Port density and port speed performance are both suitable. It has some appealing intangibles.
We are not comparing it with Linksys, D-Link, or similar products. The engineering behind it isn't bad, it's just that you're limited. I'm not going to sell something to a customer where it's difficult for me to find staff who can program it or train on it. It's a bigger risk than it's worth.
There is a lack of support because there is a lack of adoption.
Because Cisco switches are so widely used, anyone in the world can support them. It was two Cisco engineers who released Arista's code. In terms of programming functionality, they essentially duplicated the Cisco iOS, so all Cisco commands work on the Arista commands. You can do an Arista if you can do a Cisco. Aruba isn't all that different. It's a little different, but they have all of HPE's money and stuff behind it and things like that.
I would say the same thing about Extreme or some of the other switches where it's penny-wise, pound-foolish. You save some money if you are a small shop with only one or two guys, it's understandable. Fortinet is now in the switch business, and they have their FortiSwitch devices, which are controlled by the FortiGate firewalls to do all of the programs. There is a lot to choose from. But, in my opinion, a lot of it is dependent on the use case and the customer type. Meraki is a nice little Cisco product for the right kind of business, but I wouldn't use it in an enterprise setting.
