Cisco Catalyst Switches vs. Huawei CloudEngine Data Center Switches

Our access infrastructure. If you want to bring many devices into your infrastructure and you don't want to bring the devices direct on the core routers, something like that. Or to the routers, the catalyst switches are perfectly suited for that or for top of direct switches.

Incentivized

The focus of the solution is datacenter, so it is a waste of resources to use them as SOHO or as access switches. All your robustness needs to be used correctly, so that there is no wasted investment. I also note that, as good practices, it is necessary to ensure redundancy and availability of assets and connections, so the investment is high, even more so if you need to mix fiber and twisted pair solutions.

Incentivized

• I think particularly for the 2960-Xs, these are quite sturdy. I believe they don't get, even if there's a power outage out at Cole's, we usually do some electricity work just to do the electricity redundancy. We just power off the, let's say, the transformers and then see if the mains can handle the power supply. So these 2960, these switches are quite sturdy, I believe, and they don't die on us, but I've seen with the 9200s and the other switches, they don't come back usually when there's a power outage or something like that. So we have to replace the power supply units and all those things to get them working again.

Incentivized

• connection stability
• Simplified port-channel configuration
• Interoperability with various solutions

Incentivized

• I wouldn't fault the product per se. I think it's just more its integration with the SSD access network that there could be room for improvement. I think the 9300 has been a solid device by itself, and I can't think of anything that I could fault on the device itself. It's probably been doing a very good job and we are happy with it.

Incentivized

• Documentation, like every huawei product, needs improvement
• The official training of this solution is extremely boring and theoretical. It is necessary to make something more practical and useful in everyday life.
• As it is a line for datacenters, I believe that the product needs a better development in its chassis. It seems very fragile to me.

Incentivized

They are consistently reliable and this switch in particular is a very affordable solution. We can place the Cisco Catalyst 1000 Series Switches gear in areas that we normally would not place a switch because it is affordable enough to make it justifiable. And because it is a reliable solution, we are confident it will continue to provide service over the long haul.

Incentivized

Cisco by and far does a great job with the Catalyst line. From a layer 2 dumb switch all the way up to ISP carrier grade switching within the Catalyst portfolio. The best part about it is command parity among the various tiers of product. The only differences are going to lie in what features are available per switch.

Incentivized

As per our experience, the turn around time for switches after PO is raised varies from 1 - 3 months.

Incentivized

No, the packets flow. Sometimes you will see collisions and broadcast storms can happen which will slow performance but that can be fixed and the packets will flow.

Incentivized

We rarely have issues with the product. I have only had to contact support one time since we put it in and that was to see if another vendor was giving me accurate information on an issue I was having.

Incentivized

Cisco Networking Academy partners with many local Colleges and High Schools to provide great hands-on training. You do need to drive to learn the topic. The in-class session only go so far. You really need to apply this to the real world. Cisco makes it easy for business to connect via CLC or Cisco Learning Credits.

Incentivized

My own personal research to get the information I want is very handy and helped me many times

Incentivized

The implementation of the Cisco Catalyst 1000 Series Switches is fairly seamless, especially if you are familiar with Cisco products. We have had Brocade switch gear in place too, and the differences between the manufacturers [are] not a major issue.

Incentivized

I use some Aruba switches as well and some Huawei products as well. That's the reference, honestly, that's really all the products that are quite good are mostly copying what Cisco does. And when it does not copy, it's not as good. The only other competitor that does the same kind of project, but differently in a good way is Juniper. For me it works quite as well, but that's the only vendor that I would say is really different from Cisco and in a good way. I mean both are good but not the same way.

Incentivized

The Huawei CloudEngine Data Center Switches solution, as the name implies, is aimed at Datacenters and ToR applications. The development of such equipment was all designed to meet high processing loads and connections of servers, storages and other high-performance assets. The other solutions evaluated (and some we even have in our park) are for other purposes, such as access and edge.

Incentivized

We are exclusive Cisco at our organization. In truth part of the reason is, with one type of switch and one manufacturer, it is easier to support. It is also easier to give consistent training to our staff in our tech department

Incentivized

• energy costs dropped by around 11 per cent on the access layer
• management has become easier with DNA Center
• ISSU software upgrades and fabric deployments have significantly reduced "planned" down times
• network speed has increased, latency is at an all-time best within our own LAN

Incentivized

• The investment ensured a better response, at the network level, of the applications
• Support for 60 months guarantees better predictability when evaluating new investments of this type.
• Product redundancy ensures greater availability of the entire infrastructure and applications, thus reducing downtime.

Incentivized