Evolving our Office LAN with the next evolution of Cisco Catalyst switches.
May 07, 2019
Evolving our Office LAN with the next evolution of Cisco Catalyst switches.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Cisco Catalyst 9300 Series Switches
- Catalyst 9300 Series
The Catalyst 9300 Series switches are the Access Layer Switches of our office LAN. The switches are used depending on demand in a stack or as standalone switches in the wiring closets.
With the power and data stacking options of the technology, we try to reach the highest possible availability for devices that have only one network card included.
With the power and data stacking options of the technology, we try to reach the highest possible availability for devices that have only one network card included.
- High reliability
- Good scalability through the stacking concept
- One software version across the whole product line
- Price
- Ease of deployment.
- Enhanced PoE compared to the old office switches.
- No need for careful selection of PoE devices depending on their power requirement due to power stack.
With the automation, we are just at the beginning, but the selection of the switches was done to have the option to increase the automation part on the office network for day 0 deployment, change and troubleshooting.
We don't use the possibilities that come with DNA at the moment as the cost for DNA is very high and the IT budget, unfortunately, is very limited. We see the potential and might migrate to a DNA solution later.
We don't use the possibilities that come with DNA at the moment as the cost for DNA is very high and the IT budget, unfortunately, is very limited. We see the potential and might migrate to a DNA solution later.
In way of customization, what changed between the old and the new Cisco office LAN switches for us is that we no longer have uplink port on all members of a stack but only on two of the stack switches. Before, we only used the uplink of two of the stack switches but had unused uplink ports on all of the other stack members.
As we have only Cisco Switches in our office and data center networks, the probability of choosing switches from another vendor was very low. As the experience with the Cat 3750 we used before in our office environment was good and our network administrators have a good knowledge in operating Cisco devices without it, it was an easy decision.