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Cisco Connect Cloud and EA4500 Router

Looks like the answer may be in this post:

»Re: Cisco Connect Cloud

reply to pchelp
I have to agree that the decision to just push out an entire new platform via auto-update was a HUGE marketing/management mis-step for Cisco (auto-update can be opted out of as part of the original setup, btw). Their support team is already moving to rectify this by making rollback FW available.

But, is anger at their deployment foolishness is the only reason you refuse to participate in the Cisco Connect Cloud? I ask because I decided to go against against the grain and give it a try. I was surprised to find the engineering innovation here was actually quite awesome for my scenario. (In addition to my home network, I'm the ad-hoc tech support for family, my wife's small business and our favorite charity.)

With a Cisco Connect Cloud account I can manage these remotely without hours of scrambling and driving. No one has even offered this kind of power to the little guys managing consumer routers before (I know there are multi-K enterpri$e $olutions that do this, but they are not in my budget). Because you mention working with clients, I thought maybe you could find a similar benefit.

Most secure networks do not allow management from the outside since it is a security risk.

reply to pchelp

Same concept as Ford owning Land Rover, and Jag... Taurus parts show up in Jag and Rovers...

Its a brand recognition issue. Cisco wanted to buy linksys for the SOHO market, but outside the US linksys has zero brand recognition so Cisco had to stamp their logo on it to get it to sell internationally.

Believe it or not, the growth markets for most businesses are not OUTSIDE the US. That has drastically changed the ways they go about designing and selling their products.

reply to Da Geek Kid

That depends on where you draw the "enterprise" line. I have been horrified to see the cheapness going into some of Cisco's modern "enterprise" gear -- where they used to design their own chips, today, I'm seeing an unacceptable amount of Broadcom finding it's way into Cisco designs.

[for the record: I deal with broadcom SoC's. (far more than I'd like) I know first hand how much of a complicated pile their stuff is. Documentation is copious and detailed, it's also 5% wrong and 20% incomplete.]

2960s are junk, I personally prefer 2975 switches. Maybe it's because I got 8 good 2975 and 100 2960s with various software issues... Aaargh! "you pay what you get" is the modo.

I had forgotten they even had 2975's...hardly ever see them.

they are like 3750s with the stackwise cables... really awesome. They do not however have the POE+ capability. If you do not care than 2975 is the Schiznitz...

Doesn't it conflict with the 2960S in terms of product placement though?

not at all in any way... 2960S are POE+ and do not use the Stackwise cables. The use the cheap imitation version called FlexStack. You can stack 9 2975s but you can only stack 4 2960-S.

Edit: Well, HOT OFF The Press... You can kiss the 2975s goodbye

Cisco announces the end-of-sale and end-of life dates for the Cisco Catalyst 2975 Series Switches. The last day to order the affected product(s) is October 14, 2011. Customers with active service contracts will continue to receive support from the Cisco Technical Assistance Center (TAC) as shown in Table 1 of the EoL bulletin. Table 1 describes the end-of-life milestones, definitions, and dates for the affected product(s). Table 2 lists the product part numbers affected by this announcement. For customers with active and paid service and support contracts, support will be available until the termination date of the contract, even if this date exceeds the Last Date of Support shown in Table 1.

I knew it...they're either preparing the 2980, or trimming the fat off of their product lines, since it conflicts with the 36XXE and 37XX-X switches in a way (ignoring layer 3 for a moment).

Taking an outsider's perspective, why do you need four lines of switches for "access" duties? -- 296x, 356x, 375x and 45xx.

For small(er) deployments, what's top of the wishlist? GigE, POE(+), VLANs, QOS. Toss in stacking capabilities
if a modular / chassis is too cost prohibitive.

For heavier duty stuff where buying a 6500 may be really cost prohibitive, modular 45xx all the way -- once they fix all the
whacko bugs in 15.x and IOS-XE.

As the line goes "Whoever said the human race was logical?" Just my 00000010bits.

Regards

Indeed, and that's not even counting the sub-categories like 3560G vs 3560E and 3750G and 3750-X.