Cisco Catalyst Switches vs. Cisco Secure Network Analytics

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cisco Catalyst Switches
Score 9.1 out of 10
N/A
Cisco's Catalyst is one of that company's brand of network switches.N/A
Cisco Secure Network Analytics
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
Cisco Stealthwatch is a network behavior analysis product based on technology acquired by Cisco with its Lancope acquisition in 2015.N/A
Pricing
Cisco Catalyst SwitchesCisco Secure Network Analytics
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cisco Catalyst SwitchesCisco Secure Network Analytics
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Cisco Catalyst SwitchesCisco Secure Network Analytics
Considered Both Products
Cisco Catalyst Switches
Chose Cisco Catalyst Switches
We have not really used many other solutions other than Cisco.
Chose Cisco Catalyst Switches
They have been market stable and consistant making them the leader
Chose Cisco Catalyst Switches
We believe in Cisco technology and we trust in Cisco Catalyst Switches and their stability and quality. Another very important point is the presence of the brand in Argentina and the excellent partner environment that Cisco has created within our region. We feel so secure using …
Cisco Secure Network Analytics

No answer on this topic

User Ratings
Cisco Catalyst SwitchesCisco Secure Network Analytics
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(774 ratings)
9.5
(14 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.0
(41 ratings)
8.0
(2 ratings)
Usability
8.6
(46 ratings)
7.3
(1 ratings)
Availability
8.9
(14 ratings)
8.0
(2 ratings)
Performance
9.3
(14 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.4
(38 ratings)
7.9
(2 ratings)
In-Person Training
9.0
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
9.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
7.8
(12 ratings)
7.0
(2 ratings)
Configurability
8.8
(10 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
8.1
(9 ratings)
8.0
(2 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.1
(14 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
7.7
(37 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
8.1
(38 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Cisco Catalyst SwitchesCisco Secure Network Analytics
Likelihood to Recommend
Cisco
Well-suited for big companies like mine, where we have a lot of users that we have to connect together. Getting all the switches into one big stack that you can just manage all at one time is fantastic for ease of use. Not suited for maybe smaller mom and pop shops or smaller companies that don’t have as many. They could probably go with something much easier to manage.
Read full review
Cisco
Few products operate off the Netflow or RAP/SPAN traffic versus the endpoint. Of those products, many operate from the aggregate traffic of uplinks/downlinks, whereas Secure Network Analytics focuses on viewing all traffic to give per-endpoint comprehensive data analytics. SNA is a great product for network visibility and detection, and to preserve that focus, other options such as remediation or quarantined are deferred to other products in the security ecosystem. SNA uses Machine Learning models to determine traffic behavioral compliance, which is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it mitigates zero day attacks changing traffic patterns, but conversely, it requires training to know acceptable traffic patterns. Unfortunately, many adopters of SNA do not spend the time giving it the user input and so the ML models never gets the correct weights and parameters to work from.
Read full review
Pros
Cisco
  • Easy-to-use management interfaces. The CLI commands go across the whole Cisco Catalyst Switches 9000 series, so it makes it easy, the code being the same on the 9000 series. Just being able to do port channels, trunks, and connecting up edge switches to it with the Cisco Catalyst Switches 9000 Series.
Read full review
Cisco
  • A silent tool.
  • A great way to get visibility of all the conversations of the network.
  • Easy to find out the internal and the external threats.
  • Easy to track performance.
  • Network monitoring is very easy to understand and control.
  • Attacks can be easily detected along with encrypted traffic.
  • Historic records of the attack and reports make it even better.
Read full review
Cons
Cisco
  • One thing is that these, every time Cisco gets a new switch, they just make an amendment to the power supply, so they'll just put a knob on it. So let's say if you lose any power supply unit, you'll have to purchase another one, which costs a lot of extra money because we have a lot of another power supply units from the redundant, which we can use, but we can't now because they have just tweaked the modeling of that. Which makes no sense, particularly to me because it's an extra money making machine kind of a thing. But that's fine.
  • Another thing is these ports, I believe they are a bit less of, if I can say the quality of the oldest switches, they were quite sturdy. As I said earlier, the new switches, they're very light and when you lift them you feel it. So that's one thing, which I think the quality or the material which we are using has gone down.
Read full review
Cisco
  • Some of the jobs can be difficult to setup until you know how they were designed
  • Unless coupled with other Cisco products, you may not get all of the information you would like to have
  • If you have a network that already has many issues it may take a lot of time to see the value in the product; it would take time to weed everything which this product will detect for you to use it to find that needle in the haystack
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Cisco
They are consistently reliable and this switch in particular is a very affordable solution. We can place the Cisco Catalyst 1000 Series Switches gear in areas that we normally would not place a switch because it is affordable enough to make it justifiable. And because it is a reliable solution, we are confident it will continue to provide service over the long haul.
Read full review
Cisco
Cisco Secure Network Analytics is a fantastic tool, but does require some setup and upkeep which may turn off smaller IT Security teams. However, once all the flows are set up and the product is functioning with the proper rules, the insight into your network is fantastic. For us, the product has a significant ROI and will be a product we keep up on.
Read full review
Usability
Cisco
Cisco by and far does a great job with the Catalyst line. From a layer 2 dumb switch all the way up to ISP carrier grade switching within the Catalyst portfolio. The best part about it is command parity among the various tiers of product. The only differences are going to lie in what features are available per switch.
Read full review
Cisco
Strong and complete tool which gives comprehensive methods to discover cyber security incidents and prevent data leakage. In case of common use of Cisco StealthWatch and Cisco ISE, you will receive [the] ability [to] not just discover cyber security incidents but also dynamically respond to them. This makes StealthWatch one of most valuable products through[out] [the] whole Cisco Security product portfolio.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
Cisco
We have very few is any outages due to a Cisco hardware failure. Some of our gear is exposed to some pretty harsh environments, and they keep on ticking!
Read full review
Cisco
I would rate Cisco Secure Network Analytics’ availability as 8 out of 10. The platform is highly stable and reliable, with users reporting minimal downtime and consistent performance once the system is properly deployed and configured.
Read full review
Performance
Cisco
No, the packets flow. Sometimes you will see collisions and broadcast storms can happen which will slow performance but that can be fixed and the packets will flow.
Read full review
Cisco
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Cisco
We rarely have issues with the product. I have only had to contact support one time since we put it in and that was to see if another vendor was giving me accurate information on an issue I was having.
Read full review
Cisco
Overall winner because it exceeds our expectations by answering all our requirements and at the same time empowers our operations thru other built-in capabilities it has. Visibility is a key to security operations and Cisco StealthWatch really gives us a magnifying glass to check all logs in the network for threat intelligence and threat hunting.
Read full review
In-Person Training
Cisco
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
Cisco
No answers on this topic
Online Training
Cisco
My own personal research to get the information I want is very handy and helped me many times
Read full review
Cisco
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Cisco
The implementation of the Cisco Catalyst 1000 Series Switches is fairly seamless, especially if you are familiar with Cisco products. We have had Brocade switch gear in place too, and the differences between the manufacturers [are] not a major issue.
Read full review
Cisco
Implementation of the product can be tedious, especially fine tuning its rules to customize it to your environment. However, after that is done, CSNA is a very useful and flexible product that would enhance the security posture of any corporate network.
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
Cisco
2960s, 9200s, 9400s, 3650s, 3800s. I think that this product is a lot better. I know I just complained about the noise, but it’s still much quieter than our other ones. So we do have a couple of public deployments, and once we swap these out, they complained less. Sometimes we have small offices that get the gear in with them, and these sound less like a jet engine. And yeah, these are a lot easier to manage as well. Everything in the same family. It’s a lot.
Read full review
Cisco
I wasn't involved in the decision-making when it happened. It was a couple of years ago, but I can't think of the vendor's name. They used to be here at Cisco Live. But it was another NetFlow vendor, but they were strictly NetFlow and all they did was just a net flow and the Secure Network Analytics has like some of the security anomaly detection stuff built into it. And that was kind of a deciding factor of wanting more of the security focus of the net flow. The net flow was a bonus, but the security stuff was what we were looking for.
Read full review
Scalability
Cisco
We are exclusive Cisco at our organization. In truth part of the reason is, with one type of switch and one manufacturer, it is easier to support. It is also easier to give consistent training to our staff in our tech department
Read full review
Cisco
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Cisco
  • energy costs dropped by around 11 per cent on the access layer
  • management has become easier with DNA Center
  • ISSU software upgrades and fabric deployments have significantly reduced "planned" down times
  • network speed has increased, latency is at an all-time best within our own LAN
Read full review
Cisco
  • It is a little pricey - in my organization, with budget cuts, I eventually had to replace it with an open source product (NTOP). While it works well for visibility, it simply isn't the same. If you can afford it, don't bother looking anywhere else - just get it.
  • Being able to detect, pivot out, and remmediate from one console was awesome.
Read full review
ScreenShots

Cisco Catalyst Switches Screenshots

Screenshot of Screenshot of Catalyst 9200 SeriesScreenshot of Catalyst 9300 SeriesScreenshot of Catalyst 9400 SeriesScreenshot of Catalyst 9400 Series Additional ViewScreenshot of Catalyst 9500 Series