Cisco Catalyst 3850 Series Switches Reviews

Cisco Catalyst 3850 Series Switches are middle- to high-performance switches which can be used in the distribution layer as well as core layer. They have a wide range of models available which offer different types of ports with the option to choose a different density of ports per unit. They also have multiple options for uplinks, which includes 10GE and 40GE connectivity options. These switches are not made for access layer use, but still some large organizations use them as access switches.

The Cisco Catalyst 3850 switches are well suited for medium to large enterprise deployments, especially where the distribution and access layer may be collapsed and a device that has more routing capabilities than a 2960 is required. In basic environments where trunking is only required then 2960 switches would be more cost effective and suitable. Depending on the size of the environment these switches may also work well higher up such as in the datacenter with the full fiber models if a higher line rate than 10 Gb isn't required.

If you are building an enterprise environment I absolutely recommend Cisco Catalyst. There is nothing more dependable or reliable on the market and you won't have difficulty finding engineers to support it. If you are building a small office network with low requirements, you should look at alternatives to see if you can justify the cost.

Cisco Catalyst 3850 Series Switches are really good switches, easy to manage, robust, and globally stable. We use them on a lot of big sites as distribution switches or as core switches on smaller sites. We mount GRE tunnels between these smaller sites and the main sites. By the way, as Cisco pushes to move on the new Catalyst 9xxx platform, with good performance and better prices, we use more and more Cisco Catalyst 9300s instead of the 3850 model.

At the very first place, it was a bit difficult to handle the new IOS XE from Cisco as it's quite different from the regular IOS platform.
But after a while, we get use to manage the upgrade and to configure the switch.
It's started to be less appropriated when all the bugs appeared.

I recommend using the Catalyst 3850 Series Switches for core and distribution scenarios where it requires a lot of performance, throughput, SFP and SFP + ports, and many simultaneous connections. Our distribution scenario with this technology is totally safe and super dimensioned. We have no problems with lack of security, performance, and 10GbE SFP+ ports. A differential of this switch is the ability to also be a WLAN Controller and manage some access points that are connected to this equipment and providing a wireless network to users.

Cisco Catalyst 3850 Series is used in all office locations including the Datacenter. It has a Wireless LAN Controller, which makes it my first choice. The platform works completely fine for my Wireless Access Point connections. Also, it is my core switch for all office locations. The platform is very robust. It has a few issues such as clock synchronization and power supply stops responding and a few more that make it difficult to use sometimes. It may not be a good idea to buy it now as Cisco recently announced End of Life for this platform. I believe it is to promote Cat 9000 series switches.

Cisco Catalyst 3850 Switch is well suited when used as L2 aggregation switch, some are using it as an access switch. It would be less appropriate as a core switch for handling a lot of traffic or to be used with high density of users in one place, here I recommend 4500 devices.

Branch LAN access is a particularly strong point with the easy addition of stacking as well as modular uplinks. Alternating stacks and patches can provide a very clean network closet and allow for easy patching. They have the power needed and can handle the throughput of a typical branch office, supporting POE for VoIP and other applications.

Cisco switches are quite well suited for campus network switching, stacking and redundancy. At the moment I can see no really good alternative to them in this area. If the network is based only on Cisco components and/or using some special Cisco authorization (such as ISE) or monitoring solution from Cisco, the Catalyst switches are just perfect.

Catalyst 3850 Series is well suited to the aggregation level of a campus. It permits us to have modularity and flexibility. Thanks to the stack, we can start from 1 switch to 8 and mix 1G/10G connectivity. I think this series is not adapted for distribution with a high level of aggregation, there is not a VSS feature.

The most appropriate situation for using Cisco Catalyst is to build stretched networks using wifi access points. This system allows you to connect different devices with different purposes wherever there is a Cisco Catalyst Switch. It is not convenient to use them in data center networks since they do not have all the necessary functionality required.

The 3850 is prefer for the IDF and even MDF have the Power/power and speeds running just about any sized company. The use of the WLC option is something that just makes the 3850 and even better switch for all companies environments. The move to a "Linux" based OS will drive update and and innovation even faster at Cisco .

They're well suited for enterprise environments on the network edge where you may be utilizing routing of some kind. These work very well at the edge, if stacked then you can also give yourself some redundancy. I wouldn't recommend these for deployments that don't require the nicer features and would recommend going with a lower model.

The switches have versatile use scenarios. Besides working in the assessment layer, based on performance and feature set, they can be used as core switches on smaller sites.

Cisco Catalyst switches are high end switches which may be out of budget for a small company.

Cisco Catalyst are very good for camera surveillance multicast networks.

For our campus, they are great for the size of our institution. If we were slightly smaller, I would say this may be overkill. Overall, I think it provides the proper solution for myself and our users.

When more advanced network requirements are needed, as well as great uptime. Their TAC support is excellent as well. They may be higher in cost but they are also higher in reliability.

There's a lot of knowledge online, a lot of engineers who know the product, and TAC support is easy to use.

Overall Cisco does a very good job supporting all of their products. However, there is always the human element that plays a role in support. I have had some issues with the timeliness of the resolution and some people don't have the expected customer service skills or training. Which can be frustrating when you are getting pressure from your bosses.

Unified way to provide visibility and policies to the edge

These switches are installed in areas to provide client access, they are well suited for this task. In SMB environments they are a bit out of reach due to price point.

If I am unable to locate the support I need to complete a task from the data sheets which are provided online I can utilize the other resources available to me. Some of those resources are the Cisco Connection Program Community where there are many questions asked for similar issues or by utilizing the TAC team as mentioned before. Either resource I am able to resolve any issues I experience.

Nothing specific. We are moving more towards a data center architecture for services. This pushes the organization into solutions that require the Nexus switches as opposed to the normal end user requirement.