Other Layer 3 switches besides Cisco?

kmcintosh78

I have been put into a project to see if there is any cost savings by going with a Non-Cisco Layer 3 Switch.
Of course being certified and trained on the Cisco, I am hesitant to do so. BUt, are there any other switches out there that are comparable to configuring and options as say the 3560?

Thanks

wes allen

Might check into Enterasys.

CodeBlue1914

You can also check out Juniper switches as well. While they aren't Cisco, they are still a big player in the industry.

f0rgiv3n

Also take a look at HP. I actually have enjoyed working with their equipment in the past. Very similar to Cisco's CLI and the price is right, they also perform quite well.

networker050184

Juniper, HP, Extreme, Brocade.

kmcintosh78

f0rgiv3n wrote: »

Also take a look at HP. I actually have enjoyed working with their equipment in the past. Very similar to Cisco's CLI and the price is right, they also perform quite well.

What HP model best compares to the 3560?

Brakarific

If all you care about is inter-vlan routing, some basic dynamic routing and some basic ACL configuration... HP 2910al is an awesome L3 switch . The Brocade ICX series is also very good. The 3560 won't give you PoE standard, whereas a lot of the ProCurves and ICXs will. Also, Both the 2900 series Procurves and the ICX series can be upgraded to use 10gig ports if you need them at a nominally additional cost (a few thousand dollars). You have to pay mega bucks to get 10gig on Cisco. About the only thing I can think of that those two might not do that the Cisco can would be Policy based routing (if coming from this IP, use this route and not this route). Don't quote me on that though.

Now some things to look out for... Don't buy the HP V series switches, they are 3Com Switches with a HP label on them. They are a pain in the A** to configure. Same goes for H3C/HP switches. The older Dell switches (pre Force-10 aquisition) should be avoided, we had serious STP issues with them. Juniper is good, but you will have to learn a new CLI, but I found it to not be too bad once you get the hang of it. If having a different CLI is a problem, the ProCurves and ICXs have a very similar CLI to Cisco IOS (unlike Juniper or 3Com). About the only CLI I have found to be awful, clunky, and not intuitive was 3Com. As far as GUIs go...the only switch Web interface I have ever found to be very usable and granular was on the Procurve series.

I don't have any experience on Extreme or Entrasys so I can't speak to them. You might want to check out Alcatel too. I haven't used them, but I do know that ProCurves use Alcatel hardware, but I don't know how different Alcatel software is in comparison to ProCurve.

PS - I don't know about any of the other switches, but I know the entire ProCurve series and the Brocade ICXs do sFlow without an additional license (ie, it comes standard/free). This is incredibly useful if you are ever going to run QoS and you need to see what your traffic flows are doing. Cisco has NetFlow, but you have to pay for an extra license (IP Base and IP services). Cisco's reasoning is that if you buy a 3560, you are going to in turn buy the L3 license. My response to Cisco is that no matter what License you have on Brocade ICXs or HP Procurves, you get sFlow whether it be L2 or L3. This way you can run it on each node and not just your L3 switches so you can see the entire traffic flow to see where your problems might exist. I can't stress how useful sFlow has been for me in the past when dealing with very hard to pin down/solve traffic problems.

f0rgiv3n

That's some awesome info right there and I agree with it all. I HATE Dell switches. I had to support some of the older Dell L3 switches that Brakarific is talking about and they were horrible. They would process-switch/route a ton of stuff which in turn would cause performance issues. Another fun thing to note is you just have to be careful with lingo from Cisco to any other vendor... An example would be using the word "trunk". Cisco world: trunk is 802.1q encapsulation carrying multiple vlans, right? Well, with HP, a trunk is an etherchannel (to use Cisco lingo). Just keep an eye out for those "gotchas" and they work quite well!

I did have a chance to install and configure an Extreme Blackdiamond 8810 (big buddy). I loved the CLI, it was a bit different because you did pretty much everything on one line. There weren't really different "modes" it was all something like "configure switchport gig 10 vlan 10 add untagged" which would be putting gigabit interface 10 onto vlan 10 untagged. The performance was fantastic though for the price.

fiftyo

CodeBlue1914 wrote: »

You can also check out Juniper switches as well. While they aren't Cisco, they are still a big player in the industry.

Yes, you get higher throughput for lower cost with juniper..

nerdydad

f0rgiv3n wrote: »

I did have a chance to install and configure an Extreme Blackdiamond 8810 (big buddy).

As in Extreme Networks, the purple boxes? Have they fixed their issues with broadcast storms, nothing like watching the network go down block by block in the NOC due to a customer messing with a barney box.

srg

HP A5500 would be a good choice. Its from H3C, but none of the Procurve switches really match.

FloOz

nerdydad wrote: »

As in Extreme Networks, the purple boxes? Have they fixed their issues with broadcast storms, nothing like watching the network go down block by block in the NOC due to a customer messing with a barney box.

Could make for a great poem

sratakhin

Look at Dell 6224/48. The CLI is very similar to Cisco and it's one of the best switches under 2-3k.
Also, HP 2910 and 3500 are pretty good. 2910 has simple routing, while 3500 is more advanced. It even supports BGP, but you will need advanced license for it (extra $$).