how prevalent is cisco networking gear in the real world

[JoshCanHearYou]

I'm at university and one of my classes is literally just doing the cisco learning academy introduction to networks. All we do is learn basics of networking and then how to use CISCO equipment. I feel like I'm being locked in to learning their bullshit ecosystem of products when I know there's so many other networking companies out there. Is it just me or does programming a switch/router in the console seem outdated as hell (I know it's like the best and most realiable way to do it but man a GUI would make it so so so much easier, like ubiquiti products). I am wrong? 

 

Thanks

[Needfuldoer]

Cisco is the de facto standard in enterprise deployments.

 

Once you get up to speed with the CLI, it's so much faster than re-learning the web UI on new gear. Even other brands tend to imitate the way IOS handles when they make their own interfaces. (Brocade is almost identical.) It's also extremely convenient to dump a config out to a text file, and the commands you learn on an old 2600 series still generally apply to current hardware. It's like learning how to use Bash.

 

Ubiquiti is prosumer at best. Propose rolling that out at a large company and you'll get laughed out of the room.

 

Always remember: copy run start

[Nuzicx]

CLI is easier than GUI once you get use-to autocomplete, it's also safer as scripts can be checked by work colleagues before implementing.

[MiszS]

I'm also learning networking, but in high school, and CLI really is faster when you get used to it, especially when you can copy paste most of the configuration, and just change things like ip addresses

[brwainer]

I’m working at a Fortune 500 company as a Lead Network Engineer. A few weeks ago, myself and three of my colleagues flew out to a new datacenter to rack and set up $2 million worth of Cisco and F5 equipment. Nexus 9K switches in spine and leaf topology, with Catalyst 9300L switches for the out of band management, and Catalyst 8500 routers. Each one we performed initial setup on purely from serial console. All programming of them done via CLI after they got online too. The VXLAN config will be done via Nexus Fabric Manager, but that’s it and we’d be comfortable doing it by hand if we hadn’t been given it for free. We’re connecting console servers to provide OOB serial access as well. If we had gone with Arista or Juniper for this deployment, the overall methods would have been the same - I haven’t seen a GUI yet that is good enough to completely replace the speed at which you can get precise information out of a CLI. GUIs are good when you are taking a larger overall view at something, or to enable templates and standardized workflows.

 

Except for when they try to teach their automation tools, anything you learn about Cisco will be transferable to general networking principals and other vendors. I had a networking class in college that was just using a CCNA Study Guide as the course material, and at my first job after that I mainly touched Aruba/HP and then later Ruckus/Brocade switches, and the knowledge I gained follow the Cisco methods was still useful to me.

 

At my second job, we used hardly any Cisco equipment. And even so, when talking to my manager about what I should study and certifications to try to get to further my career both with that company and in general, I was told to continue on the Cisco certification path.

 

At my current employer, when I applied for my first position here, the role was for removing Cisco routers from over 1000 branch locations and replacing them with a non-Cisco SDWAN appliance. And yet the fact that I was CCNA certified was a deciding factor between me and another candidate.

 

Try to recognize in your studies what is an industry standard, such as protocols and RFCs that everyone has to abide by, and what is Cisco’s way of implementing things. Sometimes the way Cisco does things becomes the standard that everyone follows, and sometimes they go off on their own, and its only the requirement of interoperability that keeps things minimally compatible.

[Lurick]

Agreed with @brwainer and to add.

GUI is great for mass provisioning and whatnot, CLI is still king in most cases for troubleshooting imo.

 

Edit:

Also brwainer, ping me if you have questions about NDFC. ND 3.1 and NDFC 12.2.1 are around the corner and adds a lot of much needed improvements

[mynameisjuan]

17 hours ago, JoshCanHearYou said:

I feel like I'm being locked in to learning their bullshit ecosystem of products when I know there's so many other networking companies out there....so much easier, like ubiquiti products)

The irony in that statement in which Cisco is considered vendor locked where as Ubiquiti isn't.

 

Learning IOS-* paves the way for ease of transition to a large majority of other vendors.

 

17 hours ago, JoshCanHearYou said:

Is it just me or does programming a switch/router in the console seem outdated as hell (I know it's like the best and most realiable way to do it but man a GUI would make it so so so much easier

Even the most regarded GUIs are meh at best and it becomes clear whenever you get familiar with any NOS' CLI. You will never get responsiveness, verbose/condensed output, more fluid configuration or a multitude of methods to interface with a GUI the way you do with CLI. CLI is still king and will be the go to for the foreseeable future.

 

Don't fall in the trap that GUIs are easier as in most instances they are not (there are exceptions of course for specific configs). Some GUIs can make things more convoluted or tedious requiring a dozen or more steps across various unrelated directories where the same config would be a few lines at worse. Unifi is notorious for this and one reason why I consider it among one of the worse GUIs on the market. Pretty != good/easy.

 

GUIs have their use cases but each one is easily replaced by almost any NMS if possible.

 

16 hours ago, Needfuldoer said:

Always remember: copy run start

 

show | compare
commit check
commit confirmed
commit and-quit

FTFY

 

11 hours ago, brwainer said:

and RFCs that everyone has to abide by

RFCs are not standards, they are strongly recommended guidelines to abide by.