Likelihood to Recommend I think the most suited ones will be of course, for example, a supermarket where you have more than 50 plus devices because there are like 48 ports in a switch. We can just use a lot of devices and connect them to it. A less use case will be, I think it depends at the end of the day how your topology looks like. If you have a very few devices, you shouldn't be going for these catalyst switches because they are of course much bigger, more processing power and all those things. If you have, again, it comes to topology. If you have the number of users who are using these switches is less than 15, it's less than 15, then you can just go for any other option and not use them.
Read full review Huawei switches are ideal for cases where performance is not essential, for low traffic solutions and for equipment management. It is not recommended for situations of high performance and stress, immediate availability and high scalability. It is also not advisable to use them in solutions that involve hardware from other brands, the integration of Huawei with Cisco, for example, is very traumatic and the results were not optimal in my case.
Read full review Pros The Switches package is very well with very low latency. I would say in my opinion, it's very user-friendly or if you have been in the game for Cisco. I have with my education where we usually use Cisco, it's very user-friendly. Read full review Scalability High throughput links Redundancy of links with resilient protocols Fast switching in the event of a redundant link failure. Read full review Cons The Cisco Catalyst Switches 9k line is fairly high. A lower cost option like a 9200X would be an improvement. The Cisco Catalyst Switches 9k line lacks a higher port density fanless switch. More blade combinations for the Cisco Catalyst Switches 9k chassis switches are needed. Read full review One of our switches encounted a hardware defect after 6 months of use (but was replaced within warranty) The switches appear to get hotter than what I would expect under normal use Read full review Likelihood to Renew 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 Usability The usability will feel natural to frequent Cisco users and a bit harder to navigate if you're new to the system. If you're limited to a small rack, maybe even in a not climate controlled environment the fan-less models with less energy consumption are a pro. With PoE you can deploy your network hardware anywhere you have a network socket: Thin Clients, APs, Sensors, you name it. The integrated power monitoring tells you how much power each client consumes and how much you have left.
Read full review Reliability and Availability 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 Performance 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 Support Rating So far we haven't had very many support issues with our Catalyst switches. When we have had issues TAC is always a pleasure to work with. They're prompt, knowledgeable, and take ownership of the case from open to close. Also, this isn't attributed to Cisco support directly. But because they are so widely known and have such a great market share you can find a solution to almost any issue with a quick internet search.
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 Implementation Rating 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 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 performance of Huawei is lower than Cisco, but initially the costs inclined the decision towards Huawei, but unfortunately, it was not, the licenses and the manager fired the investment to make it very similar to cisco. Therefore it is preferable to go to the Cisco switches for reliability and robustness.
Read full review Scalability 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 Return on Investment Negative - Being a serviced provider in a school district Cisco is difficult to justify. The cost for these devices is quite a bit and when you are refreshing 100 plus switches at $5000 a piece that is a lot of money. Plus if you have SmartNET coverage on a lot of them it adds another 30% or more. Positive - Because they are so reliable, I purchase about 5% for break fix. I know when one of these goes out into production it is going to be solid. Positive - If you have used Cisco in the past then refreshing to the latest and greatest gear is usually fairly easy. The commands across the different generations are usually the same so there isn't really a learning curve. Another great benefit of the newer generations is potential for backwards compatibility for modules and SFPs. 9300 switches support 3800 series network modules. Read full review Revenue Increase Greater satisfaction for our customers. Greater compliance with SLAs Read full review ScreenShots Cisco Catalyst Switches Screenshots