Cisco just launched a new series of switches to address the edge. Just over a year ago we covered the Cisco Catalyst 2960-L launch. Now, we have the upgrade to those switches in the Cisco Catalyst 1000 series. These are switches that sit at the edge and provide 1GbE and potentially Power over Ethernet (PoE) to edge devices while also providing SFP/ SFP+ uplinks to a core network.
Cisco Catalyst 1000 Series
Cisco has 8, 16, 24, and 48 port 1GbE switches that can either come with a more traditional IOS CLI or a web management feature. In today’s market, a 1GbE switch is not considered high-performance for its data rates, especially when you consider that the 100GbE market is serviced by every major networking vendor. Instead, it is the smaller features that matter, and that is where Cisco is improving. One of the features we like in this segment is surge and lightning protection. Many edge locations do not have proper surge protection, so Cisco is addressing that market dynamic with the new Catalyst 1000 series. These are the small generational improvements that show Cisco is still committed to improving in this market segment.
We wanted to point out that if you want to get information on the new switches, Cisco does something different from other vendors in this class, they make you go through an account login just to get a data sheet. This is highly unusual for competitors in this segment. The unfortunate part here is that this extra step will prevent users from evaluating these lower-end switches since this segment’s competitors do not require this step.
With the new switches, there are a few notable upgrades over the Cisco Catalyst 2960-L series. Cisco has improved the environmental rating with 5C higher operating temperatures. You can see that that the Cisco Catalyst 1000 series now has a 740W PoE option doubling power delivery to the edge.
Cisco also offers a web management feature that one can access even over Bluetooth on smart-managed models.
There are Cisco users and partners that see a GUI for networking as sacrilegious, but Cisco is practical here. PoE switches and 1GbE switches in this market are purchased by smaller businesses where a GUI is more friendly. Today, even children are accustomed to a WebGUI, which makes this management feature very accessible. If you only need to change a setting or two and be done, then that is a lower barrier to entry than learning a new CLI, especially for a non-technical end customer.
(Source: Cisco)
I may be a tad biased (I hold a CCNA R&S), but I do much prefer IOS over other solutions. While GUI based solutions aren’t bad, I’ve had great experience with Meraki (I know it’s Cisco) and a few Aruba switches, there’s something innately awesome about using the CLI.
I hope these switches aren’t too expensive, I would love to see them personally. Just gotta have our customer solutions engineers/sales guys to sell them.
Well, I took the bait, registered for a new account on the Cisco website, logged in, and promptly got a 404 when trying to look at the data sheet for this new series. All that is available is a FAQ for the series; seems like an incomplete launch. 🙁
Yeah, an SG350XG SMB switch does what this does and even my L1 techs can support it. So its a no waste money on pretty new models deal for us.
Common Cisco! Requiring login even for datasheet download and then just refusing it with 403 not found message? I would expect something like that from china based supplier of 3rd class, but not from you certainly…Get better soon!
Seems the login requirements are gone since I just accessed the data sheet link with no login request
Cisco doesn’t require a login to see the datasheets for these switches. They are public facing.
David – I believe that was done in response to this article.