Cisco switches vs Dell

JohnnyBiggles

I'm looking for switches to purchase. My office is pretty much a big Dell equipment user but I'm Cisco certified and looking into playing with more Cisco equipment but every time I look to price some things out, particularly switches, I find Dell's products significantly cheaper and probably just as efficient. We have several 54xx and 62xx series switches (layer 3) and even a few 2824s which are managed gigabit ethernet switches but comparing to some 2960 catalyst switches from Cisco the price is just way more... but why? The only price-comparable switches from Cisco are only 10/100 speed and/or have less ports. What makes a 2960 so much more expensive from these Dell units? I need a simple 10/100/1000 24 port managed switch for a reasonable price. Here are a few in question:

Cisco Small Business 200 Series SLM2024T-NA Smart 10/100/1000Mbps Gigabit Switch SG200-26

^^This one is actualy less than $400 which is something I might be able to work with... but how can I justify it against the Dell below which I've seen for less than $200? How is ^^this half the price of a Cisco 2960? Is there a newer or replacement unit to the 2960? Does ^^this have a CLI (iOS)? If so, is it the same as the other Cisco hardware? [The Dell below has a CLI but it is a stripped down version and it's better to use the web interface to configure it, although it does all you'd need a managed switch to do (VLANs, trunking, security, etc.)]

Dell F491K PowerConnect 2824 24-Port Gigabit Managed Switch 2-Pt SFP

Any input on this would help.

NetworkVeteran

how can I justify it against the Dell below which I've seen for less than $200?

If Dell does what you need and for significantly less, why are you trying to justify Cisco equipment?

'm Cisco certified and looking into playing with more Cisco equipment

Ahh! How about honesty? "I know it's $200 more, but this would help me study for the CCNP, one of my career goals. Could we apply some of the educational budget towards the difference?"

it_consultant

The Cisco small business switch you mentioned, I am fairly sure it does not run the Cisco IOS software you would expect a 2960 to run so you probably wont get the same training out of it that you would out of the real Cisco. I would go with the powerconnect over Cisco Small Business, I have worked on a few powerconnects and as far as I can tell they are a complete clone of IOS.

Remember you have to consider both CAPEX and OPEX. What will the smartnet be on your Cisco gear compared to whatever the Dell equivalent is? Are there features in Cisco (PaGP, EIGRP, ISL trunking, VTP, etc) which you have in your environment that you can't live without? Since you are not already a Cisco shop, I think the answer to that is NO.

Look, I am studying for my CCNP and I work almost exclusively on Brocade and HP switches. It can be done; when it is boiled right down there are very few differences between the major manufacturers. You could have a shop full of enterasys switches and you could still get some experience for your CCNP.

JohnnyBiggles

NetworkVeteran wrote: »

If Dell does what you need and for significantly less, why are you trying to justify Cisco equipment?



Ahh! How about honesty? "I know it's $200 more, but this would help me study for the CCNP, one of my career goals. Could we apply some of the educational budget towards the difference?"

Ha! Ya got me on that. Yes, I'm trying to get some actual experience working with what I've dedicated so much of my time to. We don't have much in the line of Cisco equipment here and mentioning "Dell operates just like Cisco at the command prompt" might not equate to having substantial Cisco experience when it's needed.

However, I am just trying to learn why Cisco is so much more expensive.. even between their own devices which seem similar, as mentioned above (2960 vs the 200 series).... perhaps there are advantages to it that I am unaware of that we may be able to utilize(?) ...or are they just pretty much gouging because of reputation/brand? I don't want to stay locked into one vendor simply because of price and it works for us. If something can do more for us and is justified by the price, then I'm open to it, especially if it benefits my education as well.

DevilWAH

My view its a bit like a super car vs a family hatch back.

yes a super car might be a bit better and for some things it is what you need, but in all honesty for 90% of small to medium business it will not make the slightest difference (Apart from to your pocket)

I do think CISCO have a more reliable switch and there products when you manage them do just feel much more polished. And when you look in depth you find Cisco kit can do some clever stuff, its often there on other devices but CISCO have just made it the user interface more polished. Put it this way I have some 3com switches that have different syntac despite being the same hardware model just different firmware version. and even things like Spanning tree don't work between them with out a lot of hunting around for documentation. Cisco have a mature product that's well polished and a huge use based and on line resources. This is what you pay for not the actual functionality.

I am lucky in the fact I was able to go Cisco and given the chance after using 3COM/HP and Juniper always would. Having said that I don't think I have come across any times when CISCO was the only choice.

krjay

In my limited experience I believe you're paying for the support with Cisco. Whether it's Cisco themselves providing the support or the fact you can hire a Cisco admin/engineer with relative ease.

pitviper

I’d get a Dell switch over the Cisco “small business” line – I loathe those things. They even use a crappy Linksys-ish web GUI, and as mentioned they don't run a real IOS.

Cisco switches just flat out last forever. I just pulled a couple of 2924XLs out of a site that was running them for 11 years LOL

NetworkVeteran

A performance test of Catalyst 2960s vs Dell Powerconnect--

Cisco Catalyst 2960; 2960-S; 3750-X-48 | Miercom

it_consultant

You have to give Cisco credit for having some of the best documentation of any manufacturer of any product I have ever used. To the question though, can OP justify purchasing Cisco over Dell in his environment. I am willing to be that strictly on the technical merits the answer to that is no. The Miercom test is interesting but QOS tests are only helpful if you have enough traffic on the ports to need actual QOS and few of us are in that position.

The reality is that Cisco is usually 30% more than the competition, they charge that because they can; period. I would put up an AdTran against a Cisco router and dollar for dollar you get more out of your AdTran than you do for your Cisco. AdTran has to be more competitive on price because outside of ISPs, few people have even heard of AdTran.

Cisco is not the supercar of switches; there are specialized low latency switches on the market (Arista) which can blow most Ciscos out of the water both on performance and price. I have yet to hear of a situation where a Cisco switch/router was able to handle some sort of situation that a similar product from another company couldn't handle - not theoretical, but real live examples where the solution was to use Cisco because some other manufacturer just couldn't do xyz. I think I heard one example, where someone bought a bunch of Foundry gear that didn't support IS/IS but that was something you could easily have found out (Foundry does support IS/IS) before purchase.