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Cisco Nexus vs Cisco Optical Networking comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Nexus
Ranking in Data Center Networking
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
108
Ranking in other categories
LAN Switching (2nd)
Cisco Optical Networking
Ranking in Data Center Networking
12th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

Fakhar Mahmood - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Network Administrator at i2c
Migration between data centers has strengthened core connectivity and simplified segmentation
The biggest problems during migration were corporate issues, including dependencies on other devices such as F5, HSMs, and firewalls from Palo Alto. Everything was connected over the core switches, which made this a quite difficult part to manage and to onboard the teams and to understand the impact of the migration. We encountered an issue where we have two data centers, and unknowingly we were configuring the devices with the same VPC number on both devices. By doing that, we were not able to terminate the lease lines over those core switches. According to Cisco, we had to change the VPC number of one of the data center's core switches since they are in a VPC. We are still waiting, and it has been more than five to six years just to change the VPC number and migrate back the lease line. Now we are having cabin switches for the lease line and then the core switch. That VPC number issue was quite surprising for us. However, we have a very frequent issue with Cisco Nexus, particularly with the SFPs. Every time a port or the SFP heats up, it gets faulty. We have almost sixteen Nexus switches per data center. In a year, we experience one or two port issues per annum. We have standard Equinix data centers with standard installations, but somehow the temperature is always maintained and there is no ducting, yet the ports and the SFPs heat up or become faulty. This is a very frequent issue with the SFP-based port.
Abdul Samad Irfan Shaik - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Technical Lead at Numeric Technologies
High-speed fiber links have protected critical data and keep our multi-city cloud services running
In terms of improvements, one thing is about how data is transferred. Predictive monitoring would help by using artificial intelligence to identify optical signal degradation, performance issues, downtimes, glitches, increasing error rates, or potential fiber issues such as cuts. Predictive monitoring will definitely assist in this area. Faster troubleshooting could be enhanced by providing a knowledge base related to regular activities. A simpler dashboard is preferred rather than a complex one, as clubbing everything into a single user interface is not helpful for grasping everything easily. Supporting integration with third-party optical equipment and existing network monitoring platforms will play a major role, and the connectivity should be easier with improvements in third-party integration being essential. Regarding support documentation, I would prefer to speak about support rather than documentation. One enhancement needed is better automation capabilities. We aim to reduce manual intervention during network failures by enabling faster automated alarm triggers that should automatically fix issues and control recovery workflows. We have covered all of the necessary improvements.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The Cisco Nexus switches are the best and most reliable solution for us in my previous company, which was a telecom service provider."
"This solution improves network speed and provides high availability for our users."
"Tech support is good."
"This is a very stable solution, and its stability means that we do not have any issues."
"The setup was very easy, but managing it in operations was very complex."
"The most valuable feature of Cisco Nexus is the performance, flexibility, configuration, and cost. It's not a traditional pricing model from Cisco. They've offered our company a considerable reduction in price. That makes Cisco Nexus now very competitive with other vendors."
"The scalability of Cisco Nexus is good. We've had them for the entire lifetime. We've never had to upgrade them yet."
"Technical support has been very, very helpful and they offer good SLAs."
"Cisco Optical Networking has positively impacted my organization by helping add resilience and redundancy."
"Cisco Optical Networking has positively impacted my organization by providing cost reduction, better network performance, high reliability, and most importantly, business growth."
"Cisco Optical Networking provides high-capacity bandwidth and fiber connectivity between the data centers, supporting data replication, backups, disaster recovery, and managing how data is transferred across great workloads."
"After implementing Cisco Optical Networking, I could transport terabits of traffic over long distances, which has amazed us while also reducing the effort and thought involved in network management."
"Cisco View allows me to see when circuits are up or down very quickly, and I can connect circuits very quickly by a virtual picture."
 

Cons

"However, we have a very frequent issue with Cisco Nexus, particularly with the SFPs. Every time a port or the SFP heats up, it gets faulty."
"The solution is more expensive than other options on the market."
"There is limited guidance in terms of the use and configuration of Cisco Nexus for specific use cases. The documentation is not comprehensive, and you have to do a lot of online research."
"The problem with Cisco, from what I see, is that their costs are much higher."
"There is always room for improvement."
"It would be ideal if there was better integration with various other platforms."
"There are limitations on some of the lower level 9K solutions where you can't do the same things that you would normally be able to do, like for instance the number of static maps that you can configure on it."
"I would like to see the usability improved by simplifying the user interface."
"When it comes to features or tools that stood out to me in Cisco Optical Networking, I faced issues such as wavelength allocations due to fixed grid limitations, which led to spectral inefficiencies when mixing different wavelengths."
"There is much work that needs to be done, and providing more proactive artificial intelligence-driven monitoring will definitely help mitigate failures."
"In terms of improvements for Cisco Optical Networking, I believe we can enhance monitoring by improving real-time optical power, signal quality, link error, and bandwidth utilization, which leads to better network monitoring."
"Customer support is good only if you pay for it; if you forget to renew a license and you need support, it is not always so great."
"Cisco Optical Networking could be improved by having more documentation and more training."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We only have a yearly support contract, as we do not use any of the subscription-based functions at this time."
"Cisco Nexus is not cheap compared to Fortinet, Palo Alto, and Check Point."
"I don't like the Smart Licensing models that Cisco uses."
"Our licensing costs for this solution are approximately $200 USD per month."
"If you compare Cisco hardware to any other vendors, such as HPE, they are more expensive. There is a license to use the solution. If my customer's licenses are about to expire I receive notification from Cisco, this is very helpful."
"I thought that it would be less expensive."
"The license on a yearly basis is $200,000."
"This solution should be made more affordable."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Construction Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise83
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise6
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Nexus?
Cisco Nexus switches are generally priced at the higher end of the market, but their performance, scalability, and reliability make them a strong option for enterprise data centers. The overall cos...
What needs improvement with Cisco Nexus?
The biggest problems during migration were corporate issues, including dependencies on other devices such as F5, HSMs, and firewalls from Palo Alto. Everything was connected over the core switches,...
What is your primary use case for Cisco Nexus?
Cisco Nexus is used in data centers with a simple Nexus OS deployment model. In our environment, we do not use programmability with Cisco Nexus. The switches are used very basically in our infrastr...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Optical Networking?
The pricing is a bit high, but considering the features, it is reasonable. If Cisco adds more AI assistance, I do not believe the pricing is excessive, so I am satisfied with it.
What needs improvement with Cisco Optical Networking?
In terms of improvements for Cisco Optical Networking, I believe we can enhance monitoring by improving real-time optical power, signal quality, link error, and bandwidth utilization, which leads t...
What is your primary use case for Cisco Optical Networking?
Cisco Optical Networking's main use case is to convert data center connectivity by connecting data centers over high-speed optical links for large-scale data transfer and disaster recovery. It ...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Advanced Medical Transport, Banco de Guayaquil, Baylor Scott & White Health, BH Telecom, Bowling Green State University, Calligaris, Children's Hospital Colorado, City of Biel, Del Papa Distributing, Department of Justice, Dimension Data, Dualtec Cloud Builders, Electricity Authority of Cyprus, Grupo Industrial Saltillo (GIS), Hertz, K&L Gates , LightEdge, Lone Star College System, Management Science Associates, Mindtree, NBC Olympics, Quest, Sony Corporation, The Department of Education in Western Australia, Valley Proteins
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Nexus vs. Cisco Optical Networking and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
921,523 professionals have used our research since 2012.