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 Cisco Meraki MS is brilliant in very simple environments where basic segregation is required. Many features are pre-configured as defaults and this makes it easy to configure security and stability features like STP protections and UDLD. It is capable of some more complex functions, such as dot1x authentication. TAC support is easy to access and usually timely. Bundling support into the license and making it available through Dashboard is great. We have had issues monitoring the Cisco Meraki Dashboard using legacy SNMP based system - this means we now effectively have one more network monitoring screen to watch. We also sorely lack an ageing timer for stick MAC address port security - essential in uncontrolled locations with no NAC available. We have also had issues with devices pulling DHCP leasing from the wrong VLAN on initial provisioning and then struggling to transition to our management VLAN when the full config is pulled.
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 Meraki MS switches are wonderful at allowing a network admin to configure a VPN mesh network without having to have highly specialized knowledge. Unlike Cisco switches, there is no CLI, there is only a GUI, and Meraki support helps you set it up as you add nodes to your network. Meraki MS switches are easy to deploy. Full stop. They can work with any firewall or ASA but I would strongly recommend using the Meraki MX security appliance if you are going to use Meraki MS switches because they were made to work together. They easily stack. It's all done for you in the Meraki cloud control panel. They will get an address from your admin VLAN's DHCP scope and keep it. Even if you unplug it and move it, you will not have to worry about addressing it. The GUI is online and you can reach it from anywhere, so as long as you have the credentials, you can manage the network from any device that has a browser. 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 People who are coming from enterprise switches or command line options may feel limited If internet is having issue, managing the switches can become more burdensome Switches do not have as many advanced features as enterprise switches Delay in reporting and debugging 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 Being on the cloud its very easy to manage. We have layer 7 visibility and Cisco has introduced stackable MX switches which is even better! The Meraki portal can be accessed via SSO which is important to my organization (although it was a bit difficult to get that implemented initially!)
Read full review Usability I love them
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 support for the Meraki products is great. I have a dedicated representative who I can reach out to at any time. They offer numerous online resources and easy to follow tutorials to help the most novice user feel like a pro. When I need support they were ready and quickly helped me solve my problems.
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 Meraki MS provides the sweet spot between manageability and functionality, though not at a significantly lower cost. Desktop support engineers can manage it day-to-day and sometimes that is the most important factor, especially in our case, as a layer 2 switching solution that can also provide PoE to the
Meraki MR WAPs.
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 Cisco Meraki MS is intuitive and allows us to easily manage 340+ satellite locations and four corporate locations. Templates, intelligent patching, and alerting are fantastic. This has drastically improved compliance and managing such a large footprint. I would continually recommend Cisco Meraki MS for any multi-site organization because of its ease of use.
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 We scaled out existing networks way faster and way easier. We have added new sites with new switch and network configuration requirements way faster and easier. Because Meraki switches integrate so seamlessly with Meraki Wi-Fi it makes Wi-Fi management very easy and very straightforward. Read full review ScreenShots