Cisco Catalyst 3850, a stack beyond the rest.
April 01, 2021

Cisco Catalyst 3850, a stack beyond the rest.

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Modules Used

  • Cisco Catalyst 3850 Series

Overall Satisfaction with Cisco Catalyst Switches

We are currently using these switches as access switches for our main campus and larger remote sites, and as core switches for small remote sites. We also have a couple clients that we support that use these as the whole stack, Core, Deployment, and Access. We also have one off temporary sites that use these switches as the whole thing: Routing, Switching and GRE tunnels back to HQ
  • Stacking
  • Robust
  • Easy to use
  • Noise
  • Heat
  • Port Failure rates
  • SFP Support
  • ASIC Performance under high load.
  • More users
  • Less devices to manage
  • Easier to replace a down switch in a stack, faster turnaround time for break-fix
  • Loud, needs to be separated away from people
We have not benefited as we do not use automation or virtualization at this time, as our organization does not require this. In the future, I would like to see these features used, however they are not needed for the switch to be fully functional. Docker support on the switch seems nice, however.
Being able to manage 96 ports on one stack has made management easier, as you only need to log in to one switch to maintain the stack. We do use external applications to manage the config, but there is only one configuration to manage so you don't need to be editing 4 different configs, and needing 12 ips to implement a virutal stack.
We are a mainly Cisco shop, so compatibility between different devices is key. The ability of stacking the switches together is very nice, as I have stated before. This makes replacing a failed switch easy, as the config gets pushed to the new switch as soon as it comes online.

Do you think Cisco Catalyst Switches delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Cisco Catalyst Switches's feature set?

Yes

Did Cisco Catalyst Switches live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Cisco Catalyst Switches go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Cisco Catalyst Switches again?

No

User access switches: Currently using these for this purpose, to support 3000+ users. POE across the whole switch is great for powering the ~40 phones per switch. Stacking allows for easy management and easy replacement if a switch does fail

Remote Offices: With GRE support on hardware, we are able to plop down a switch and use it for that site, no additional hardware required.