Cisco 3850 A Love Story
December 13, 2020
Cisco 3850 A Love Story
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Cisco Catalyst Switches
- Catalyst 2960 X/XR Series
- Catalyst 2960-L Series
- Catalyst 3850 Series
- Catalyst 9200 Series
- Catalyst 9300 Series
- Catalyst 9500 Series
- Catalyst 2960-L Smart Managed
- CATALYST 3850
- Utilizing the layer3 routing functions to have both our router/switch converged into one platform
- VLANS
- BGP
- EIGRP
- LAYER3
- LAYER2
- MULTICAST
- MULTICAST WITH AV
- 2960
- Using them as strictly LAYER2 devices with layer3 ip mgmt and ip vlans only
- Simplicity / scalability (stacking) @ remote locations where simple switching is only thing that is needed, and some intervlan routing.
- 9500 series @ datacenter
- 40gbit throughput is huge for us.
- Layer3/Layer2 functionality really helps us in the datacenter space with these switches
- VLANS
- LAYER3
- EIGRP
- BGP
- DYNAMIC ROUTING
- MULTICAST
- STP
- STORM CONTROL
- ACL
- 3RD PARTY SFP TRANSCIEVERS
- SUPPORT
- TAC
- I have over 200 Cisco [Catalyst] Switches deployed in the field, and I've never had a switch have a full blown hardware failure, maybe the power supply (modular) has needed replaced but never a complete switch failure, these things are built like TANKS (might be why the gov uses them everywhere!!)
- The UPFRONT cost of the Cisco Catalyst line is higher than other vendors, but when you can deploy a switch and be future proofed for 5+ years, its really hard to beat
- RTU Licensing was great, now that everything is going to smart licensing, the ROI is going to start diminishing on these units..
* Greatly, we are a very robust / nimble environment, so at times ive used 3850's as Layer 2 switches, then turned around and really LEVERAGED the Layer 3 properties and routing capabilities. Without the customization we wouldn't have been able to achieve a nimble response. Especially when dealing with "unknowns" i can typically purchase a 3850 with an IPservices license, and it will cover 99% of any "unexpected" use cases, that were not originally PART OF THE PROJECT
- Cisco Catalyst 2960-X/XR Series Switches, Cisco Catalyst 2960-L Series Switches, Cisco Catalyst 3850 Series Switches, Cisco Nexus, Cisco 9000 Series Aggregation Services Routers (ASR 9000), Cisco Catalyst 3650 Series Switches, Cisco ASA, Cisco ASA 5500-X with FirePOWER Services, Cisco Advanced Malware Protection (AMP) for Endpoints, Cisco Meraki MX, Cisco Meraki SD-WAN and Arista 7800R3 Series
* Arista Switches
** Arista switches are great, don't get me wrong, but the lack of PoE support, the lack of stacking, has really hindered their entry way into the campus market, 99% of my use cases are campus switching for end users, not data center, in this market, cisco wins hands down every time.
** Arista switches are great, don't get me wrong, but the lack of PoE support, the lack of stacking, has really hindered their entry way into the campus market, 99% of my use cases are campus switching for end users, not data center, in this market, cisco wins hands down every time.
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?
Yes