Network switch competitive comparison

• Investment protection
• Feature robustness
• Platform longevity

• Product lines inconsistent
• Short life span
• Merchant silicon with limited flexibility

• Merchant silicon with limited flexibility
• ENP and Solar inferior to Cisco UADP capability
• No high-speed stacking interface
• Lacks in performance, packet processing, and full data flow visibility

• Merchant silicon with limited flexibility

Investment protection with line card and supervisor upgrades

Catalyst 9400X: 

• 90W Cisco UPOE+
• Multigigabit scale

Catalyst 9600X: 

• Industry's first 400G campus switch
• WAN MACsec
• Enhanced queueing with VOQ architecture

• Single chassis with no supervisor upgrades possible

• Future supervisor upgrades possible

• Two-box solution using data center switches

Catalyst 9300X models: 

• 100G uplinks 
• IKEv2 IPsec encryption on the hardware
• Branch-to-cloud connectivity 
• Site-to-site IPsec
• Secure tunnels directly to multicloud service providers
• Access onboard applications or workloads securely

• No equivalent offering for campus switching

• No equivalent offering for campus switching

• No equivalent offering for campus switching

Cisco Multigigabit Technology:

• Prepares access networks for future innovations by delivering speeds of 1G, 2.5G, 5G, and as much as 10G on existing Category 5e and 6 cables
• PoE and Cisco UPOE+ across the same port, up to 90W Cisco UPOE

• Smart Rate multigigabit technology in some models
• Limited number of multigigabit ports per chassis

• Multigigabit up to 2.5G in some switch models

• Multigigabit up to 2.5G and 5G in some switch models

Expands value for smart buildings:

• No new license needed for Catalyst 9000 switches
• Bundled into Cisco DNA Advantage
• Includes cloud software, connector, and support
• Full-stack offering: 
  • Cisco DNA Center zero-trust segmentation
  • PoE assurance

• No 90W PoE platforms
• No IoT gateways supported

• No smart buildings ecosystem partners

• No 90W PoE platforms
• No IoT gateways supported

• Large partner ecosystem
• Cisco Spaces IoT gateway and ThousandEyes technology onboard 
• Third-party app hosting on Catalyst 9000 Switches
• 90W PoE to power and connect expanded set of devices and sensors

• Uses analytics to monitor behavior with Cisco Secure Network Analytics and NetFlow
• Classifies traffic on the edge and inside the network with Cisco TrustSec technology

• Limited analytics functionality
• Use of Tunnel Node limits scale

• iPCA option on S5720HI/S5730HI/S6729HI models only and limits visibility

• Network detection and response (NDR) capability only by 720XP switches' acting as sensors

• Wired assurance using PoE analytics, including power supply starvation, power supply missing, power overdraw, and PoE insights
• Cisco StackWise technology for redundancy
• Improved application experience
• AI/ML analytics and machine reasoning

• Limited functionality with AI Insights

• Reliance on different tools with limited wired assurance

• No advanced capabilities in guided remediation or root-cause analysis for wired infrastructure

• Supports:
  • Flexible NetFlow
  • IPFIX with NBAR2-DPI Engine resident on Catalyst 9200, 9300, and 9400 Series switches
• Provides line-rate and accurate application identification and analytics

• Aruba switches do not support DPI Engine
• Supports sFlow

• No NetFlow support; uses proprietary NetStream protocol

• Supports sFlow and IPFIX
• No DPI Engine

• Common foundation for switching, wireless, and routing across Cisco Catalyst 9000 with Cisco IOS XE
• Total system visibility and control

• Separate campus switching, wireless, and routing OSS

• Separate campus switching, wireless, and routing OSS

• Separate campus switching, wireless, and routing OSS

• Cisco IOS XE supports DevOps toolkit, NETCONF/YANG models, gNMI, gNOI, gRPC, OpenConfig, YANG
• All programmatic access options are available

• REST API-based automation only

• NETCONF support

• Cisco ThousandEyes agents embedded
• Provides immediate visibility with additional software
• Can leverage existing switches
• Included with all Cisco DNA Advantage licenses

• Offers strategic capabilities with Catalyst 9000 switches
• Enables a rich ecosystem partnership of 25+ certified apps, including Kibana, perfSONAR, TrapX Security, Cyber Vision, and CodiLime IPsec app
• Over 200 active customers

• No resource protection
• No centralized dashboard

• Resiliency features: ISSU, GIR, Extended Fast Software Upgrade (xFSU)
• Redundant hot-swappable power supplies and fans
• N+1 chassis redundancy with Cisco StackWise-1T physical stacks
• 1+1 virtual stack redundancy with Cisco StackWise Virtual technology

• No xFSU, stacking power aggregation, patching, or dedicated 1-Tbps stacking
• No single-chassis ISSU, only unproven VSX Live Upgrade
• No Quad-Sup RPR

• No xFSU, stacking power aggregation, or dedicated 1-Tbps stacking
• No single-chassis ISSU

• No xFSU, stacking power aggregation, or dedicated 1-Tbps stacking
• No single-chassis ISSU
• MLAG ISSU currently not supported for complex MLAG provisioning

• 90W Cisco UPOE+
• Perpetual PoE
• Fast PoE
• Multiple-level redundancy: Cisco StackWise 480/1T technology and Cisco StackWise Virtual technology

• 30W/60W PoE support
• 1:1 power redundancy through dual power supplies supported on some switches
• No advanced power-resilience feature sets available

• PoE and 90W PoE+ PoH on S5700 switches
• 1:1 90W PoH power redundancy (over HDMI) on a single platform

• 30W/60W PoE support
• 1:1 power redundancy through dual power supplies
• No advanced resiliency features like fast or perpetual PoE

Trustworthy solutions help ensure that software is authentic, unmodified, and operating correctly: 

• Image signing
• Secure boot
• Cisco Trust Anchor module
• Run-time defenses 
• Hardware-level root of trust
• Unique device identity
• Software validation

• Trusted Platform Module (TPM) is supported
• Secure Boot is disabled by default on a few platforms

• TPM is supported
• Secure Boot is disabled by default on some platforms

• 802.1AE MACsec encryption on switch-to-host and switch-to-switch links using TrustSec Network Device Admission Control, Security Association Protocol, and MKA-based key
• Catalyst 9300X with 100G line-rate IPsec
• WAN MACsec on Catalyst 9000X Core switches

• Switches do not support the MACsec encryption by default; an additional plug-in is required
• Only point-to-point MACsec is supported
• Just one enterprise switch supports MACsec-256, the CloudEngine S5732-H model
• Only software-based IPsec is supported 

• MACsec-256 is supported on only the Arista 722XP switch

• ZTA security scans and flags weak credentials and open ports
• Cisco AI Endpoint Analytics actively probes endpoints and detects unauthorized ports

• Only 720XP Series switches support NDR sensor capability

Advanced security features: 

• Cisco TrustSec segmentation
• Network as a service
• Cisco Network Security Analytics
• Cisco Identity Services Engine
• Encrypted Traffic Analytics
• Network as an enforcer
• mDNS gateway
• MACsec-256 link encryption

• Supports ECA

• Centralized and automated network design, policy, and provisioning of all wired and wireless networks

• Dynamic segmentation with limited automation
• Provisioning and group-based policy enforcement

• No turnkey support for automation capabilities for provisioning or group-based policy enforcement

• No turnkey support for automation capabilities for provisioning or group-based policy enforcement