| Feature | Cisco Switching Essentials | Cisco Switching Advantage |
Perpetual or Subscription (Platform features via Meraki Dashboard/Catalyst Center) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Patch/SMU lifecycle management automation Automated management of SMU/patches via Cisco Catalyst Center/Meraki. |
|
|
Subscription - Both |
| Software Image Management (SWIM) Automation Automate software upgrades and control the consistency of image versions through Cisco Catalyst Center or Meraki Dashboard. |
|
|
Subscription - Both |
| Overall health dashboard Gives a high-level overview of the health of every network device/ client on the network, wired and wireless, through Cisco Catalyst Center or cloud monitoring for Catalyst. |
|
|
Subscription - Both |
| Overall health dashboard for device, network, application and client for 24 hours only Gives a high-level overview of the health of wired network devices/clients on the network, managed by Cisco Catalyst Center. |
|
|
Subscription - Both |
| Network Plug and Play (PnP) provisioning application Zero-touch provisioning for new installation of Cisco devices to be provisioned simply by connecting them to the network, managed by Cisco Catalyst Center. |
|
|
Subscription - Both |
| Cisco DNA Service for Bonjour LAN This software-defined, controller-based solution enables Bonjour services discovery and advertisement for local cache discovery and distribution functions between VLANs. |
|
|
Subscription - Catalyst Center |
| Compliance – Regulatory/Basic HIPAA, EOL, PSIRT. |
|
|
Subscription - Both |
| Basic Device 360, Client 360, and Network Health Insights Basic visibility like interface summary at the device and client level and across devices and clients. |
|
|
Subscription - Both |
| Out-of-box reports Cisco Catalyst Center prebuilt reports that can be consumed directly or exported to third-party tools such as Tableau. |
|
|
Subscription - Catalyst Center |
| Cisco AI Network Analytics AI and machine learning technologies are implemented on Cisco Catalyst Center and in the AI Network Analytics cloud to enhance the insight and remediation capabilities of Cisco DNA Assurance. |
|
Subscription - Catalyst Center | |
| AI Endpoint Analytics Identifies and checks compliance of endpoints, and uses AI/ML techniques to classify them into groups. |
|
Subscription - Catalyst Center | |
| Group-Based Policy Analytics Makes segmentation policy simpler by discovering traffic flows between scalable groups to determine the right policies. |
|
Subscription - Catalyst Center | |
| AI Trust Analytics Verifies that connected endpoints are legitimate. Use this information to define security policies that isolate rogue or compromised endpoints to reduce threat proliferation. |
|
Subscription - Catalyst Center | |
| LAN automation Automates configuration and deployment of networks with Cisco Catalyst Center. |
|
Subscription - Catalyst Center | |
| Application policy creation Assigns policies to applications based on business relevance and business-critical QoS priority for life-saving devices, for example, through Cisco Catalyst Center. |
|
Subscription - Both | |
| Application hosting automation and lifecycle management Automated container orchestration via Cisco Catalyst Center or the Meraki dashboard. |
|
Subscription - Both | |
| Cisco DNA Service for Bonjour WAN This software-defined, controller-based solution enables Bonjour services discovery and advertisement at scale across multiple domains. |
|
Subscription - Catalyst Center | |
| Platform Application Visibility and Control (NBAR2) Automation through Cisco Catalyst Center to gain application visibility and control through Next-Generation Network-Based Application Recognition. |
|
Subscription - Both | |
| Compliance – Advanced |
|
Subscription - Catalyst Center | |
| Controller-PCAP: Proactive troubleshooting |
|
Subscription - Catalyst Center | |
| Controller-orchestrated fabric management and configuration Any Cisco or third-party controller orchestrating a fabric-like EVPN, MPLS, etc. |
|
Subscription - Catalyst Center | |
| Platform Fabric, segmentation, and eWC Enables policy-based automation with secure segmentation, complete visibility, and delivery of new services quickly on SD-Access devices, managed by Cisco Catalyst Center only. |
|
Subscription - Catalyst Center | |
| Cisco Spaces Advantage Integration A powerful end-to-end, indoor location services cloud platform that extends platform capabilities via integrations and partner applications. |
|
Subscription - Catalyst Center | |
| Cloud-delivered security Cisco Umbrella integration for DNS security or Secure Internet Gateway (SIG). |
|
Subscription - Catalyst Center | |
| Basic Packet Capture (PCAP) |
|
|
Perpetual |
| Patch/SMU lifecycle management Manual/CLI operations or through WebUI only. Automation through Cisco Catalyst Center not supported. |
|
|
Perpetual |
| Essential switch capabilities Layer 2, OSPF, PBR, PIM Stub Multicast, PVLAN, VRRP, Cisco Discovery Protocol, QoS, FHS, 802.1X, CoPP, SXP, IP SLA responder, SSO, StackWise (Catalyst 9300/9200). |
|
|
Perpetual |
| Layer 3 routed access Layer 3 routed access (RIP, EIGRP Stub, OSPF [1000 routes]). |
|
|
Perpetual |
| Programmability, NETCONF/RESTCONF/gRPC/YANG Model-driven programmability lets you automate configuration and control of your network devices with programmable interfaces. |
|
|
Perpetual |
| Zero-touch provisioning Automated provisioning of a new Cisco switch using the zero-touch provisioning functionality built into the switch. |
|
|
Perpetual |
| 128-bit MACsec encryption Configure 128-bit MACsec for authenticating and encrypting packets between MACsec-capable devices. |
|
|
Perpetual |
| Advanced telemetry SPAN, RSPAN, ERSPAN Manual/CLI or WebUI configuration of SPAN, RSPAN for providing near-real-time access to operational statistics. No automation through Cisco Catalyst Center. |
|
|
Perpetual |
| Streaming telemetry and visibility Model-driven telemetry lets you monitor your network by streaming data from network devices, continuously providing near-real-time access to operational statistics. |
|
|
Perpetual |
| Cisco trustworthy solutions Help ensure hardware and software authenticity for supply chain trust and strong mitigation against man-in-the-middle attacks that compromise software and firmware. |
|
|
Perpetual |
| Cisco IOS Embedded Event Manager (EEM) EEM is a powerful and flexible subsystem that provides real-time network event detection and onboard automation. It gives you the ability to adapt the behavior of your network devices to align with your business needs. |
|
|
Perpetual |
| Third-party API integration A flexible framework is provided to integrate third-party application software. |
|
|
Perpetual |
| Sampled NetFlow Packets are sampled periodically. |
|
|
Perpetual |
| Flexible network segmentation VRF,* VXLAN, LISP,* SGT, MPLS,* BGP-EVPN with VXLAN.* |
|
Perpetual | |
| High availability Support operational continuity and maintain availability during routine maintenance, and perform disaster recovery. NSF*, GIR*, HSRP, Stackwise Virtual*, ISSU*/eFSU*. |
|
Perpetual | |
| Optimize bandwidth utilization (Advanced Multicast) Multicast is used between routers so they can track which multicast packets to forward to each other and to their directly connected LANs. RP Discovery,* PIM Bi-Dir.* |
|
Perpetual | |
| 256-bit MACsec encryption Configure 256-bit MACsec* for authenticating and encrypting packets between MACsec-capable devices. |
|
Perpetual | |
| Precision Time Protocol Timing and synchronization for time-sensitive applications with PTPv2 as default profile (IEEE 1588v2/PTPv2), gPTP (IEEE 802.1AS), AES67, and G8275.1 profiles. |
|
Perpetual | |
| Audio Video Bridging (AVB) Cisco AVB simplifies digitization of audio and video and offers superior quality of experience with standards like IEEE1588v2 PTPv2, AES67 timing profile. |
|
Perpetual | |
| IPsec Supports 100G+ hardware encryption for high-bandwidth, secure Layer 3 transport between sites or from cloud to site. |
|
Perpetual | |
| Application hosting Allows third-party applications to be hosted in a secure container environment on the switch. |
|
Perpetual | |
| Device Application Visibility and Control (NBAR2)* Provides application visibility and control through Next-Generation Network-Based Application Recognition for manual/CLI configuration. |
|
Perpetual | |
| WAN MacSec |
|
Perpetual | |
| FQDN ACL (Layer 7 blocking) Enables switches to block or allow traffic using domain names, enabling Layer 7 filtering via dynamic DNS resolution. |
|
Perpetual | |
| Customized SDM template |
|
Perpetual | |
| Full Flexible NetFlow All packets. |
|
Perpetual | |
| Device Fabric, segmentation, and eWC Enables policy-based automation with secure segmentation, complete visibility, and delivery of new services quickly on SD-Access devices via manual/CLI/third party. |
|
Perpetual |
* Not supported on all platforms.