HPE Ethernet Switches Reviews

We're quite basic users of the product, so we like how simple it is to setup. We're standardized across the board on HP products, and we like that fact that they do have products that fit our needs. Plus, they're easy to install when we get them. They're easy to use once they're in and they're robust with a lifetime warranty.

We're able to standardize on just a small number of HP products, switches included. Supportability is very important to us, so the fact that we can standardize on reasonably priced switches has made us more efficient.

We're quite basic users, but what I'd really like to see improvement on is the management. We've made an investment in the product and I'd like to better leverage it through improved management to work better for our company.

It's deployed just fine for us.

It's very stable and we have very few issues with it. The fact that they come with lifetime warranties makes it even better for us.

The scalability is very good and we're using it in all 85 of our locations.

I've not used technical support, and that's a good thing.

We do pricing reviews to make sure that we're still getting good value for the money, and we are. We haven't really got any issues with the products, so there's not really any reason to change to those.

The Software-Defined Networking (SDN) features I find most valuable are:

• Directly programmable and configurable
• Centrally manageable
• Control traffic system-wide

I think that the HP Openflow switches should be improved in terms of the open-flow byte-count statistics.

I used SDN because my master thesis is about the visualization of traffic in the network per application with SDN, so I have worked with HP switches almost along all this year. In my thesis the byte count was very important for the conclusions, but I noticed that this feature had some problems and errors.

My little experience tells me that everything starts because the hardware table (table 100) doesn't have the byte count. So I had to install the flow rules in the software table (table 200) which has a limit-rate, that may be the reason for the relative errors that I found.

I used a host as an iPerf server and another one as an iPerf client and then I compared the open-flow byte count against the byte count provided by the iPerf console.

I have used this solution for six months.

The switch manual say that the device supports up to four mirrorings. But when I configured two port mirrorings, the SDN controller interface was blocked and the mirrorings didn't work. 

The Openflow hardware table doesn't provide a byte-count statistic, and the software table provides a byte-count statistic but with errors. 

I found that the possible reason for this is that the software-limit rate of the switch, which is 10,000 pps maximum, with an advice in the switch manual that if we increase the limit-rate above 1,000 pps, it is possible that this increases CPU and impacts system performance.

The most valuable feature is that you do not require a spanning tree. With some of the other vendors, some of the other competitors, you require a spanning tree which cause a lot of looping issues in your data center or in your network. The other thing is, the HP 5400 switches comes with a lifetime warranty, so you don't have to invest anything onto a contract side, which is very good thing about it. The 5400 switches, you can use as a whole or access layer in your network and work out great.

The benefits are it's been running robust, the hardware is running robust, no issues at all. It's lifetime warranty again. From the hardware standpoint, configure standpoint, it's all working fine.

I don't know about specifics, but so far all the switches that we deployed, it meets all of our needs. For what we require, it has all of features. It also varies on the switch by switch version, and it depends on what kind of switches you have. For me, right now it's meeting all my needs, so I don't have any complaints about it.

We deployed HP for almost five years and it's been rock solid. All the switches, no single-out days with the switches. The switches hardware have a long life, and it has been working great for us.

Stability is pretty good, as I say that we deployed HP, it's been about four years and we haven't had a single out day in my data center. I can't ask anything more than that.

All the hardware that we have, our portfolio at HP, it's pretty scalable to the latest and greatest technology. You can have a 40 GIG QSFP Uplink for the top of Rex switches, or even one for your core switches, that's over 40 GIG, 100 GIG Uplink. That is what everybody is going towards now, with all the data centers. It's up to the mark.

To me, the technical support is not that good. Trust me, we don't use the technical support anymore from HP because we tried to use them and we didn't get much of a response from them. I know everybody's experience is different, but we try to do it by ourselves. We try to figure out by ourselves if any kind of software issue or any kind of hardware issue. The support, we didn't get much response from HP about the software support, configuration support, we just tried by ourselves, but hardware, it's pretty good.

With the old technology we were paying more money with the context. Obviously, we were having a lot of issues with the Data Center, where Data Center used to go down with the old legacy technology. We decided to move forward with RFP. We evaluated a few vendors in the market and after evaluation we decided to go with HP and it's been working out great for us.

When we started deploying, it was H3C and they have a different division, Comware, and HP are 5400 Series, they have a different set up command lines. Now, they are making everything together on the Comware division. When we deployed, it depends on the switches. If you buy Comware switches, they have a different command set compared to HP or H3C switches. It was kind of hard for us to learn the command line initially, but now we are all comfortable with it and it's working fine. Since they are all HP now, all the switches, they only have a one command line in the Comware 7, if you have that, it's pretty easy to deploy initially.

We tried Cisco, we tried Dell. Again, it's more robust and the most important factor was a price. I just look at the technology and see if it meets your needs for your data center and not in HP, looks like they did, they did meet our needs, what we needed for our data center, for our campus, branch offices and it's been working out great.

Hardware can last for a while. You have all of options to upgrade the switches, a lot of options to support the connectivities, like 1 GB, 10 GB, 40 GBs, different varieties of the switches. You can choose from.

I just want to say that best thing about HP is they don't have a technology called a Spanning Tree Protocol, which can cause a lot of issues on your network, and HP kind of get rid of that. When you do a HP IRF, you kind of don't need that Spanning Tree, which is the most important part about HP.

Other than that, again it's a hardware stability. Hardware stability, they have IRF for the switches to virtualize your switches. The easy set of command line, with the new Comware 7.

I liked the scalability of the 5400 and 4200. It's ability to have different modules installed for different media types allowed for easy configuration.

Ease of configuration.

I found that the OS on these switches was a little difficult to manage at times. Configuration menus were not always user friendly even for someone with previous Nortel and Cisco experience. One Saving grace was the Procurve manager software. That made things a little easier to manage but I am still a command line person and would have preferred a more user intuitive command line.

I used the switches, HP Procurve 5400ZL and 4200VL as well as the 3500yl, for a little over a year.

I did not deploy these switches. They were in place when I started working with them.

No.

No. That is one thing I liked about them.

Never had to call HP - NA

Never had to call HP - NA

I had previously used Nortel and CIsco in a previous position. I switched due to a job change.

The initial set up of the switches was relatively easy. It has a list of questions that you answered similar to Cisco. The problem with this type of setup is it does not cover everything that should be set up on a switch when doing initial configuration.

All implementation and configuration was accomplished with in-house network engineers and administrators.

Unknown.

Unknown.

Make sure you are familiar with other vendors first. That will help give you the base knowledge on how to navigate and configure this equipment. When all else fails, use the Procurve manager software to manage the equipment.

• Power over Ethernet (PoE)
• Virtual LAN

PoE and VLAN allow for flexibility in our enterprise network because we can add VoIP and wireless access points if needed.

Graphical User Interface (GUI) needs enhancement. Also, using a controller to support multiple access points would help manage and monitor our wireless network. VoIP requires QoS and our switches can work with it. We just need time to really implement across the board.

I've used it for three to four years.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

It was an upgrade from older HP models.

It was straightforward, but we aren't maximizing all the switch features for our enterprise.

We did it in-house.

We have years left on this device as well as GB ports, and PoE.

They have very aggressive pricing compared to Cisco.

We also looked at Cisco.

There are a lot of similar models, so check the features available.

The feature called IRF (Intelligent Resilient Framework) is unique in HP switching.

Switching functionality is the same as with other products, but the lifetime warranty makes HP preferable.

Customer support needs to improve.

I've used it for one year.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

8/10.

6/10.

I've used many products, but switching to HP depends on the customers requirement and the lifetime warranty.

It was straightforward with basic, simple switching and good documents available for reference.

We used an in-house team assisted by easily-available technical documents and user-friendly CLI.

It's the best product and has a lower failure rate.

Pretty good in switching, and the pricing is also good in comparison with others.

No other options evaluated.

Refer to best practices and technical documents.

I would say, to start with, the most valuable feature is that HP is not too different from existing systems. You don’t have to change too much the mode of operation that the ops teams are used to, and the command interfaces are workable.

We’re still in the implementation phase.

We’ve been getting fixes for things that were missing initially, but v6 support is there and has everything we need.

Because this is a modular device, we feel we can use scale in the future. The IRF is also important to us.

Overall good. We’re running into some issues when looking at beta code, something HP isn't focused on. The support people don’t want to talk too much about that.

We’re basically trying to look at an openstack infrastructure solution. We’re using it on a voice-over-infrastructure, supporting IMS. We’re using a Cisco solution right now.

I would say it’s no more complex than anything else, so we’re learning that people are protecting systems a bit differently.

We looked at -

• Cisco
• Juniper
• Alcatel Lucent
• HP
• Aresta
• Erickson

We chose HP because they met most of the criteria that we were looking at, and they were able to come up with some solutions that were a little outside of the box when things didn’t quite fit. They were more proactive on the sales/engineering side and with pre-solution support.

You should look for high performance, low maintenance, open flow, and XLAN when choosing a solution. Compatibility with other products is also very important. Some routing protocols were required.

Overall, the solution is a little more complicated than we initially wanted, but it’s pretty good. It’s going to be a learning and teaching experience for service providers. Solutions are there, but they’re not always the same methodologies for the same businesses.

Manageability and interfacing with other various networking management platforms have been most valuable for us. We use SolarWinds and are looking at Omnivew.

The warranty is great and so is lifetime on most hardware. Both config and replicate configs are pretty easy on HP switches.

I would like to see a POE ability added to the devices. We’ve used a lot of POE switches recently, HP and non-HP, and we want to standardize on HP. Our requirements are often that we need a very small 8-port switch and would like a version like this.

Also, I’d like to see the functionality of higher-end switches and some features of the 2900 series on the lower-end ones as well.

I’ve put in a few solutions, including HP and others in the past. I had problems with Extreme and Cisco, but only minimal ones with HP.

It actually has great scalability. We have high-end switches and are putting in a core switch in the next few months. We also use managed switches. Every need has a solution.

It’s been great. I’ve reached out directly to the account rep who is very willing to help. With issues, they are able to help directly when our channel partners who can’t help. Support is timely, too, and it's easy to get to a live person.

We used a mixed bag of various vendors, but wanted to standardize on one platform that we knew was stable, reputable, and easily serviced by multiple channel partners if needed. We looked at others, but HP dominated.

We’ve engaged with many channel partners, and it has been very straightforward. We tweaked things here and there. We forgot a parameter, etc., but nothing big.

• Extreme
• Cisco
• Lower end switches – Linksys

Cost, reliability, serviceability, warranty, and not needing to purchase a support pack each year are important in helping choose the right vendor.

Depending on what you need to accomplish the different models of the switches, start at the bottom and work up. A lot of functionality in the lower end switches may not be a need for the higher ones. Also, look at the stacking on the lower end switches.

Support is great when needed, pricing is great, warranty can’t be beat, and lots of partners out there.