Cisco Catalyst Essentials - subscription license (3 years) - 1 switch (48 ports)

The Catalyst Essentials enables the essential capabilities to manage your network, including networking automation. For instance, Network Plug and Play automates the process of installing or upgrading software images and installing configuration files on Cisco devices that are deployed in a network for the first time. It reduces the manual tasks required to scale the network's capacity. Software Image Management (SWIM) automates software upgrades and controls the consistency of image versions. The Cisco Local Area Bonjour protocol is a zero-configuration solution that simplifies network configuration and enables communication between connected devices, services, and applications. Using Bonjour, you can discover and use shared services with minimal intervention and configuration. Cisco IOS Embedded Event Manager (EEM) is a powerful and flexible subsystem that provides real-time network event detection and onboard automation. It gives you the ability to adapt the behavior of your network devices to align with your business needs.

Network Site Design and Device Provisioning allows you to design your wired network for proper coverage and maximum throughput. You can provision wired network appliances with the proper settings to maximize performance.

Another great feature in Essentials is Full Flexible NetFlow, which allows you to get the pulse of your network by collecting statistics for each network transaction. Your devices can generate anonymized information about packet movements in the network (source and destination, size, etc.) Full Flexible NetFlow adds a few more pieces of data to it, allowing different monitoring and troubleshooting tools to be even more precise. Full Flexible NetFlow is a data source that, when analyzed, can prevent network downtime and security breaches.

An important aspect of effective network management is visibility - it's impossible to manage what you can't see. With Catalyst Essentials, you get access to a health dashboard that gives a high-level overview of the health of every network device and client on the network, wired or wireless, Cisco or Meraki.