Dear potential buyers of C1111-8p,
Before spending the money please read this post and the attached PDFs for visual details.
I'll try to summarize the points as I already lost way too much time with this.
1) even though it is marketed as a SMB product it is not supported as such. It is considered an Enterprise product.
2) if you buy only the product you are not entitled to software update. The warranty does not cover such thing. You need to buy services for this.
3) the WebUI interface does not work properly (see the attached file). I wasted hours to make the network connection work. I couldn't. Finlay, I did it old style in 10 mins. So, if you do not know CLI and Cisco ways you are going to have a painful experience. And remember you cannot update the software to solve the problem
4) if you buy the product for PoE also make sure you find the way how to do it because the 'standard' product even though is advertised as PoE capable is not.
Cisco IOS XE has its strengths but if you are used with 'traditional' SMB vendors’ products and processes, you will probably have a bad experience buying this product.
If you are used with WebUi interfaces and not command line this is not a product for you.
If you are used to buy a product and have at least an email address to communicate with the vendor this is not a product for you.
If you are used to have free access or pay directly for a new versions of software this is not a product for you.
If your needs are similar to the mainstream SMBs you can do much much better with other products for less money.
I bought it for lab purposes and I still regret it.
I used in my lab Sophos, Ubiquiti, Untangle, pfsense and opnsense (as routers and UTMs) and Mikrotik for routing and firewall and any of those will offer in my opinion better value to a SMB than this.
For up to 50 users even Synology router/UTM (consumer grade!! ) offer much better value than this.
Anyways, as we are all biased and limited by our previous experiences please take this with a grain of salt.
For me buying this Cisco product was the most frustrating buying and user experience ever. I've never complained for anything publicly, I always try to understand more perspectives, I always try to be reasonable. But the level of professionalism Cisco put in developing the web interface and marketing this product for a SMB is unacceptable low. And on top of it, all for a premium price level.
And by the way, Cisco Umbrella (a great concept from product perspective) is also at the same level from the UI perspective as this product. At least with Umbrella one can realize it much faster and cheaper.
Regards,
Radu
