Cisco Catalyst Switches vs Juniper EX Series Ethernet Switches

Likelihood to Recommend

I can't think of any situation where you would not want to use this type of switch. Once installed, it did not take long to see a company-wide improvement in throughput. By comparison, our old system seemed to have a choke, it was slow. The upfront cost for the hardware and management will pay for itself through increased productivity. We should have realized this years ago and made the update to our equipment.

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mike nugent

Quality Manager

BC SystemsMilitary, 51-200 employees

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They work great as core switches, data center switches, top of rack switches. They can even serve as routers, their routing capability is great, except for where you need lots of routing processing power. I would not use many of them for branch office switches though, due to noise and slowness of bootup

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Verified User

Engineer in Information Technology

Publishing Company, 1001-5000 employees

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Pros

Stability and Reliability - We have not had many failures over the past years using Cisco Catalyst switches.
Flexibility - Cisco Catalyst switches offers a wide portfolio of switching equipment which can address a variety of needs. This includes switches with stacking and non-stacking capability, fixed rackmount and chassis options which can be mounted in data centre racks and and also compact switching which may be more feasible for small SOHO offices.
Scalable Performance - Cisco Catalyst switches offers various port speeds from 1Gbps 10Gbps, 100Gbps etc. This is available in both copper (RJ45) and fibre (SFP). Many models also offer a variety of uplink speed options which future proofs the invest in Cisco technologies allowing us to upgrade depending on our changing business requirements and available budgets.

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Zakarieya Abderoef

Solutions Architect

Baraka Technology GroupInformation Technology and Services, 51-200 employees

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Very stable.
Cost efficient
Easy management
Great Juniper 24*7 TAC support
Different variants available for different requirements.
Easy to replace faulty hardware

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Verified User

Engineer in Information Technology

Telecommunications Company, 10,001+ employees

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Cons

Would like to see a second power supply so it can get power from two different sources.
Hard to find a USB flash drive that will work when loading images for upgrade.
IOS upgrades are a pain to perform. Upgrades should be an easy process. Would like to perform the upgrade through a web browser.

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Verified User

Engineer in Information Technology

Transportation/Trucking/Railroad Company, 10,001+ employees

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Virtual chassis new switch has overwritten existing config if not performed in a particular way.
Applying a configuration to a range of interfaces could be done in a better way.
Applying firewall rules to multiple security zones could be done a little more efficiently.

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Verified User

Engineer in Information Technology

Information Technology and Services Company, 501-1000 employees

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Support Rating

Cisco Catalyst Switches 9.0

Based on 1 answer

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.

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Ryhlen Schoeberl

Systems Administrator II

Vast BroadbandTelecommunications, 201-500 employees

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Juniper EX Series Ethernet Switches 8.0

Based on 6 answers

Many times when contacting Juniper EX Series Ethernet Switches support, it seems that it is easiest for support to recommend a straight replacement (RMA) instead of taking time to walk through a solution on the faulty system. We find we get better help from a third-party consulting firm that has Juniper certified technicians or professionals on staff. They take the time to explain processes and workflow, which Juniper EX Series Ethernet Switches support seems to shy away from.

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Craig Brady

Senior Systems Analyst

City of Santa MariaGovernment Administration, 501-1000 employees

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Alternatives Considered

* Arista Switches** Arista switches are great, don't get me wrong, but the lack of PoE support, the lack of stacking, has really hindered their entry way into the campus market, 99% of my use cases are campus switching for end users, not data center, in this market, cisco wins hands down every time.

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Dustin Reeves

Network Engineer

Wilks Brothers LLCOil & Energy, 1001-5000 employees

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The rollback, commit and confirm are the biggest players in the game. Juniper is the only one who has those features, so I believe they have a leg up in the game. The CLI is one of the easiest to work with.

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Michael Haberkern

Network Engineer Supervisor

City of Santa MariaGovernment Administration, 501-1000 employees

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Return on Investment

Cisco catalyst switches have allowed our networks to run smoothly with no interruptions.
These switches are scalable so we were able to add more switches as needed, without interrupting the network activity.
Automation techniques allowed us to deploy configuration with minimum effort.

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Andrew Yudin, MBA/CCNP

Principal Network and Security Engineer

Cheetah DigitalMarketing & Advertising, 1001-5000 employees

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From a user's point of view, the ease of configuration and management has been incredible. Much less time is spent maintaining Juniper than previous solutions.
From a reseller's point of a view, Juniper is excellent. They treat small partners like us very well even if our volume is not huge. Juniper switches are part of our standard solution that has been great for our customers.

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Randy Carpenter

Vice President

First Network Group, Inc.Information Technology and Services, 11-50 employees

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Pricing Details

General

Free Trial

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Free/Freemium Version

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Premium Consulting/Integration Services

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Entry-level set up fee?

No

General

Free Trial

—

Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No

Cisco Catalyst Switches vs Juniper EX Series Ethernet Switches