3Com Baseline Switches (Discontinued) vs. HPE Aruba Ethernet Switches

As our company is growing we need to be able to upgrade our equipment. It is great for smaller companies.

Incentivized

These devices are rock solid, you will se them up once and not have to mess with them for years. They are work horses that don't die. We use them in an office environment and have only ever had 1 fail due to a PSU issue, we got a replacement next day and it's been working great.

Incentivized

• Great product used on a budget.
• It gets the job done.
• Better switches than most competitors.

Incentivized

• REST API capability
• Wired & Wireless 802.1x configuration easiness
• Wireless Access Points (APs) zero touch provisioning
• Its high-end family (running the AOS-CX firmware) supports a virtualization technology called VSX (Virtual Switching Extension) which allows 2 switches to present itself as one virtualized switch under Layer 2, and as 2 separate routers under Layer 3; thereby providing high availability.

Incentivized

• Our network is slow.
• Feels like things are not working properly at times.
• Old equipment.

Incentivized

• I have had issues finding monitoring software that natively supports Provision/Aruba OS. Most are designed primarily with Cisco in mind.
• HPE/Aruba switches have historically had issues with corrupt flash. This seems to be less common in more recent models.
• HPE/Aruba's switching portfolio can be confusing. Some models run on the Aruba OS while some others run on Comware. There is some overlap in these model lines so at times is can be tough to tell which switch is right.

Incentivized

I preferred the OS running on the 2530 series switches, but the ArubaOS is very usable. It's similar to the Cisco OS command line interface, but somehow more understandable. It takes a bit of getting used to, but the documentation is great and it makes sense after a while of using it.

Incentivized

HPE Support is very easy to reach. A knowledgable rep can be reached in a few minutes. After some basic troubleshooting if the failure is due to hardware I can receive a replacement within a day or even in a few hours.

Incentivized

I used Cisco and Cisco is a great product but more on the expensive side. This is a great product for smaller companies.

Incentivized

We used to have a lot of Cisco switches which are great, but
the support contracts and other expenses mount up quickly; one of the main
reasons for switching to HP for networking was the cost, but the hardware and
software have gotten so much better over the years.

I can’t see us changing network hardware unless the price increases dramatically.

Incentivized

• Great price.
• Great product for small company.
• It was great before we expanded.

Incentivized

• When comparing Aruba to Cisco and Dell there is no comparison in cost. Aruba is a better value and will not require additional licensing like it often the case with Cisco.
• The Aruba OS is very simple to use and understand. A user with very little networking experience can understand the config of an Aruba switch.
• Aruba's hardware warranty assures me that even my oldest switches are covered due to hardware failure.
• In the 11 years I have worked with HPE/Aruba and with over 55 switches I have had a hardware failure less than a handful of times.

Incentivized