Cisco vs Extreme Networks

[hannoSCH89]

Hi everyone,

So, just a quick question I need help with. The company I'm working for has decided to do an entire network upgrade at one of the sites. We are currently using mostly HP switches, but got a quote to replace all the HP switches with Cisco switches, which we are very keen for. After basically accepting the quote, our financial manager got some outside opinion and is considering going the extreme networks route, which is basically the old Buxbury equipment if I'm not mistaken? The quotes are basically the same price, but with extreme networks you don't have the 5 year support fees.

Basically what I need is motivation to change management's mind to rather go the Cisco route. Any input would be much appreciated,

 

[bill001g]

It greatly depends on what features you need and what lines of switches you want. If all they care about is price and only need more simplistic features you can use netgear. Now if you are going to run switch virtilization and advanced forms of routing like MPLS then not much compares to the cisco nexus line except maybe the large juniper switches.

Extreme networks has been around since almost the beginning of lan network stuff in the late 1990's. We had their some of there early products and they had massive issue with hardware quality but it got better over the years even though we went mostly to HP stuff for building infrastructure lan.

If you are looking at distributed switches for running lan in a building, this market is almost a commodity market. The technology is pretty standard and there has not been a lot of advance lately. This is why people can even consider buying switches with 10g ports for use in their home the price has dropped so low.

I suspect it will come down to are there features you really need on the cisco. A example would be if you had a cisco VoIP system also. The requirement for 911 device location is extremely hard to do and cisco has special feature in both their phones and switches which make this easy.

This is always my favorite question to stump VoIP and switch salesman on. You ask them how they ensure the 911 information sent actually represents the correct building and floor rather than the location of the data center.

 

[flomaster]

I know this post is several months old, but I decided to post due to the fact that I have years of experience with both of these vendors. That said, If the monetary quotes are roughly the same, I imagine that you'll be getting more for your money if you go the Extreme Networks route. I say this because Extreme Networks equipment is generally procured at a lower price than Cisco equipment.

Regarding the infrastructure, and assuming an apples-to-apples comparison, I think that you'll find that the Extreme Networks equipment will offer a higher throughput than the comparable Cisco switching systems. The modular approach of the XOS is nice, as well. Additionally, the default implementation of the Cisco equipment will involve the use of a number of Cisco proprietary protocols that make it more difficult to integrate other architectures into. This can be avoided with a little front-end engineering work prior to the deployment of the Cisco equipment.

Should you be using any S-Series equipment (appropriated from Enterasys Networks a couple of years ago), then you have a leg up on application visibility and flow visibility. This architecture uses an application-aware chipset that allows unsampled Net-Flow or S-Flow, and without impact to the processing. When coupled with Purview, an administrator will have unmatched insight as to what is going on inside the network at any time. However, this may not be a necessity for your particular implementation.

There are advantages with the Cisco deployment, as well. Cisco is the better choice for an entity that has, shall we say "less than optimal" IT routing and switching staff. If something doesn't go right during the deployment, information is relatively easy to find online, and in a timely manner, as documentation on the web is prevalent in the Cisco "world". Unbeknownst to the network admin, Cisco does many things "behind the scenes" when something is configured. Cisco also has their hands in many different things, and many of their technologies have been acquired from smaller companies over the years. This may ease the transition and integration as long as its an all-Cisco network.

TAC for both of these vendors is excellent, but the Extreme Networks TAC will speak English naively. "The Hub" is an excellent resource, as well.

The bottom line here, as stated in the previous post, is that it is all going to depend on your needs, your on-hand talent, and your budget. As we don't have visibility into your network, and don't know much about your business needs, this is a difficult question to answer. If it were me, I wouldn't let the color of the box dissuade me either way. It all comes down to the functionality that you're able to deliver to the stakeholders, and budget should be considered as a factor thereof.