All about Cisco Catalyst 9200 Series Switches

When you need to run an enterprise network, you need enterprise equipment. Cisco is an industry leader in this space for a reason, but even within the Cisco ecosystem, you have a lot of choices.

If you aren’t building a data center, but you still need a lot of users and a lot of bandwidth, the Catalyst 9200 series might be a perfect fit.

Cisco Catalyst 9200

The Catalyst 9200 series is a group of multi-gigabit capable switches designed for enterprise networking infrastructure. The switches achieve high speeds, stack together, simplify networking, expand security, and more.

They are intended to work as the backbone of any enterprise network that is just below a data center in terms of bandwidth requirements (and they are even able to supplement data center networks). These are premium devices that don’t run at premium price points.

Looking at the specifications and use cases for the 9200 series, you can see if it might be a good fit for your organization.

Performance

There are plenty of switches to choose from in the 9200 series, and they vary in specific capabilities. At the high end, they support up to 10 Gbps per port, with lots of 1 Gbps ports on every model. The switches are stackable, and the stack bandwidth caps at 150G.

The 9200 series supports modular uplinks for more freedom in your network design, and they are designed for Wi-Fi 6, making it very easy to integrate large, fast wireless networks into your infrastructure.

PoE+

The series also supports PoE+, providing up to 30W of power per port. At the high end, you can find switches in the series that support varying numbers of PoE+ ports, with a maximum power budget of up to 240W.

Advanced Control

As a member of the Catalyst family, the 9200 series features many of the command and control benefits that make Cisco equipment so reliable.

For starters, these switches support Meraki cloud monitoring. This makes it easier than ever to monitor and maintain multiple networks all from a centralized location. In other words, one IT team can oversee multiple locations without the need to stay onsite.

Cisco DNA Center simplifies the integration of vendor software with your networking equipment. If you already have third-party tools that you like, this feature allows you to incorporate them into your 9200 series network. If you have your eye on some third-party resources, the DNA Center will enable you to go after them.

Use Cases

With so many features and such a diverse set of capabilities, you can use Catalyst 920 switches in just about any network.

That said, they really shine when you can make full use of the hardware and control capabilities. In other words, they’re at their best in very large networks.

Still, if you want overkill performance for a small or medium business office, they will perform admirably. Overall, the two use cases that deserve the most attention are enterprise LAN and IoT.

Enterprise LAN

Enterprise LAN is where this series shines. The switches are made to support fast connections for lots of users. With multi-gigabit ports, huge bandwidth stacks, and Wi-Fi 6 compatibility, you can build large networks for large organizations relatively easily.

The PoE features make it even easier to pick access points and distribute information across a campus. When you have a lot of users doing critical work, this series is ideal.

IoT

IoT is another place where the 9200 series performs admirably. The large number of users common to IoT applications yet again appeals to the bandwidth and capacity capabilities of this series. PoE ports again make things much easier in terms of design and deployment.

If you rely on IoT applications, the 9200 series can help you build your network with excellent power while limiting hardware costs.

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