Brocade VDX (discontinued) vs. Cisco Nexus Series Switches

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Brocade VDX (discontinued)
Score 9.8 out of 10
N/A
The Extreme VDX series of switches (formerly Brocade VDX) was acquired by Extreme Networks in 2017 during the Broadcom acquisition of Brocade and the selling off of some of the company's assets. The products, including the latest ExtremeSwitching VDX 6740, are now discontinued.N/A
Cisco Nexus Series Switches
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
Cisco Nexus is a series of network switches.
$49
Pricing
Brocade VDX (discontinued)Cisco Nexus Series Switches
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Starting Price
$49.00
Maximum Price
$200,000.00
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Brocade VDX (discontinued)Cisco Nexus Series Switches
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Brocade VDX (discontinued)Cisco Nexus Series Switches
Top Pros
Top Cons
Best Alternatives
Brocade VDX (discontinued)Cisco Nexus Series Switches
Small Businesses

No answers on this topic

No answers on this topic

Medium-sized Companies
Dell PowerConnect Switches
Dell PowerConnect Switches
Score 8.9 out of 10
Extreme Networks Wired Access - Switches
Extreme Networks Wired Access - Switches
Score 9.1 out of 10
Enterprises
Cisco Nexus Series Switches
Cisco Nexus Series Switches
Score 9.0 out of 10
Cisco Catalyst Switches
Cisco Catalyst Switches
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Brocade VDX (discontinued)Cisco Nexus Series Switches
Likelihood to Recommend
9.7
(3 ratings)
8.6
(74 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
8.5
(6 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
8.2
(5 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
9.2
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.7
(10 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.9
(3 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
9.2
(2 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Brocade VDX (discontinued)Cisco Nexus Series Switches
Likelihood to Recommend
Discontinued Products
My experience since I started working with Extreme VDX has been great and everything has been working effectively. I give it 10/10 in performance since it has never failed us during our normal operations. Networking across our company and WAN has been covered by powerful fabric technologies that enhance secure and transparent business operations. It supports both wired and wireless connections with switches that network them through our applications.
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Cisco
Fairly stable and easy to operate - but I haven't any experience with other brands, so I don't have anything to compare with. Fairly fast in the OS. Easy to upgrade - but with some SW issues. Sometimes clearing of log folders is needed. Access to bash is cool. Tips & cool tricks for operations could be nice to share.
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Pros
Discontinued Products
  • The VDX is very simple to configure.
  • Documentation on the product is amazing.
  • The VDX will interface with any data center hardware; there is interoperability with all the BIG vendors: Dell, EMC, NetApp.
  • I have a pair of VDXs running at my DR site that has been up for over 8 years without any issues!
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Cisco
  • Continuous system operation:
  • Maintenance, upgrades, and software certification can be performed without service interruptions because of the modular nature of NX-OS and features such as In-Service Software Upgrade (ISSU) and the capability for processes to restart dynamically
  • FabricPath:
  • Enables each device to build an overall view of the topology; this is similar to other link state routing protocols. Each device in the FabricPath topology is identified by a switch-id. The Layer 2 forwarding tables are built based on reachability to each switch-id, not by the MAC address. Eliminates spanning-tree to maximize network bandwidth and flexibility in topological configurations, as well as simplify operational support and configuration. This enables a tremendous amount of flexibility on the topology because you can now build FabricPath topologies for Layer 2-based networks the same as for Layer 3-based networks
  • Overlay Transport Virtualization (OTV): Enables the Layer 2 extension between distributed data centers over any transport Layer 3 network
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Cons
Discontinued Products
  • I once had a problem with a USB drive and had a lot of trouble fixing it. We can use more documents and a better way to recover the drive. I understand the problems that every vendor faces with proprietary software. If you are a customer, this should not be a problem.
  • It has limited commands.
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Cisco
  • Implementing jumbo frames on interfaces of its fabric extender series (N2k, etc.) by editing the network QoS does not have to be a global configuration that would affect all its interfaces. It can be improved to become just an interface configuration.
  • Licensing on the NXOS is a bit complicated and expensive. I understand that the Nexus is made for core data center switching but it does not have to break the bank.
  • OTV technology is for Nexus only. Based on the advantage of the technology, it should be made vendor-neutral to accommodate other vendor devices.
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Likelihood to Renew
Discontinued Products
No answers on this topic
Cisco
We will use it for a long time, since they are switches with great capacity and positive results, they promote the perfect operation of our data center, I always recommend them, because they are switches with good results.
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Usability
Discontinued Products
No answers on this topic
Cisco
In our environment (and especially during COVID and the Work From Home era), I would really like our network devices to be more resilient [against} errors in remote configuration. Having a standard, easy to use, configure, commit/deploy, rollback system should be installed, but it's not there. Other companies have been providing this for over 20 years, and Cisco does this on some of their devices. Why not all?
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Reliability and Availability
Discontinued Products
No answers on this topic
Cisco
Our network is very well design. Any components or device failure. Doesn't affect network availability
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Performance
Discontinued Products
No answers on this topic
Cisco
These switches are very fast. They've been designed to work within the data center. We connect them to Cisco UCS-B Mini servers with the storage being directly attached. They are able to handle the data traffic pretty easily. We can also move servers pretty fast from data center to data center without overloading them. This has allowed our company to stay running during any kind of conditional outage. We have come to really rely on them for business continuity.
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Support Rating
Discontinued Products
No answers on this topic
Cisco
Overall, Cisco has great products and I believe that they believe in the philosophy of a great customer experience. Although there have been a few technical support issues that caused a lot of company anxiety, in most cases, Cisco has gone above and beyond in making a valiant effort to help the customer solve any issues.
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In-Person Training
Discontinued Products
No answers on this topic
Cisco
Trainer didn't has good handon experience.. he was bookish trainer.
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Online Training
Discontinued Products
No answers on this topic
Cisco
Never had it
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Implementation Rating
Discontinued Products
No answers on this topic
Cisco
It is reliable and working as expected
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Alternatives Considered
Discontinued Products
I have not had an opportunity to use a similar featured platform in my networking journey. All I have learned is that Extreme VDX has great potential for controlling and managing networking operations in our company. The data analytics insights that we receive from data analysis have developed great planning and decision-making infrastructure. The speed of operation is always stable with high data transfer rate.
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Cisco
The Cisco 9000 stacks up quite well against the Cisco Catalyst 3850 switches. The additional features available in the Nexus 9000, such as VPN, FCoE, 40 gigabits, give us the ability to support the future needs of the company in our data center. The Nexus 9000 allowed us to condense our core and aggregation environment that comprised of 2 Catalyst 6504 and 2 Catalyst 6509 to a port of Nexus 9000. Although the Catalyst 3850 would be sufficient to handle routing, those features in the Nexus 9000 made it the clear choice for us.
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Scalability
Discontinued Products
No answers on this topic
Cisco
The Nexus 3000 series switches are data center switches, so I would say they have similar security ability to other switches in this segment. I don't have a lot of experience doing more than basic ACL security on switches, but I know these can be integrated into other security solutions like Cisco ISE and 802.1x authentication. It could also be integrated into an ACI solution to add micro segmentation, which would bring in other security functions.
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Return on Investment
Discontinued Products
  • We definitely have a great ROI on the VDX cluster at my DR site; 8 years without issue!
  • It takes so very little of my time because it has been so reliable, which allows me to be productive in other areas of the network.
  • After the transition from Brocade to Extreme VDX, it was a little rocky with the code at first but things have improved with R & D.
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Cisco
  • We expected the switches to provide ROI and they did as advertised.
  • NX-OS was pretty similar to IOS so the learning curve was pretty low.
  • Being a Non-Profit we need to be extremely cost conscience and buy gear that has a long shelf life. Nexus line of switches met this objective.
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