Likelihood to Recommend 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.
Read full review 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.
Read full review Pros Great hardware. I've hardly had a device fail due to hardware. Throughput. These devices handle quite a bit of processing power. Extreme conditions. We have 9300s in NEMA cabinets that reach well into the 110 range and beyond. Very diverse. These devices can be placed in an office IDF, outside in a NEMA cabinet, or in an MDF. Read full review Cisco Catalyst 9500 Series Switches are capable of 10g/40g with a great selection of ports for these speeds. The Cisco Catalyst 9500 Series Switch is a very capable piece of kit, supporting a lot of Cisco's new feature sets. Cisco IOS is the gold standard for switch operating systems. Read full review Cons 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. Read full review 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. Read full review Likelihood to Renew 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.
Read full review 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.
Read full review Usability I love them
Read full review It has great potential. It can support 10, 40, 100 Gig ports. The chipset are high processing capabilities
Read full review Reliability and Availability 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.
Read full review Performance 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
Read full review Support Rating 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.
Read full review Cisco TAC engineers are very responsive and supportive.
Read full review In-Person Training 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.
Read full review Online Training 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.
Read full review Implementation Rating 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
Read full review Alternatives Considered 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
Read full review 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.
Read full review Scalability 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
Read full review Return on Investment 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. Read full review 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. Read full review ScreenShots