Thread regarding Cisco Systems Inc. layoffs

Best Cisco products to use at home?


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| 1271 views | | 15 replies (last January 2) | Reply
Post ID: @OP+1kdmq5v17

15 replies (most recent on top)

Old 4g FC switch used as door stop in my backyard shop.

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Post ID: @t8+1kdmq5v17

Ai threat defence

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Post ID: @rs+1kdmq5v17

I just got a Webex Desk and like it.

Seriously? Desk? Where do we get it?

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Post ID: @nx+1kdmq5v17

who is stupid enough to put anything Cisco in their house? Buy TP link mesh , 5 gig , 6 gig backhaul and be happiest consumer there is out there. Tried using meraki but even for free it was a pain to keep up with license renewal and coverage was meh. Thats why we sell it for soho at best, not meant to scale but hey if you want to waste your money, we will take it.

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Post ID: @hs+1kdmq5v17

McLaren merchandise on Cisco store

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Post ID: @h0+1kdmq5v17

I just got a Webex Desk and like it.

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Post ID: @gn+1kdmq5v17

My company issued laptop

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Post ID: @d7+1kdmq5v17

Flip camera and Cius

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Post ID: @cz+1kdmq5v17

@a9 can't even buy it outside the US now, us over in europe no longer qualify for meraki employee purchase pricing. not that it was ever actually that good

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Post ID: @c5+1kdmq5v17

I got Dlink at home. I work for the fu--ing biggest networks company in the world and don’t even get free networking gear. Meraki license expired and I have to pay FFS.

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Post ID: @b9+1kdmq5v17

Toilet paper with chuckle’s face on it.

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Post ID: @b5+1kdmq5v17

Nexus 9k

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Post ID: @az+1kdmq5v17

It's like asking what the best personal vehicle is. If you're going to be rock climbing a low-slung sports car would be unsuitable for that task.

I saw someone mention Meraki but why? I haven't checked in years but at the time it was extremely low end gear with no acknowledged capabilities. Look at the Catalyst line and you'll see features mostly documented along with scaling numbers for each feature.

A few starter questions:

  • Do your end points need more than 1Gb/s access?
  • Do you need L2 or L3 capabilities?
  • Do you have a need for high touch services, like QoS and security ACLs, and if so at what scale?
  • Do you want to pay through the nose for licensing in the hopes that some bugs might get fixed or just live with the bugs in the equipment at the time of purchase?
  • Do you want to be able to operate your insecure network equipment where the control plane isn't exposed to the Internet (companies including Cisco are trying to make this impossible.)
  • If you're running a business in your home how much down time can you tolerate?
  • You do want VLANs to keep guest equipment and machines with personal data apart.
  • How many Wi-Fi access points do you need to cover your house?
  • Do you want to be able to sell equipment to someone who can continue to legally use it?

Low tier 8 port switches with PoE+, a decent number of VLANs and some QoS support was $50 a few years back. If you need insane speed and no services Microtik has 16 100Gb/s, 4 25 Gb/s and 2 low speed ports for under $2,200.

For Wi-Fi Aruba IAP forced Cisco to sell access points with a distributed control plane for low scale deployments, and I recall at one point they had control plane software that could run on the stackable Catalyst switches which in theory meant with multiple switches and access points you had some hardware level fault tolerance. Aruba's IAP went away and so did any solution Cisco had which didn't require you to buy an extremely high priced non-redundant controller for less than a handful of access points.

The big high end legacy players are only good for small scale (business or home) networks where you can leverage something unique to a given product line. Resources like r/HomeLab on Reddit and https://www.servethehome.com might be more helpful.

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Post ID: @ay+1kdmq5v17

I agree with the last post. Noting there to use at home. Back in 2003 you could have bought a new Cisco-Linksys WRT54G and modded it out with outside firmware, but that's an antique now.

I think you might do better with a Mikrotik router nowadays. Your post is like asking which Motorola or Nokia flipphone is the best.

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Post ID: @ac+1kdmq5v17

lol, none? Arista, Z-scaler, Fortinet, Palo Alto: they've been eating our lunch for years now. Even for employees the only decent stuff was Meraki gear, which is tied to your own personal "licensing" plan, so you can't even re-sell/donate it.

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Post ID: @a9+1kdmq5v17

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