NETGEAR Switches Reviews

We are a collaboration in AV design and integration company. The primary use for switches in our organization is anything AV related, control, streaming media, audio, collaboration, etc.

Our company is only commercial. We don't do any type of residential services. Our company only deals in commercial. I personally only deal with those larger projects. We use NETGEAR switches with video wall applications, for high intensity, high bandwidth streaming applications, and in mission-critical situations. The amount of switches and displays depends on the size of the project. I just designed one that had five switches recently, but the amount can range depending on the size of the project and building. While it depends on the size of the project, NETGEAR's stuff is scalable to use with any size project.

We don't necessarily have users in our company because we sell the solution. We have multiple clients throughout the country that we put the solution in based on their AV needs.

We are using the M4300 platform.

We have been able to standardize on a few of the major vendors. This has increased our efficiencies. We have been able to provide configurations on switches that we recommend. It's an easier configuration or setup process for our guys out in the field who are installing this stuff. Thus, we have been able to standardize on a grouping of switches, which helps speed up the process with our testing, quality control, and installation out in the field.

Netgear is the only switch manufacturer with a marketing push into the AV marketplace. They are the only major manufacturer out there who is testing and looking at what the AV requirements are as far as streaming capabilities, high bandwidth, and some of the stuff with new AV technology. They are designing switches to better support this.

NETGEAR solutions are very easy to use. The command line language and structure are very similar to what Cisco has. They have a fairly intuitive GUI for their system. Also, their command line structure is very similar and straightforward in its programmability.

The big winner for NETGEAR is their modular switch: the 96X version. That is something that you don't see in the market anywhere else, except for Cisco who has it at a high level for a high expense. The ability to customize your own switch with their modules is a big plus for what we do in the market right now. Instead of having to piece together standardized switches, trying to make something work, or fitting the design into the mold, the modular switches are aware that you can make a mark in the industry because you purchased one switch and design with different modules added and removed later on for functionality.

They need to continue moving forward with their consulting in the AV realm to find out what is needed. They are some differences in the M4300 line and the larger M4500 line right now. They could produce a 1 Gigabit variety that could be a bit cheaper that might fit into that, since the majority of the projects that we see are still in that 1 Gigabit bandwidth threshold. Along with that, a great option would be if it would provide the same modular ability on a lower level.

The only true con for NETGEAR is they are known more for residential applications, wireless routers, wireless pieces, etc. They don't have the reputation of a Cisco or Extreme on the enterprise side. That is the only real "X" against them right now. They have a business portfolio but they are not ranked as high as a Cisco or Extreme piece. They are working on this, as they don't have the name brand loyalty or recognition in the enterprise space that the other vendors have.

We have sold a number of NETGEAR switches in the past year. They have become one of our recommended switches in the last four months. I've been with the company for about a year. We have recently standardized our recommended switch manufacturers and platforms. NETGEAR switches have become the recommended switch for us in the last four months.

The model is very stable. I have had one here in my own test lab for four or five months running different configurations, resetting, or loading new configurations. I haven't had one problem with the switch. Their switch compared to some of the other vendors is a lot quieter when installed. In an office space, it's a lot quieter than the Extreme or Cisco switches.

Countrywide, there could be 200 to 250 people performing different installs that may include NETGEAR switches. It just depends on the project and its requirements.

We don't have NETGEAR in our internal organization. We do have some NETGEAR in our test lab. We have a lab with all of the vendors that we recommend where we do all of our own internal testing. We also have the same setup in some of our quality control locations for testing.

NETGEAR's technical support on the ProAV side for the M4300 is very knowledgeable on the NETGEAR product. They also do their own independent testing with AV gear out in the marketplace to understand how it works. They are very intelligent and knowledgeable on how their product interacts with the AV marketplace and products out there. Their knowledge stretches beyond just their independent NETGEAR switches, going into the market and what those switches support. I have had the pleasure of meeting them and they are professionals with high technical capabilities.

They have a standard warranty for what is on the market. Their support on the 480 side is exceptional compared to what is standard on the market right now.

The initial setup is fairly straightforward. Depending on your company's individual standards, the unit can work straight out of the box if you want. It is very plug and play with little configuration. Depending on the size of the project and complexity, the GUI is very intuitive on setup. Also, the command line structure is very straightforward and similar to what people know from Cisco so they can do the setup via command line easily.

They have their setup for little to no configuration on switches that does work well out-of-the-box. That is not our particular use case. For security reasons, when we are setting stuff up, we have our own network standards which are a bit more strict than what they do. For their setup, it is great. Their out-of-the-box solution with minimal configuration is designed for the majority of the AV world to build a high-bandwidth, streaming system rapidly.

Deployment of this switch is fairly quick for us since we have base configurations that we use with all of our network standards. The switch can be deployed very quickly. The exact time frame depends on the size of the project. Single switches can be deployed in 15 to 20 minutes. Multiple switches can be deployed fairly rapidly, but it depends on the size of the project.

For our implementation strategy overall, we have a set of standards that our company has used and approved. Those standards are already built into generic base configurations for all of our switch vendors. Therefore, whenever we receive the product, testing it, or setting it up in our quality control centers, our technicians onsite can use that base if they load it into the switch. Then, they can have that switch ready to go in 10 to 15 minutes max. Afterwards, they are able to test the traffic and streaming of the product outside of that, and we are able to test the function of the AV equipment without worrying about the switch configuration/function.

Depend on the size of the project, depends on the level of IT expertise needed. NETGEAR has made it simple for non-IT experts to deploy a single switch configuration rapidly without needing a lot of knowledge of switch configuration and terminology. For a single switch deployment, NETGEAR has made it easy for someone to deploy it without needing a certified network person to do it. When you get into the more complex and multiswitch pieces, then you will need either a network certified person to do that or lean on NETGEAR's pro AV support since those guys are fantastic in their knowledge and setup of IT stuff. They are always willing to help.

Our customers see return on investment when going with NETGEAR. When you are looking at some of our multimillion projects, the cost savings on the front-end is a big deal with clients. When using NETGEAR over a Cisco, there is generally a large cost savings in the infrastructure piece. Our customers can see that initial cost savings. Then, having a enterprise-rated switch in their systems saves them cost over the long haul. If they go with a lesser name vendor or manufacturer in the market (and there is a number of them), the reliability is not there. Reliability adds value as well. 

At its price point, nobody else can compare to what NETGEAR is doing at that 10 Gigabit bandwidth level. We are not seeing a lot of 10 Gigabit need right now in the marketplace. Though, we have done a few projects which have required it. We are still sort of at the 1 Gigabit requirement for the majority of our projects. Honestly, NETGEAR's 10 Gigabit offering has a better value than some of the other vendors' 1 Gigabit offering.

Compared to other large names in the marketplace, the price of NETGEAR's product is extremely cost-effective compared to what Cisco or Extreme offer.

NETGEAR as a product versus an AV matrix switcher is far cheaper in its design, but it is sort of an apples to oranges comparison.

I'm certified at the professional level in Cisco. I have also used Cisco series switches, Extreme switches, and Aruba/HPE switches. I am familiar with all four different manufacturers of switches.

NETGEAR has a high-level enterprise product in the 4300 series. Comparable to the Cisco Catalyst platform and Extreme Summit platform, NETGEAR has a much higher value option. Therefore, you are getting the same functionality for a better price point than you would with a Cisco or Extreme switch. They also have dedicated AV support which neither of the other two vendors have.

NETGEAR has a very high rating for price to performance compared to other vendors in the market. For example, Cisco's pricing is exponentially higher than NETGEAR for the same performance.

The difference is NETGEAR is a very cost-effective solution with the same internal capacity that some of the other vendors have. Functionality-wise, the switch works just as well as a higher-priced Cisco switch or higher-priced Extreme switch. The reliability is there. NETGEAR is selling a variety of models and the addition of the modular switch is a huge advantage in the marketplace. Other vendors haven't paid attention to the required uplink needs for larger AV and streaming deployments. NETGEAR has a pretty good feel for the pulse of the industry as a whole and their development toward higher capacity uplinks and bandwidth is exceeding what the other vendors are doing right now. 

I am very familiar with Cisco Meraki. It is a great solution. The issue with Cisco Meraki as a solution in an enterprise is the cost and what's needed for the streaming platforms. Meraki isn't as focused on the uplink requirements for the AV collaboration industry like NETGEAR is. 

I'm familiar with Ubiquiti, but we don't use or quote them at all because we feel like they are more of a residential product than an enterprise product. Therefore, we don't quote them for any of our projects.

There are some new vendors who are advertising in the market, like Luxul. These are new brands who have come from the residential side and are trying to push into the AV market. They don't have the name recognition that NETGEAR has and we have seen some issues with their reliability.

Part of the reason that we recommend NETGEAR in our organization is their M4300 platform is equivalent to what Cisco produces in their Catalyst solution and Extreme produces in their Summit series, as far as functionality. The name, NETGEAR, is known worldwide; it's a big vendor with a large support base. It is a quality product because it has the name behind it.

I would tell anybody looking for switching solutions for their AV platforms to take a strong look at the NETGEAR M4300 platform, specifically their modular unit. It allows so much customability in the design and you are not stuck with trying to piece together multiple switches to get the functionality that you need. I really think that their modular switch is a game changer in the marketplace.

In the marketplace, we are putting this product into a lot of our projects. As the need arises for network products, NETGEAR is one of our recommendations for our designers for the design of their systems for our clients. It depends on what the client needs. If clients are open to it, we will put NETGEAR in. Some clients are restricted in what they can use. The majority of clients, from what we've seen, will allow whatever type of AV network we recommend for them.

The product is great. There is some room for improvement in some of their models. I would probably give the product line an eight and a half (out of 10). Their focus on the AV industry is long overdue from any vendor. As the AV technology moves towards being more IT based, which it has over the past five or six years, NETGEAR has been positioning themselves well to take a big piece of that. Their joining with SDVoE is a big deal as well, so their name is displayed prominently within that organization. The AV industry as a whole is taking notice of what they are doing.

We use the switches for our clients. We're an IT services company. We set them up for our clients when they need networks built or when they upgrade networks or adjust network infrastructure. We switched over to the Insight product line.

We use the GC510 and GC510P, which is the Power over Ethernet model. We also use the GC728X and 728XPs, and the 752Xs and 752XPs.

It is very easy to use. They give you the ability within the screens to make changes and you can push them down to all the devices at once. It's saving us a lot of time in terms of making changes on our customers' equipment by making changes at the organizational level and just pushing a button to push them down to the equipment.

Using the Insight product line and the Insight Pro interface has reduced the amount of time that my organization needs to spend on two things:

1. Setting up the equipment. By having it all configured in the system and being able to push down the configurations to all the devices at once, we've saved at least 50 percent of the time we would spend setting up new equipment for our customers. 
2. The other piece where we've saved a huge amount of time is in maintenance. For the networking equipment we used previous to Insight, you would have to log on to the equipment and push up the firmwares that had the security fixes in them, and do it manually. By using the Insight product line, we can schedule the firmware updates for all the equipment at the same time or at different times, but we can have it all automated and that's easily saving us six to ten hours of labor per customer per quarter.

Two of the most important features are the ease of monitoring and setup. The setup is a breeze with the Insight switches and monitoring of the Ethernet switches for our clients through, in our case, the Insight Pro account, is also a breeze.

NETGEAR has made it really easy to deploy these devices because you just put in the serial number and the system dials home and finds the right account to be attached to. I can set up and preconfigure everything for my client in the Insight Pro interface, put the serial numbers in, so when we bring these things online, they can go home, they can get their configuration, they check in, and do all that stuff automatically.

And through the Insight product line, you can push the settings down to all your Insight devices. For example, we have one client that has three Insight switches and when we make a change to their network - for example, we have to add a VLAN for whatever purpose within the organization - we can make the configuration change and push it down to all three switches at once. We don't have to individually log on to each switch to make the change.

I really love the remote management as well. One of the biggest benefits of the remote management is that it's easy to use and you can use it from a mobile device or tablet with the app they've developed. I have technicians and engineers who work for me and support my customers. If one of my engineers is out in the field at a client and an alert comes in from another client, that engineer can take that alert and look at it in real-time using the app on his phone. He can figure out what might be the problem and actually even solve the problem without the issue having to be transferred back to the main office to have someone else address it.

The remote troubleshooting features provide a single pane of glass where I can see my all my clients' equipment. If they're reporting a problem, I can go to the Insight Pro interface online and I can bring up that client and I can see all their devices and the status of all their devices. I can start to dive into it and look at, "Okay, what's the throughput on this switch?" I can then quickly identify, "Well, there's something attached to this switch that's causing a flooding of the network," for example. I can then actually identify which port it is and then address it quickly.

One area that has room for improvement, and I know NETGEAR is working on it, is adding more features to the product lines in terms of what we can manage through the Insight portal. There are certain features that we can turn on and push down to all the devices, but not all Layer 2 or Layer 3 settings are there yet. NETGEAR is working on that, but one of the things that is not 100 percent is the feature set that they make available through the Insight interface.

We have not seen any problems with it. It seems very stable. We're getting alerts when things are going wrong, so it's not like we're missing anything. My impression is that NETGEAR has a very stable platform in the Insight product line.

They have a very scalable product line. They offer quite the range of networking devices and equipment. Between their Ethernet switches, their access points, and their firewalls, they've got a veritable range within each of those product categories that can meet my needs and, I would assume, the needs of our customers, anywhere from enterprise level down to the mom and pop shop.

Their support has been very good. Any time we've had an issue, which has been minimal, they've been very responsive and things have been resolved within 24 hours, tops. Usually, most of the stuff gets resolved on the initial call.

Previously, we used different equipment. I switched to them because they not only have the Insight product line saved us a lot of time, but it's also very cost-effective compared to other solutions out there. I believe that from a dollar value perspective, the Insight product line is an excellent product line. You get lots of features for the price that you're paying and you don't get that kind of feature-density-per-dollar with any other product line out there.

The initial setup is straightforward. We create an Insight Pro account, which is pretty straightforward, and then add my engineers to the account so they have access to all the customer's stuff. Adding a new client into our Insight Pro account is very easy. So setting up the whole Insight infrastructure that we use to manage and monitor all the Insight devices on behalf of our clients is a breeze. 

As far as setting up the equipment goes, I mentioned earlier that they dial home automatically and then we can push configuration information down to all the devices at once, so it's definitely a breeze to set up multiple devices.

The deployment time on average for the customers where we've used this equipment is on the order of one hour. Previously it would take us anywhere from six to eight hours to preconfigure things, test them, and push it out.

In terms of our implementation strategy, we get the equipment in-house and we bring the equipment online for the customer in our lab. We preconfigure everything and set it all up and verify that the configurations are all working. In the past, that could take anywhere from six to eight hours to do. It included downloading firmwares, uploading them one at a time to each switch, setting the VLAN settings or the Layer 2 or Layer 3 settings on each switch individually, then connecting them all together, and making sure they were all working. With the Insight product line, it takes an hour or less because we plug it in, they dial home, we do the configuration to the cloud, push it down to all the equipment, and then we can see immediately if it's all working properly through the Insight interface.

If you wanted to deploy this type of equipment without IT expertise, I'd say you could do it. The reason you could do it is that, the way the Insight products are set up with the portal interface, they make it very easy to identify the features that you want and to turn them on or off without necessarily understanding how to get into the switches themselves and make those changes on the switches.

Everything was done internally.

The return on the investment, in switching to Insight, is that my staff needs less time to manage those devices, compared to the previous devices that were there. My staff has been able to go out and do more work, take on additional products. It has also freed them up to do things like some additional education and training and to improve their skill sets, which makes our whole organization better.

The pricing for what you get with the Insight product line is very fair and the value is there, including the annual licensing fees for the Insight Pro for each device. The pricing is very fair for the features that you get. In fact, I believe that the Insight Pro level, which is their highest level, where you get a lot of features with the Insight, is a bargain. You get a lot of good features for what you're paying there annually.

I feel that the pricing for the devices and licensing is low and, obviously, it helps the business because I was able to upgrade to the Insight product line and get better, newer, more modern equipment at a very reasonable price. I was able to take some money that was saved from a budgeting perspective and spend it elsewhere within the organization to improve other aspects of the business.

I looked at Cisco Meraki vs NETGEAR, and Ubiquiti as well. I ended up choosing NETGEAR because of the cost, the quality, and the ease of use. Insight makes it easy. I know Meraki is Insight-like: you plug them in, they dial home and you can set it up, but Meraki is very expensive compared to NETGEAR. I also looked at HPE switches.

Definitely consider the Insight product line, but make sure that you understand what you're getting and that you're getting the right piece of equipment within the Insight product line. Consider getting that licensing so that you can manage it online.

The number of users in our organization is about 25. In terms of their roles, there are financial folks who are using it for the organization, there are service people who are using it, and the executives are obviously on the system and using it as well.

For deployment and maintenance, as far as staff goes, I don't even need a full-time person for it. Their role is just to do the configuration: Set up the devices per the design that was done for the network and then maintain it. The maintenance is just monitoring it and then fixing anything that might come up. I don't need full-time people to do that.

Insight is, today, about 15 percent of the equipment on the infrastructure. My plan is to actually get it to 100 percent. My intention is to take it all the way and have everything Insight-based.

AV over IP: Sending video and audio over the network. We use this solution as part of commercial AV large format displays, video walls, and high-capacity HD real-time displays and monitoring.

In most applications, we are only using a couple of switches. Primarily, they are trunched. We have switches in different locations. E.g., we will have an endpoint inside of a classroom or with devices directly connected, but also with a main switching infrastructure and IDF. That is one of our use cases. 

Another use case is in our medical environment with some of the 10 Gigabit applications. We will have switches remotely located in an IDF in a data closet where we will have fiber run back to those switches. We have just one per operating room, but then we will have lags in-between switches in order to pass video from one switch to another in the event that we need to share video to other systems.

We primarily have been using it in testing. It has been implemented by our audio-visual group on two projects now with the Crestron NVX AV over IP solution. One of those projects used two switches connected, and those have been stacked for port count. Then, the other implementation was just a single standalone switch.

That the switches can save a configuration or even import a configuration via CLI is largely beneficial. It's similar to our current workflow with Cisco switches, so it doesn't require much of a curve as far as implementing those features or implementing a configuration that way. It is straightforward.

The ability to use the web interfaces is a big plus. For implementation, our company can quickly update firmware and not having to worry about licensing, which is a big deal. That's a big difference from some of the Cisco products as well as the Extreme products that for specific features require licensing. Not having that with the NETGEAR product is great. This aids us tremendously, as a company, to roll out these switches on multiple projects.

• The new IGMP Plus is a handy feature. There is no configuration out-of-the-box to be able to pass a multicast video. This is probably the most beneficial feature of it.
• The web interface is nice.
• The overall usability of the switch seems to be going well.
• One of the things I like most is the different variations in models. We have 24 SFPs and 24 copper ports (24 by 24). The flexibility of that switch is really good for our medical systems use case.

The ease of use of these switches is very good because of the Cisco CLI. If you are familiar with CLI, then you can configure the switch that way. It also has a relatively straightforward web interface. Using the web interface is good for beginners or people who aren't familiar with Cisco CLI. However, having a common command line interface method is great for some of our more advanced guys who are familiar with it.

The cost and ease of being able to roll out similar implementations of specific use cases is very beneficial. Plus, the ease of setup with the IGMP Plus feature to naturally support what we do on a daily basis is a huge benefit.

I have noticed one thing where we have taken up the multicast group interval time. We have needed to increase that setting. What we found happening were streams would stop until they were reestablished. By taking up multicast group interval time, it resolved that issue.

There has been talk in the roadmap from my conversations with the NETGEAR product development guys about a more streamlined web interface that is more friendly to audio visual personnel, such as general technicians. It would be comparable to a package type web interface. That is one of the conversations that we have had that would be beneficial to having a more streamlined web interface.

Something that we have also spoken about were VLAN profiles. E.g., preconfigured VLANs that would have a multicast traffic configuration applied where you can select a VLAN that is already preconfigured for standard 1 Gigabit IGMP based video, and then another VLAN that is configured for Dante audio. That is beneficial to where you can check port by port or VLAN by VLAN, enabling a specific protocol. It naturally sets QoS settings as well IGMP settings for that VLAN according to the type of traffic.

Another thing that would be a big ask is audio video bridging (AVB). Being able to pass AVB traffic over these switches, that would be a huge add. There are not many switches out that support that. The GS728TP NETGEAR switches used to or still do support AVB, but it would be ideal if the 4300 Series could support it as well.

I have been using the 1 Gigabit series of the 4300 for eight months. I have also been using the 10 Gigabit version of the 4300 for almost a year.

The stability has been fantastic. I have had zero failures.

Video is passing as expected, so I haven't noticed any issues with the switches failing due to bandwidth issues. No news is good news on this front. If it works, then that is great.

Software Defined Video over Ethernet (SDVoE) installations seem to work well. I haven't noticed any failures there. The ease of use for SDVoE is great. The IGMP Plus feature comes with the switch configured out-of-the-box. To be able to pass that traffic, that is a big plus for AV installations.

I haven't had any issues with the 10 Gigabit switching. So, it works great. I'm able to pass around 18 gigs worth of signal over Ethernet ports and SFPs without issue. No news is good news. If it works, that's great. 

Maintenance is typically done through our service department.

Its scalability is one of the big pluses. There are different models of switches in the M4300 Series. The modular based switch is typically used as a spine switch all the way down to 48 Port 10 Gigabit switches. The different models of switches with various sizes and form factors make this switch line very mobile.

We do have plans to increase usage for these switches in our organization.

Typically, commissioning engineers are standing these up. These are our engineers who go to a site with systems in order to commission. They range in experience. For some of our newer guys, we put them on more simplified projects, then for some of our more experienced guys, we put them on the more complex, larger scale projects.

The technical support is much better than it was. That used to be one of the pain points. It took a lot of effort to get through to support and be able to get the support that we needed. Our relationship has been getting better with NETGEAR support.

We are typically a Cisco house. We still use Cisco quite a bit. Our in-house network group primarily supports Cisco. However, especially with these switches utilizing Cisco CLI, it is easy for us to cross implement. 

We chose NETGEAR due to the form factor, scalability, and price. It was a combination of those features put together as well as their focus on audio-visual solutions. Their initiative to make switches work well in an audio-visual environment, that's what we do. So, it makes sense for us to utilize a more cost-effective switch that is specialized to our type of traffic.

The initial setup for these switches was very straightforward. Being able to navigate through the web interface is quite easy. Everything makes sense. The flow from left to right in the web interface makes sense. There are a couple things that were tricky, like setting up DHCP scopes. That wasn't very self-explanatory, so it required looking at a manual. Some added information like little help popups to guide or direct how to set up those settings would help. A little streamlined interface on the homepage with a couple of suggestions would be beneficial, such as:

• Enabling IGMP, which already has a default with the IGMP Plus as a feature. 
• Setting up a DHCP on specific VLANs.

On average, we're able to configure the switches within 30 minutes. That is for most of our use cases, which are streamlined and straightforward. As they get more complex, that is where we are trying to segment more traffic to different VLANs and create DHCP scopes inside of those VLAN. Then, it takes a couple of hours. For most of our systems, we can be setup within 30 minutes or less.

As a company, we are working on creating a uniform implementation strategy. We're working on implementing a procedure for different types of projects to have a quick little start guide.

You do not need to be an expert, but you do need to know your terminology to understand basic things, whether it is IGMP or how to set up a DHCP scope. You need to understand what those are in order to set the switch up.

We haven't been implementing these switches a ton. Our ROI isn’t much at the moment, but the solution is something that we're looking to utilize more often.

The price to performance of the switches is excellent. The price point of these switches is great compared to big brands, like Cisco or Extreme Networks, with approximately the same functionality. 

Licensing is always a hassle and a pain point.

We find the cost of NETGEAR hardware and additional services to be below average compared to the top tier. There are still cheaper products out there, but they lack in functionality.

We have used Extreme, Cisco, Pakedge, Luxul, and Aurora switches. Though, we typically use Cisco and Extreme.

NETGEAR won us over with its scalability, pricing, and specific implementations within AV switching.

We're testing it up against Cisco Catalyst and Extreme Networks 440 and 700 products without having any issues. We can pass the same video over these switches, though the functionality settings are a bit different. Some of the settings are not named specifically the same. So, there is a bit of a learning curve. However, we're able to get video to pass properly functionality-wise.

We're getting into maintaining our network more. From a service standpoint, we do maintain networks. On rare occasions, we have uplinks to clients' networks where a client starts to maintain networks. Typically, if that is the case. It's not part of their workflow to upgrade firmware or make any changes to switches. They just like to monitor the status of the switches.

It is valuable for the AV use case. Test it in the environment that you're looking to utilize these switches, then create a process and procedure going forward on how to implement. Fortunately, there is not much of a process. That would be my suggestion.

I would rate them highly. I would go with a nine (out of 10).

We put them in locations that are far away from us. We're located in Indiana but we've put them is in Kansas. The solution enables us to manage it like we are actually in Kansas and we can do almost anything remotely, so that's why we deployed them there.

We're using the GC728XP, that's their 24-port Insight switch.

In terms of use and deployment, it's really easy because we have the customer set up already, so the configuration gets downloaded right away. Once you have your first customer set up, any switch that you buy for them, going forward, the setup time for that up gets cut down dramatically. Technically, we don't have the set up the switches at our office. We could just send them directly to Kansas. But we always like to double-check. It does go through a few rounds of firmware and we want to make sure that it always gets to the correct one. Sometimes customers don't realize how many times it needs to update.

What we've found is that if you give your customer access to their admin portal, even though, as a managed service provider, they're paying us to manage their equipment, the insight it gives them means they can actually see what they're paying for now. It's really user-friendly. It's very visual, so you can see what ports are being used. Visually, it's much easier for a customer to understand what they're paying for, which helps us, as a managed service provider, retain those customers. That's what we really like about it.

Another way it's helped is, let's say a network is down. Instead of my trying to talk with an end customer to get them to troubleshoot - and that's going very slowly, because they're trying to do their own job - what happens instead is that I can do it remotely and get it done maybe within an hour or so. 

Instead of

1. working with an end user for a couple of hours, and 
2. when that doesn't work, sending someone for a minimum eight-hour drive to the closest one in Kansas and as much as a 14-hour drive to the farthest - that would be almost two days where I lose a tech just driving. Then another day for them to fix the issue themselves and then the time to drive back. So, if it's the furthest location, I could lose a full week of an employee's time, instead of an hour or two troubleshooting within the portal.

Finally, the cost of the hardware and additional services is low and it helps our business because that's exactly what our customers are looking for. We can finally upgrade their old equipment and they can get something newer with all of the features that we wanted to give them and it's actually in their price range. Before, they weren't willing to upgrade their equipment because, if they want it cloud-managed, the solution was too expensive. This has helped our business to provide better service to our customers, and that's what they look for from us.

Their online portal is one of the most useful features. The portal is very user-friendly, so even someone with not a lot of tech experience can go in and see what's going on with the switch. 

The newest release, where we get to schedule firmware updates, is another extremely useful feature. The firmware updates are great for us because we can schedule them in off-hours for the business and at times where we'd rather not be physically at the office waiting for a switch to update.

Those two are the features we use most. But they have a lot of features, all the way down to port-level insight, seeing which ports are being used, what's happening. Cable Test is another one. We haven't used it that often because we haven't had a need to, but it's nice that that feature is there.

The remote troubleshooting is pretty easy. You can turn off a port that might have a network loop created, or where there might be a bad NIC which is creating issues. Being able to turn off that port remotely is fantastic, instead of having to replace the whole switch. Remote management is really easy.

They also have a great app. It's something we've had to get used to using. Most IT professionals are already on our computers and it's easy to use their computers. But the app is great and easy to use, and it has pretty much all the same functionality. Overall, it's easy, once everything is done correctly and you've gotten to the right firmware.

On a scale of one to ten, the ease of use is a nine. I'm not the most IT-literate. Technically I'm the CFO and I do tech work on the side. But it's incredibly easy. It's really straightforward. I don't know how to describe it in any other terms. It's just user-friendly, even for those with little to no tech experience. You don't need to know command lines in this user interface. It's very mouse-friendly. You can just drill down by clicking on things like ports, etc.

I don't think you need to be an IT expert to use the Insight Cloud Portal switches. It's really straightforward. They have a lot of warnings if you do something you're not supposed to, like set up a networking loop. That makes it really great for people who aren't familiar with how to support networks. If you set up a networking loop, that will take down your whole network. Even if you've caused that, it will keep your network up so you can look at the alert and find, "Oh, that's a networking loop," and unplug it and stay on track. This is really user-friendly for people new to networking or for small businesses that are trying to support themselves and that don't have internal IT. I think this would be really easy for them to use.

When they came out with the Insight Pro Edition, a lot of the MSPs were really happy because it allows us to support multiple customers in the same pane of glass. I can have different customers, and different locations under those customers, but keep them so that the customers don't see who else we support.

Their old firmware was a problem for us and we're still working on it. It didn't apply correctly so it took about half of our switches offline, which meant we couldn't use some of the functionality like the firmware updates. Unfortunately with that firmware, which they've sorted out, if you don't go through all the firmware and make sure it's past that point and back online, that's an issue. It's something to cautious about. Before you send this to a customer, make sure it's updated to the most recent firmware, otherwise you can't use the features which are the reason you bought the switch. That would be a cautionary tale. And because it's new, there are firmware updates coming pretty often.

One other issue was that we did have was one hardware malfunction where we had to replace a switch, which is unusual for NETGEAR. They have some of the best products out there for small to medium-sized businesses. They do have a warranty replacement for five years on the switches, so we got it replaced. It was a bit of an inconvenience.

So be a little cautious when buying the equipment. It is still new, it's not like the established NETGEAR switches. There might be some hardware problems in your first year.

In terms of the stability, so far so good. We've only been using it for five months. Overall, it's kept up pretty well. We just had that one hardware replacement. It's not as stable as all their other Ethernet switches because it's new and we had that one replacement, but overall it's pretty great.

It's really scalable. As I said before, if you've already had your network configured for a given customer, you're not doing any more work the second, or third, or tenth time to configure a switch if it's like every other switch. It just downloads the configuration from the cloud.

When we have problems using the interface, getting NETGEAR support is a little difficult, but once you get to the right person, they can help you sort things out. They're working on making it easier to get to the right person. They are trying to get their resellers more support and better support more quickly. There's still some room for improvement there.

I would rate tech support at six or seven out of ten. It's not terrible. NETGEAR is the premium product for small to medium-sized businesses, and they need more support than, say, a large business, which has an internal IT department that can support the user individually. So when we reach out to them, it should be easy to get someone on the phone or through chat who really understands the product. They're still trying to teach their own staff about all the different functionalities in Insight, so that's where there's a bit of a disconnect.

We've almost always used NETGEAR, we just never used their Insight product until they came out with it. We have used other switches, of course, depending on customer's needs. A cheaper one would be TP-Link, but we've found that with a little bit of a price increase, NETGEAR outperforms them every time, and NETGEAR has the lifetime warranty, which really is a huge cost savings for our customers in the long run. So we try to recommend them as much as possible.

Right now though, the Insight switches only have a five-year warranty, but that's still better than most of the other switches on the market. So you get a business-enterprise switch at a really good price, and it has this tremendous value with the warranty so that anytime the hardware fails, you'll get a replacement. That's really nice for our customers. They look for value and for savings over the long-term because most of our customers are not in the business of IT, they just need IT so that they can keep up their actual business.

Before they came out with the Insight product, if we had a customer who was really interested in that information - they wanted a cloud-managed solution - if they could afford it, they would most likely go to Meraki or Cisco route. But we deal in small to medium-sized businesses and most of them cannot afford the annual subscription that goes along with having that type of equipment.

The majority of the time, we've recommended NETGEAR for the value that they provide.

We have used TP-Link if the need is for a small switch. Before the NETGEAR Insight, we were just using the normal NETGEAR models, like the M4300. We used those quite often. We used the Cisco Meraki switches if the customer could afford it, but that's on the high end.

To set up the first five switches, took a couple hours, max. We were getting aquatinted with the new portal, so we had to set up our login credentials, but each switch took maybe ten to 20 minutes, max 30 minutes to set up. It was really straightforward.

We used the same strategy that we always do because we're always cautious with new products and want to make sure we fully understand them. We ordered the first six, set them up here, and then physically went out there and installed them ourselves. They're easier, for setup purposes, for non-tech people to use, and tech people, of course, will have no problems using this interface. Now that we have more experience, it's a lot easier to set up than the first time. We could, if we wanted to, just ship these to Kansas already configured and, if there's someone capable onsite, have that person put it in the rack for us.

For deployment, we usually have one to two people go out and run cables but, to be perfectly honest, if we weren't running cables, if we were just installing the switches, it would only take one person to configure it and put it in the rack. It wouldn't take much time at all.

We don't use an integrator or reseller because we're a managed service provider and we do all of that for our end customers. We do it from start to finish. We recommend equipment to our end user, we purchase the equipment, we configure it, and we install it. We do everything for our customers.

I think there's been a return on investment. With the firmware problem there was a little bit of an issue. If we didn't have that problem, we would have already seen a return on investment. It will be a full year before we really see a big impact on our bottom line.

NETGEAR pricing is the best on the market by far. I was shocked when I saw what their price came out as for their subscription. It's extremely reasonable.

The great thing about the Insight product is that the renewable subscription is much cheaper than the competitors in the market. It is not over $50, per year, so customers buy the equipment and don't have to worry so much about the renewable fees that go along with having such access into their switch, with a cloud-managed solution. There are some other manufacturers where you'll essentially pay the same in hardware as you do in software, just for the cloud solution that supports it; just to keep getting the firmware updates and all of that information.

With NETGEAR, you can do multi-year and that is something like 90 percent cheaper than if you're looking at Meraki, for example. It is extremely competitive. It's one of the main reasons we liked it so much. It's one of the reasons we push this so much. We want this information in the cloud and we want this insight, but we didn't want to commit our customers to such a hefty subscription fee.

We have considered Meraki. We've not used Ubiquiti that frequently. 

If you're in a small to medium-sized business, if you're a business owner, or if you're an IT company providing services to small and medium-sized businesses, this is a great solution. Seriously consider it, especially if you're looking for a cloud-managed solution that's not very expensive.

Overall, the remote management tools of the GC switch are good. There were some issues at the beginning with the initial firmware, getting it updated. We've pretty much sorted those out. This is a new product for them, so we knew that there were going to be some speed bumps but, overall, it's still better than having no easy portal to see through. The normal way you would log in to a switch is much more difficult than what they're providing.

The only thing that I didn't realize when I was setting these up is that you need to make sure that it gets to the right firmware. It doesn't get online as easily as possible, as easily as some other Ethernet switches. It does go through a few rounds of firmware updates. But everything else is really easy. Even the VLAN setup is pretty straightforward. I didn't have any issues besides that firmware. I haven't set up a new switch in a few months, so this could be a moot point. I'm just cautioning new users.

We only have one customer currently using this, with nine locations. There could be some 50 users total. They don't have a high concentration per building. We've gotten the 24 ports for all the locations, and it seems to be handling the traffic very well. We're still testing it every day, and NETGEAR has been great about working with us if we see any issues. They've been on it to get feedback addressed.

I would give it an eight out of ten. The only reason is that it is a new product. They're working out some kinks. Otherwise, in a year it's going to be the best solution out there in terms of price and value. When we first got it, they didn't even have a 52-port switch. Now they do. They're coming up with all of these additional products to give the full solution. They're coming out with a cloud-managed router as well, connecting all of those things into a full solution: they have the access points, now the switches, and the routers. That, and the consistency of the network, making sure the devices are always connected to the cloud reporting correctly, would make it a full ten. 

I know they are working on it. I was out there with NETGEAR telling them my concerns and they heard me, and I know that they've already addressed a few of those things and were just working on the last few.

We have a five-story head office and deployed NETGEAR switches here, running for the past two years. We have 1,000 employees working in this building.

Centralized monitoring is there, but competitors like Cisco Prime are at a higher level of centralized monitoring where you can jump into any switch from anywhere and do the central maintenance. NETGEAR should consider that.

It's been almost two years since I started using NETGEAR switches.

The product is very stable. The managed switches are reliable, and we have not faced any issues so far with uptime.

The product is scalable. We have more than 100 switches.

In my last organization, we worked with Cisco, standardizing our network equipment with them. In this organization, we've been working with NETGEAR. So far, the feedback I've received is that it's good. However, I've worked with Cisco for the past 15 years at Tata Steel, but it's just been two months for me here. Going forward, if NETGEAR creates trouble, we will replace it with Cisco.

Cisco has a world-established brand, so Cisco would be better in those terms. I have seen it working for the past 15 years. We have a refresh policy where we replace all the switches and the network's other active components every four-and-a-half or five years. I'm not sure what the policy is in this new organization, but I know that NETGEAR has been used here for more than two years. We'll be working out some new policies at the current organization. The pros with Cisco are the reliability and the number of hours it works and that there's no need to manage it. However, the same goes for NETGEAR. The cons with NETGEAR is that I'm unsure about its market share. Cisco has a very good reputation and is a market leader.

Besides that, Cisco has the advantage of being managed centrally through a central management suite. But NETGEAR, I have seen that we need to log into the switch to take it remotely.

The product is easy to deploy. The time to deploy the product depends upon the deployment scale. A single building deployment would take days while configuring a single switch would take hours or minutes.

We do the architecture, and our engineers do the deployment. The product is easy to maintain. We need more people to manage our switches; if one switch and link are down, we would need at least two or three people to manage it.

We have local partners here to support and network experts. We have not faced a case where we have to contact the OEM.

NETGEAR is a cost-effective solution when going for a small enterprise or a small-scale business. In those cases, I recommend NETGEAR switches. But I recommend Cisco if it's a very large-scale, enterprise-level organization. I can't recommend NETGEAR for enterprise businesses since I have not seen NETGEAR switches deployed through thousands or tens of thousands of switches.

I rate NETGEAR switches an eight out of ten.

The solution is very powerful and versatile.

The firewall has many options for add-ons.

There is a lack of documentation, and the documentation I have is unclear, so I have to rely on Google for information.

The customer support is a paid add-on; you must buy it to get help.

I've been working with the solution for 15 years. 

One aspect of the scalability is that there is no option to upgrade the device. Netgate discontinued the 3100 model, which had a little more than a GB of throughput on the firewall, and replaced it with the 2100, which has less than a GB of throughput. Replacing a 1,200MB device with a 700MB one is illogical; if anything, the replacement should be higher end.

Our customers are generally unwilling to pay for the support, so we go with the light package. Once connected to the internet and working, the only help available is for refreshing devices and new firmware. We can exchange a device if it's under warranty, but we have to ship it, and then they send a replacement, which means we're out of a device for a while.

I can't comment on the full level of support, as our only experience has been with the light version. They help us get online and respond quickly to new firmware requests, usually with a download link within 24 hours, and that's the only assistance if you don't pay for more.

The setup is relatively challenging; the solution has a GUI, but it isn't as clear as other routers. The product will write some rules on the firewall, but I've seen firewalls that are easier to set up, and you need to know what you're doing, especially if you want to go into the more advanced features such as NAT, dynamic DNS, etc.

The product lacks remote access support, so the maintenance is Plug and Play; we go in about once a year to ensure we do the firmware upgrades properly. That's the extent of the maintenance; the solution runs by itself and doesn't require much interference from us.

The price is very fair for this type of device, especially for what it does.

I rate the solution nine out of ten. 

To fully leverage the solution, you need to understand your router.

As an engineering company who pioneered network-based AV solutions, we strongly rely on our in-house network backbone. It is fundamental for all required AV protocols, as well as for all of the standard network purposes which our company uses.

In our case, SDVoE, Dante (professional audio), office traffic, etc. flow on different VLANs which are incorporated into one single physical network infrastructure. Divided over two racks, three switches from the 4300 series are running in stacked mode and provide 10GbE connections to the SDVoE encoders and decoders from ZeeVee, as well as to all our other gear, including Dante devices, computers, access points, and phones.

With the NETGEAR 4300 series switches, we have been able to test, demonstrate, and provide training on the ZeeVee 10GbE SDVoE gear, which we distribute.

Thanks to the availability of 10GbE, we have been able to show the difference between compressed 4K video streaming over 1GbE and uncompressed 4K video streaming with the use of the SDVoE protocol and 10GbE.

However, 10GbE is Ethernet in another speed. We had to learn how to handle it. This knowledge will be useful in future projects. For example, one of our upcoming projects will have 24 encoders and 11 decoders with two M4300-96X NETGEAR switches.

• The stacking feature
• The web interface, which makes it easy to use and set up.
• The support for SDVoE
• The 10GbE port speed

It provides the ability to stack switches together, and this is a huge time saver! Having one interface to configure the complete system, especially when it comes to VLANs, helps a lot. This administration is something that is time consuming when all switches need to be configured individually. Thanks to stacking, you have VLANs available on all switches, and you can just select what you want.

Since it has a web interface, it is easy to set up. You don't have to take three years of training somewhere for a lot of money.

NETGEAR's web interface describes settings with names and sentences which are different from other switch manufacturers. Therefore, you must figure out what each one does before you can use it. If you compare it to Cisco, for example, their web interface is a bit more intuitive.

The web interface could also be improved when it comes to multicast settings. Especially, that IGMP is spread to “Switching” and “Routing“ is confusing. At first, it is unclear what needs to be setup where.

Support for IGMPv3 querier would be appreciated. Currently, only a version 2 querier can be sent by the switches, which is a bit outdated, since version 3 has been on the market for a few years now. Cisco does support querier version 3 in their small business switches.

The ‘how-to’ guides could do with some improvements. We got in trouble following the stacking and Dante set-up guides. If these would have been accurate, we would not have lost three days.

We have been using this solution for three years now.

It has been very stable, since the initial stacking issues were solved. It simply runs, which is the best. You can plug it in, set it up, and you can forget about it. Surely, there will be maintenance tasks in the future, like firmware upgrades, which can be done in-house.

You can combine up to eight units in a stack. For its price, it scales well. To get optimum performance for SDVoE, the uplink bandwidth between the switches needs to be designed carefully. We haven't seen any type of switch-related bottleneck issues, so far.

Our issues are immediately escalated to Tier 3 support, which has been very good. However, there are some issues that have not yet been resolved.

We were using and selling the Cisco Small Business 300 and 500 Series. But, a lot of different new firmware was being released for these switches, and with every firmware update came a different problem. The last thing you want is to have is a switch which behaves strange in your backbone, or on a project site. We just got fed up with it.

Seeing this, and the fact that Cisco does not have 10GbE hardware for a reasonable price, convinced us to switch to NETGEAR. Thanks to the increase in bandwidth, we were finally able to truly demonstrate the 10GbE solutions that we distribute.

Other than that, the change from Cisco to NETGEAR has not changed anything in our organization. Day-to-day things didn't change a lot and our office runs as always.

At first, we stacked all switches together, then we started to configure the different VLANs. Just when we wanted to swap over to production, we recognized that there was a problem with the stacking configuration that we did.

The priorities of the switches must be set in a different way than we had assumed, so backup units can overtake management in case the main unit is down. If you don't set them properly, you somehow get the effect of the management switch changing from one to the other switch frequently.

Once this was resolved, we could switch over on the fly to production without any visible downtime and work normally.

Deploying Dante devices was also a bit problematic, since the stacked mode ‘how-to’ guides for Dante are not quite accurate, e.g., the setup of QoS resulted in a support case.

After configuring the VLAN (according to the manufacturer’s manual), we just plug in the SDVoE gear. This worked.

We implemented the 4300 series at the end of January. Altogether, our deployment took four days. Three days were lost on implementing Dante due to the weak ‘how-to’ guides.

We did the deployment ourselves. There is no need to be an IT expert if you are deploying standalone. The web interface is common and easy to understand. You just need to know how to set up a switch. Only when it comes to the stacked mode, then you need to have IT knowledge. The rest of our team had no noticeable breaks during the transition.

We have saved time since we switched from Cisco to NETGEAR. With Cisco, firmware updates and troubleshooting afterwards were costing us hours. With NETGEAR, we update, and it all works as before.

The pricing is very good for 10GbE switches and you get a lot of throughput. It is about 60 percent of the costs of other switches from competitive manufacturers, which is really good.

Since we were looking to go to 10GbE, our choices were either Cisco or NETGEAR. 

Ubiquiti wasn't a consideration. When I have worked with them in the past, there have been many issues. Therefore, I would not consider using them as reliable backbone.

To have unlimited, uncompressed, 4K transmission, you cannot go with 1GbE, you need 10GbE. The 4300 Series is the way to go. 

We run two different High-Bandwidth AV over IP systems simultaneously and haven't seen any limitations yet.

We use it based on customer requirements. If a customer says they need NETGEAR installed, then we are ready to provide NETGEAR customer support and are willing to pay Cisco.

The service for NETGEAR is very prompt. We personally know the NETGEAR process. If there are any problems, they try to support customer support.

In the last two or three years, Cisco products have been unavailable. That's why we switched to NETGEAR for remote capabilities, etc.

Moreover, I like the stability. The Netgear build is stable. We haven't had any problems with NETGEARs in the last few years.

The output is good, but one thing I would like to see improved is the response time for technical support. Currently, it takes more than 15 to 20 minutes to connect with a technician through the toll-free number. It would be much better if the call could be connected within five or two minutes.

NETGEAR is a good product. We've been using it for more than ten years. 

The stability is good. I would rate the stability a ten out of ten. 

The scalability is good. We have different projects at different locations, each with 50 to 100 users. However, we don't track individual users in housing complexes.

We have dedicated technical personnel. If we encounter any problems, we can contact NETGEAR directly.

NETGEAR's technical support is also good. They have their own office in Kolkata, which makes it easy for us to access and communicate with them.

Positive

We have completed more than 60 to 70 projects. Additionally, there are many end users.

After receiving a project, we can start the inquiry. We make the switch within two months.

We work in the government and corporate sectors. We require it regardless of the segment.

We have seen a good return on investment. NETGEAR switches are reliable, scalable, and affordable. We haven't found any other product that offers the same combination of features and price.

It's cheaper than Cisco. For the features it offers, the pricing is good. 

For example, if we need a specific feature like VIN, we can access to an appropriate suite like L2 or L3. Similarly, if we only need basic network functionality, a simpler and more affordable option like a normal suite would be ideal.

We focus on virtual experience and profit margin. If there's an opportunity on NETGEAR or Sophos, or Ubiquiti, we'll recommend that product. If not, we might recommend Ubiquiti. We're not dedicated to any particular network brand. We can deal with them all, including Cisco, depending on the customer's needs and budget. So, we have all the reputed products. 

For NETGEAR, it has a wide range of switches and routers for different needs. We choose the appropriate model based on our specific requirements.

Overall, I would rate the solution a ten out of ten.