Managing Cisco IE Switches from Cisco Catalyst Center and Meraki Dashboard

Managing Cisco IE Switches from Cisco Catalyst Center and Meraki Dashboard is a 5-day instructor-led course that teaches students how to manage Cisco Industrial Ethernet (IE) switches using Cisco Catalyst Center and Meraki Dashboard. The course is written for environments where IT and OT teams support rugged access switches in manufacturing plants, warehouses, utilities, transportation networks, outdoor cabinets, and other industrial spaces. The training starts with industrial switching fundamentals and then moves into hands-on lifecycle management, including site design, discovery, Plug and Play onboarding, templates, VLANs, uplinks, software image management, firmware planning, monitoring, alerting, and troubleshooting.

The course treats Cisco Catalyst Center and Meraki Dashboard as two different operational models. Cisco Catalyst Center is positioned for template-driven automation, inventory, assurance, compliance, and deeper enterprise lifecycle operations. Meraki Dashboard is positioned for cloud-managed industrial switching, simplified administration, centralized visibility, alerting, and remote-site operations. Students finish the course by building a decision model that explains when to use each platform.

• Explain the role of Cisco IE switches in industrial access networks.
• Prepare Cisco Catalyst Center for industrial site hierarchy, credentials, discovery, and provisioning.
• Onboard Cisco IE switches using discovery and Plug and Play workflows.
• Create reusable Cisco Catalyst Center templates for Day-0 and Day-N configuration.
• Manage VLANs, trunks, industrial access ports, uplinks, software images, and device compliance.
• Claim, onboard, configure, monitor, and troubleshoot supported Cisco IE switches using Meraki Dashboard.
• Compare Catalyst Center and Meraki Dashboard management models for plant, branch, and remote industrial sites.