to look at the 9500. We have not nor in the future would we consider other brands for core switching.
It seems like a very robust platform, which Cisco is constantly evolving with new features and possibilities. The standard network module gives the opportunity to customize the uplink interfaces, in both bandwidth and SFP type
Stability, uptime, and the way Catalyst implements VLANs are straightforward, which I appreciate.
Depending on the cabling requirements of the devices, different modules can connect them. Modules for the Catalyst 9300 series switches offer impressive flexibility.
This is priceless because it makes setup and operation so simple. It works with the DNA center for automation and dependability.
These switches did require a purchase of the DNA license on top of standard switch licensing, even if the functions are no needed in the environment.
The increased SFP & QSFP connectivity enabled for faster processing within our compute environment. While the system is too new to quantify the value added in this, it undeniably will help with its ROI.
