Cisco Business 350 Series vs. Ruckus ICX Switches

This is a small business switch, and for me, that means that if all I need is just this one switch, then I am on the right path. I would not want to use this switch to support a couple of hundred people trying to access heavy local resources. It should be used when you have a few dozen devices and/or users and a fairly flat network.

Incentivized

I love this switch for access and aggregate, especially due to the lack of needing reboots. [Other systems require this] reliable and stable platform.

• Good throughput per port
• Good manageability
• Reasonable price point

Incentivized

• They are relatively easy to configure and to maintain.
• They have all of the high-end configuration capabilities as Cisco switches.
• The switches have excellent performance and reliability.

Incentivized

• Not every feature in the GUI is available at the command line
• Software can only be updated via the GUI interface
• It would be nice if the physical foot print were smaller

Incentivized

• Licensing for the 10GB ports is a bit pricey, but that was 5 years ago, so things may have changed
• The CLI commands are slightly different than typical Cisco commands
• Their rack mounting was not the prettiest in the world

Incentivized

We are a big Cisco shop and wanted to use Cisco switches for this application. We knew that we'd be able to configure them quickly and the time saved doing the configuration would be to our benefit. Knowing that we wanted to go with a fully managed switch also was a major tipping point in Cisco's favor. Having used some of the other vendors' "managed" switch interfaces, nothing comes close to Cisco's approach. Having a better user interface will give us plenty of time down the road.

Incentivized

The switching holds up well against HP, Extreme, Juniper, et. al at the edge. Cost is also a huge factor, and played a part in the purchase. Not just for the switches themselves, but also optics can be purchased at a discount. Service delivery has been fantastic, and in 3 years I've not had to replace any of the brocade switches I've purchased.

Incentivized

• We replaced thirty older switches for very little capital investment.
• The new devices are compliant with our security needs, so we quickly cleared those issues.
• The new switches were very easy for us to apply a standardized configuration that allowed us to get them up and operational in minutes.

Incentivized

• Equipment just runs
• Sometimes past EOL/EOS
• Firmwares just work