Re: Is Cisco equpiment de facto for you?

[Greg Whynott <Greg.Whynott () oicr on ca>]

I've tried to use other vendors threw out the years for internal L2/L3.  Always Cisco for perimeter routing/firewalling.

from my personal experience,  each time we took a chance and tried to use another vendor for internal L2 needs,  we 
would be reminded why it was a bad choice down the road,  due to hardware reliability,  support issues,  multiple and 
ongoing software bugs,  architectural design choices.  Then for the next few years I'd regret the decision.     This is 
not to say Cisco gear has been without its issues,  but they are much fewer and handled better when stuff hits the fan.

the only other vendor at this point in my career I'd fee comfortable deploying for internal enterprise switching,  
including HPC requirements which is not CIsco branded,  would be Force10 or Extreme.  it has always been Cisco for edge 
routing/firewalling,  but i wouldn't be opposed to trying Juniper for routing,  I know of a few shops who do and they 
have been pleased thus far.    I've little or no experience  with many of the other vendors,  and I'm sure they have 
good offerings,  but I won't be beta testing their firmwares anymore (one vendor insisted we upgrade our firmware on 
our core equipment several times in one year…).


Cisco isn't a good choice if you don't have the budget for the smart net contracts.   They come at a price.   a little 
5505 with unrestricted license and contract costs over 2k,  a 5540 about 40k-70k depending on options,  with a yearly 
renewal of about 15k or more…

-g




On Jan 10, 2011, at 11:21 AM, Randy Carpenter wrote:

> We have traditionally been a Cisco shop, but we are starting to move toward Juniper for much of our needs, and will 
> be recommending Juniper as an alternative for customers' needs. From a technical point of view, I find the 
> configurations to be simpler and easier to understand, and I like the fact that most everything runs the same OS, 
> with the same interface. From a financial point of view, Juniper tends to be less expensive for more performance, and 
> their support contracts are much cheaper.
>
> All that said, and as other's have said, Cisco is always a safe choice, particularly since many people are familiar 
> with them.
>
> -Randy
>
> --
> | Randy Carpenter
> | Vice President, IT Services
> | Red Hat Certified Engineer
> | First Network Group, Inc.
> | (419)739-9240, x1
> ----
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> > Hello gents:
> >
> > I wanted to put this out there for all of you. Our network consists of
> > a mixture of Cisco and Extreme equipment.
> >
> > Would you say that it's fair to say that if you are serious at all
> > about being a service provider that your core equipment is Cisco
> > based?
> >
> > Am I limiting myself by thinking that Cisco is the "de facto" vendor
> > of choice? I'm not looking for so much "fanboy" responses, but more of
> > a real world
> > experience of what you guys use that actually work and does the
> > job.....
> >
> > No technical questions here, just general feedback. I try to follow
> > the Tolly Group who compares products, and they continually show that
> > Cisco equipment
> > is a poor performer in almost any equipment compared to others, I find
> > that so hard to believe.....
> >
> > Thanks!
> >
> > Brandon


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