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Letting the Cat out of the bag on Cisco Catalyst.
September 12, 2022

Letting the Cat out of the bag on Cisco Catalyst.

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Cisco Catalyst Switches

  • Catalyst 3650 Series
  • Catalyst 3850 Series
  • Catalyst 9200 Series
  • Catalyst 9300 Series
Catalyst switches are used in sites with over 50 users. Depending on the location, there might only be a couple of switches or multiple stacks with a collapsed core. They provide network connectivity between all end devices (PCs, phones, wireless APs, network appliances, etc.) and the rest of the network.
  • Ease of use.
  • Performance.
  • Scalability.
  • Licensing.
  • Cost
  • Network connectivity. If there were no switches there would be no network.
Being able to adjust the configuration as needed via CLI, API, automation, and/or management platform allows for dynamic configurations, which can provide a host of benefits. One example would be Software-Defined Access (SDA) which allows almost a drag-and-drop policy creation. To do that manually would have been a significant undertaking, and that's just getting it stood up. Maintaining the configuration as devices are added or removed would require a lot of time and effort.
The Catalyst line is far more feature rich than Aruba or Meraki. The main question will be if any of those additional features provide value to the organization. There are plenty of environments where the ease of use that Meraki has far outweighed the expanded feature set of the Catalyst line. Likewise, there are plenty of environments that require features that are present in the Catalyst line that isn't in Meraki. Aruba is in a similar situation. They are often less expensive but also lack some of the features. The value impact of the presence or absence of a feature would be a significant part of the decision-making process. The Nexus line is targeted toward datacenter environments, and as such, it has a different set of capabilities. A simple example would be power over Ethernet (PoE). In a campus environment, devices like desk phones and wireless access points can use PoE. Meanwhile, those devices are often not present on a data center network. The Catalyst line has PoE support, and Nexus does not.

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

When compared to other enterprise-grade switches, the main advantage of the Catalyst line is how well-known the CLI is. Cisco tends to be the standard when learning networking, and with the prevalence of Cisco deployments, most engineers have familiarity with it. That also means that as related tools are developed, Cisco is often one of the most widely supported. The Catalyst line is very feature-rich, and there are some unique features available to that platform. As an example, if encrypted traffic analytics were important to an organization, the Catalyst family would be worth looking at. The downside to being feature-rich is complexity and cost. If a simple layer of two switches are needed with nothing extra, then the Catalyst line would be quite expensive. There are other solutions that can meet those needs at a much lower price point. There are also features that are only available on other platforms, like the Nexus switches. Catalyst can work in data center environments, but the Nexus line is much better suited to that workload.