Robust and reliable for branch offices
August 01, 2019
Robust and reliable for branch offices
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Modules Used
- Cisco Catalyst 3650 Series
Overall Satisfaction with Cisco Catalyst Switches
- Catalyst 3650 Series
Reliable switches that work well in small branch offices, set up as a layer 3 switch, it does primary routing to our main data centre with a failover setup to our secondary data centre. Cost effective, considering there is no need to purchase a separate dedicated router, it comes with 2x 10G interface which is enough for primary uplink to data centre and primary downlink to a stack of access switches.
- Stable.
- Good knowledge base.
- A lot of features.
- Consistent commands across most models.
- Web console to help staff that are not familiar with CLI.
- Simplified licensing model.
- Cloud console for monitoring would be awesome.
- Good support means less downtime when required.
- Widely used, easy to research issue means quicker turnaround when there is a problem.
- Can be confusing for less experienced admin with no previous exposure means harder to train, which costs us more time.
As the setup is only used for small branch offices, there was no massive deployment, so no virtualization or time-saving automation is required for a simple setup.
We have a Cisco ONE license, which connected the switches to Cisco Prime Infrastructure, there wasn't much-advanced customization that we benefit from, manageability is also very hit and miss with CPI, it would be nice if it could be more like Meraki.
Depending on the budget and requirement, each switch that I have used had different purposes and served a different requirement. Compared to a similar model within the Extreme Switches model, it feels more robust and has more features. Compared to Meraki MS switches, their layer 3 function is just too limited and not customizable at all, so I would only use them as layer 2 switches.