Extreme Networks Wired Access - Switches vs. Huawei Ethernet Switches

If you have a big environment with a lot of edge switch needs and department groups, then Extreme's fabric connect can save a lot of management time. If your environment is small then you may want to stick with the traditional model since fabric connect costs more. Also if you make lots of configuration changes all the time then fabric connect will be helpful. Otherwise, making an occasional change you don't need fabric connect.

Incentivized

Huawei switches are ideal for cases where performance is not essential, for low traffic solutions and for equipment management. It is not recommended for situations of high performance and stress, immediate availability and high scalability. It is also not advisable to use them in solutions that involve hardware from other brands, the integration of Huawei with Cisco, for example, is very traumatic and the results were not optimal in my case.

Incentivized

• Cloud management
• SFP+ uplinks
• Stacking capability
• Robust CLI

Incentivized

• Scalability
• High throughput links
• Redundancy of links with resilient protocols
• Fast switching in the event of a redundant link failure.

Incentivized

• Improved Extreme Management Console UI.
• More robust CLI auditing/logging.
• Easier log harvesting for adverse events.

Incentivized

• One of our switches encounted a hardware defect after 6 months of use (but was replaced within warranty)
• The switches appear to get hotter than what I would expect under normal use

Incentivized

There hasn't been a single problem with the code or hardware that hasn't been resolved in a timely fashion. You get technicians who know the product and who will work with you to get things fixed. That being said, I never ran into a problem with Cisco tech support either. I love that both groups were willing to teach me as they fixed things.

Incentivized

Foundry, HP, Cisco, Brocade. Extreme performance is equivalent or better without the price tag added just for their name

Incentivized

The performance of Huawei is lower than Cisco, but initially the costs inclined the decision towards Huawei, but unfortunately, it was not, the licenses and the manager fired the investment to make it very similar to cisco. Therefore it is preferable to go to the Cisco switches for reliability and robustness.

Incentivized

• Extreme [Ethernet Switches] have a long-life. You can easily get 7 years in main production life depending on when you buy in the product life-cycle.
• Extreme [Ethernet Switches] are expensive, no doubt, but we also don't have "weird" network problems or other issues with the network randomly going down.
• If you use fabric connect switches then the ease of managing many switches is of no concern.

Incentivized

• Revenue Increase
• Greater satisfaction for our customers.
• Greater compliance with SLAs

Incentivized