HPE Aruba Networking Switches vs. Juniper EX Series Switches

These devices are rock solid, you will se them up once and not have to mess with them for years. They are work horses that don't die. We use them in an office environment and have only ever had 1 fail due to a PSU issue, we got a replacement next day and it's been working great.

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

• REST API capability
• Wired & Wireless 802.1x configuration easiness
• Wireless Access Points (APs) zero touch provisioning
• Its high-end family (running the AOS-CX firmware) supports a virtualization technology called VSX (Virtual Switching Extension) which allows 2 switches to present itself as one virtualized switch under Layer 2, and as 2 separate routers under Layer 3; thereby providing high availability.

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

• I have had issues finding monitoring software that natively supports Provision/Aruba OS. Most are designed primarily with Cisco in mind.
• HPE/Aruba switches have historically had issues with corrupt flash. This seems to be less common in more recent models.
• HPE/Aruba's switching portfolio can be confusing. Some models run on the Aruba OS while some others run on Comware. There is some overlap in these model lines so at times is can be tough to tell which switch is right.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

I have not had that many issues with these products. Aruba Central has been really helpful. The Integration Capabilities allows us to use Clearpass . For individuals new to enterprise-grade networking, there can still be a learning curve associated with understanding the concepts and the specifics of the Aruba configuration.

Incentivized

The Mist portal is extremely easy to use. I only have a few issues with it. The configuration between Mist and the CLI is not uniform. If you push some command line configurations to the switch, they won't be mirrored in Mist. You need to use the CLI portion on the switch config page to push some CLI only configurations. If you want to remove those lines, you need remember to do the inverse of the config. You need to make sure your juniper admins understand this as well. Simply removing the line from the CLI text box of the Mist page does not remove the config line from the switch itself.

Incentivized

HPE Support is very easy to reach. A knowledgable rep can be reached in a few minutes. After some basic troubleshooting if the failure is due to hardware I can receive a replacement within a day or even in a few hours.

Incentivized

When you open ticket, normally a L2 support engineer request support file and give you a valid fast solution. They replace switch if no solution are available due to minimize downtime

Incentivized

We used to have a lot of Cisco switches which are great, but
the support contracts and other expenses mount up quickly; one of the main
reasons for switching to HP for networking was the cost, but the hardware and
software have gotten so much better over the years.

I can’t see us changing network hardware unless the price increases dramatically.

Incentivized

Juniper EX Switches are far more reliable than NETGEAR Ethernet Switches. The Juniper EX Series Switches offer a wider scope of options for configuration. The EX switches can be deployed faster and easier to configure. The Juniper EX Series Switches offer more value for their price point than most switches on the market, in my opinion

Incentivized

• I really like the idea of paying for the switches one time and just pay for support going forward. The prices are on the high end but I think it is worth it. I wish they would include all the features in one go so we would not have to pay for every new feature.

Incentivized

• The Juniper EX Series Ethernet Switches have provided a life span beyond what our replacement cycle allots, which allows us to have more time to budget for replacements.
• The initial purchase price is very competitive with other enterprise network switching companies.

Incentivized