The Cisco Meraki are ridiculous. They are okay for the closet switches but we once had them as core switches. This makes for nightmarish weekends of outages as we had problems with them reaching the internet as they also held all of our core routing. The Cisco Nexus is a fine …
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.
Fairly stable and easy to operate - but I haven't any experience with other brands, so I don't have anything to compare with. Fairly fast in the OS. Easy to upgrade - but with some SW issues. Sometimes clearing of log folders is needed. Access to bash is cool. Tips & cool tricks for operations could be nice to share.
Maintenance, upgrades, and software certification can be performed without service interruptions because of the modular nature of NX-OS and features such as In-Service Software Upgrade (ISSU) and the capability for processes to restart dynamically
FabricPath:
Enables each device to build an overall view of the topology; this is similar to other link state routing protocols. Each device in the FabricPath topology is identified by a switch-id. The Layer 2 forwarding tables are built based on reachability to each switch-id, not by the MAC address. Eliminates spanning-tree to maximize network bandwidth and flexibility in topological configurations, as well as simplify operational support and configuration. This enables a tremendous amount of flexibility on the topology because you can now build FabricPath topologies for Layer 2-based networks the same as for Layer 3-based networks
Overlay Transport Virtualization (OTV): Enables the Layer 2 extension between distributed data centers over any transport Layer 3 network
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.
Implementing jumbo frames on interfaces of its fabric extender series (N2k, etc.) by editing the network QoS does not have to be a global configuration that would affect all its interfaces. It can be improved to become just an interface configuration.
Licensing on the NXOS is a bit complicated and expensive. I understand that the Nexus is made for core data center switching but it does not have to break the bank.
OTV technology is for Nexus only. Based on the advantage of the technology, it should be made vendor-neutral to accommodate other vendor devices.
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.
We will use it for a long time, since they are switches with great capacity and positive results, they promote the perfect operation of our data center, I always recommend them, because they are switches with good results.
In our environment (and especially during COVID and the Work From Home era), I would really like our network devices to be more resilient [against} errors in remote configuration. Having a standard, easy to use, configure, commit/deploy, rollback system should be installed, but it's not there. Other companies have been providing this for over 20 years, and Cisco does this on some of their devices. Why not all?
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
These switches are very fast. They've been designed to work within the data center. We connect them to Cisco UCS-B Mini servers with the storage being directly attached. They are able to handle the data traffic pretty easily. We can also move servers pretty fast from data center to data center without overloading them. This has allowed our company to stay running during any kind of conditional outage. We have come to really rely on them for business continuity.
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.
Overall, Cisco has great products and I believe that they believe in the philosophy of a great customer experience. Although there have been a few technical support issues that caused a lot of company anxiety, in most cases, Cisco has gone above and beyond in making a valiant effort to help the customer solve any issues.
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 Cisco 9000 stacks up quite well against the Cisco Catalyst 3850 switches. The additional features available in the Nexus 9000, such as VPN, FCoE, 40 gigabits, give us the ability to support the future needs of the company in our data center. The Nexus 9000 allowed us to condense our core and aggregation environment that comprised of 2 Catalyst 6504 and 2 Catalyst 6509 to a port of Nexus 9000. Although the Catalyst 3850 would be sufficient to handle routing, those features in the Nexus 9000 made it the clear choice for us.
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
The Nexus 3000 series switches are data center switches, so I would say they have similar security ability to other switches in this segment. I don't have a lot of experience doing more than basic ACL security on switches, but I know these can be integrated into other security solutions like Cisco ISE and 802.1x authentication. It could also be integrated into an ACI solution to add micro segmentation, which would bring in other security functions.
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.
