I think we kind of took a glance at Aruba. Costwise, it's better, but functionality we prefer Cisco. And then we have a handful of ComNet type switches, but that's more for IOT or industrial.
Pretty much every single Cisco product before and after 3829 grids. Almost every single router model Cisco has. We used them before. I think the 9000 series is an improved version of the 3800 series. And the stackable model is an improved version of 4500, which is well known …
We selected Cisco Catalyst Switches over the HPE Aruba switches due to the end-to-end solution that Cisco has been building and improving upon over the last 5+ years. We can now utilize the same security tagging and posturing from our access layer all the way up through our …
They came recommended to us by our partners due to the type of work we do due to the amount of business critical workloads are relying on a consistent and reliable connection.
The monitoring of Cisco devices is easy and have various monitoring tools available. The products offered for the Cisco Catalyst Switches work well hand in hand.
One of our locations, I believe we have over 11. So they all need to be connected to the MDF, right? And instead of going with the modular switch, which is really expensive, 9300 has a 24-foot fiber switch, which does the job perfectly. So it's not breaking the bank, it's affordable. It's a bit of a hindsight price-wise, but it's still affordable compared to a couple hundred thousand dollars switches that this has. So with that switch, we were able to either connect all 12 locations without breaking the bank and without losing any throughput. Where it doesn't really fit is for the small size. We will have a location where you have maybe two access points and five employees. It sounds like a site you should put a headgear in, but you don't want to do that, right? That's where you kind of want to hybrid of a layer three, layer two, it's a bit on the expensive side because you need extra software to manage it and get an alert. That's where Meraki comes in and works well for the small remote locations. What I would like to really see as an improvement in a catalyst world is similar software for management like we have for Meraki dashboard. So it's easier to add. I like to keep it in one company instead of going with the different brands for management, why not use Cisco for everything if they ever do that.
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.
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.
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.
We have had very few unplanned outages with all of our Cisco Catalyst products. The biggest issue I have seen is when a device has been powered on for a very long time and it gets powered off and reused later. Sometimes, the switch will not come back up. In most cases, these are switches that are way past end of life. I can't say we have really seen any other issues with the availability of the Catalyst family of switches
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.
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.
I prefer in person training. For me I understand things and the ability to ask someone helps. This particular training was a large class and it was a bit busy. However, I do prefer in person training to online. I have taken many online courses, and while they do offer a lot more info at an affordable price, there is sometimes a place for the personal touch.
It is very important to have a checklist of the different deployment options before beginning. Normally you have to spend a 4-hour session with your implementation partner to get things to work faster. Remember they have the technical knowledge but not the business knowledge.
These family of devices work extremely well for our military operations. I am sure there are other devices that I am forgetting at the moment that we use along with these and all of them get the job done.
The product line is very complete and flexible. Supporting anything from small to larger modular solutions. Need PoE? Need 25Gb or faster fiber? Catalyst has you covered in all areas we can think of. Compact form factor? Industrial use? Cisco Catalyst has something that fits any scenario. And we can expect the same features, configuration and integrations to work no matter what.
Difficult to answer. I hope it has a positive influence on that. The part that I'm most positive about is the fact that in the construction with this switch, the hardware and software licensing are being separated through the smart license, so you can reuse the license on other hardware. On the other hand, we are using it too short to have a real influence on that.
