HPE ProCurve Reviews

We primarily use the solution as a client switch, which supports the users, as a core switch of the whole network, and also as a service switch for only the servers and the environment.

The price is the solution's most valuable aspect.

It's easy to manage and configure. The configurations can be exported and imported to another solution. 

I don't see any flaw in the product at this time. I'm a happy customer. The only things that might need improvement would be the administrative tools and the graphical interface. The GUI could be improved on the administrative interface, for example.

The speed could be higher, and more than 10 gigabits. We are in the process of buying large switches, and the higher the speed the better. It's that feature that involves a high cost, however. We find it challenging at the moment to find a low-cost solution. 

I've been using the solution for 10-15 years.

The stability of the solution is good.

The scalability of the solution is good. We have about 70 users on the solution right now. We're a research center, so everyone has access to the tool. We use the solution 24/7.

We've never been in touch with technical support.

We did not previously use a different solution.

The complexity of the implementation depends on the setup. In our case, it was a bit complex. Deployment may take about four hours. I'm not sure exactly, as my colleague set up the solution.

We implemented the solution ourselves.

We don't need to pay for support for HPE. The only hidden costs are the man-hours involved in handling the solution.

He did evaluate Cisco many years ago, however it was too expensive to be viable.

We use the latest version of the firmware, or operating system, on the switches. We try to keep them updated. We use the on-premises deployment model.

It's difficult to give any kind of advice on the solution. It depends on the situation, what the infrastructure is, how advanced, and complex, etc. In general, HPE has products that cover almost everyone's needs from basic, small networks to complex huge campus networks for universities or large organizations. They have a good product line. It just takes some knowledge and competence to maintain them.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

It does what we want and it is reliable. We have installed hundreds, if not thousands, of these throughout many cities. The failure rate is around 0.001%.

It gives us consistency across every site.

I would like to see more technical troubleshooting information, better logs, and better timestamps. Certain broker switches, when they reboot, default back to 1990. You can only tell how long they have been active and have to figure out dates, by pretending it is 1990 and moving forward from there.

It has been very stable, except for the last couple years. We had more than one broker switch fail, which is rare.

For scalability, it's stackable. If we need more, we put them in, connect them, and add them to the stack.

I have used technical support. Most of the time, it was just for replacements. It was very rare that we get real technical assistance to configure what we have installed.

We were developing a new system for casinos and had to have the network to build upon. We already use HPE and Dell, but were not happy with them. We are not a Cisco house, so we got left with HPE because this is a from-scratch system for casinos.

When looking for a vendor, I look for reliability, price, and features that do what we want. It can be the best and cheapest thing that lasts forever, but we can't use it if it doesn’t have the right features. It has to do what we want.

I was involved in the initial install and have done it hundreds of times. It was straightforward.

We looked at HPE and Dell. At the time, Intersys started this, and Cisco was with it. But they weren't good choices, due to the rising and continuing licensing costs. We went with HPE because it did what we needed.

First, you really need to think about what you want, as opposed to "just because." Then, find a solution that fits the criteria you need to make people just hop on the bandwagon. For us, HPE is the right solution. We considered Brocade, but now that they are being acquired, we're not sure if they are reliable. HPE has been stable.

The most valuable feature is that you have a very flexible product. You can mix the ports and set up based on your network needs.

It can even compensate for fractions of fans or power supplies, which can easily be exchanged, for example.

The main benefit there is that they have one switch, with interval redundancy, power supplies, etc. that can be used as a core element within a network for providing flexible ports.

It is not really extendable. You have no interlink features for using it as a core, as it was was intended for in the beginning.

We've been using it since 2005 when it was the 5300 series.

We've had no issues with stability.

It's scalable as long as you have three spots. If not, it's air-card solutions. In the meantime, there are other popular solutions in the portfolio that are more scalable.

We had no support contract in that area so I cannot weigh in on that point. But all the other services, warranties, exchanges, etc. all worked well.

We switched because it was the most flexible one on the market from a port-modular perspective. It was the only one at that time where you had redundant components in one chassis.

You can set up without fail if you're experienced with such systems.

If there is a use case where this kind of switch is useful, I would say, yeah, go for it, use it. But with support contracts, and they are a good backbone, because these days, you need another layer of switching up in the higher level.

It gives us the single-point visibility across the whole infrastructure that's quite important to us. The centralized management console allows us to integrate the output data from these switches into a centralized log management system. With it, we're able to understand configuration management and risk across a single architecture.

With a single point of visibility for the identification of risk, we don't have to stand up different infrastructures to manage a configuration across the estate. The benefits are very agnostic, but for us it's all about having the appropriate product in place to allow us to do that centralized formation rather than having to get different systems doing different things.

We'd like for it to provide logical separation at the switch, building security into the product. I've seen that their new technology does this, and that's what we're most interested in. Integration of NAC and other features of that nature to embed into the actual network would provide as a great return on investment. Again, it would give us that single-point visibility, single-configuration space that important for us.

We don't have any issues with deployment.

It's been fine from a stability standpoint, though we had some early teething issues, but that, I think, came down to our configuration. Beyond that, the architecture has always been fairly stable. Our inter-site linking could be better, which affects quality of service, but the actual ProCurve itself just keeps going.

We're looking to completely replace our environment with a newer version. We've added to our existing infrastructure but expanding it out physically. We're now looking at scaling it up and merging our infrastructure with other organizations. It's proving, currently, to be capable of doing that.

I haven't used technical support directly, but I haven't heard of any issues with it.

We had Alcatel, and then we brought in HP about 10 years ago. We just wanted, as I recall, a program refresh. We were just looking at what was the best fit for our organization, what was scalable, and what was cost effective. I believe that at the time Cisco was cost prohibitive. We went for the more affordable and balanced, scalable solutions, which we found with HP.

We're currently looking at HP and Cisco, and we'll be pushing a tender out for others to come on board as well, so it might not just be Cisco and HP. Certainly we're in the process of reviewing those two vendors.

Backup and CLI - being able to backup the device configurations within our enterprise software, our customers can track any changes made as we keep a history of all configuration changes. This is all done through "scripted" CLI interaction.

Allow configuration to saved - from our customer's point of view, I believe this allows our customers to track any changes. If they find a problem with a configuration, they can easily revert back to a point in time where they know a configuration was working.

We haven't had issues with deployment.

We haven't had issues with stability.

We haven't had issues with scalability.

Good, based upon available documentation online.

No

In-house.

We first bought HP ProCurve 2510 and 2610 ethernet switches just to try the product line out. We liked it, and decided to go ProCurve all the way.What I really like about HP ProCurve is the lifetime warranty. I think no other manufacturer in the industry offers this kind of warranty and really means it. I just had two HP ProCurve switches replaced about a week ago and the replacements arrived today. These switches were more than three (3) years old and yet HP still replaced them. Apart from the lifetime warranty, HP ProCurve switches have a very intuitive menu-based interface. I use it more than the web-based interface as it gives me more options and I get the job done faster. They also adopt open standards and configuring them for VLANs with other networking products just works.

The only thing that I can find wrong with the product is the web interface. Compared to Linksys, the web interface just lacks the usability that other brands offer. I don't like command line a lot that is why I go for web management. Cost-wise, they are quite expensive to say LInksys before. Even with Cisco acquiring LInksys, ProCurve still costs more than double. However, the lifetime warranty really works, and the added cost will go a long way in ensuring future support and product replacement.Despite its cons, I would still recommend HP ProCurve switches. Even if it costs more than products with the same specifications and performance, the added cost comes with lifetime warranty. If this is important to you, this is the right product.

Just one thing though. Since HP acquired H3C, there are some products which are not qualified for lifetime warranty. My contacts told me that these are H3C products and does not manufactured by HP hence the limited warranty. Just make sure to verify product warranty before purchasing to be sure.

HPE ProCurve is a high-end product certified for industry and military use. HPE ProCurve is used to connect servers and storage in the data center.

The solution's pricing could be made cheaper.

I have been using HPE ProCurve for many years.

I rate HPE ProCurve ten out of ten for stability.

HPE ProCurve is more suitable for medium-scale and enterprise businesses.

I rate HPE ProCurve a nine out of ten for scalability.

HPE ProCurve’s technical support is very good.

Positive

It takes a lot of time to set up HPE ProCurve for a middle-sized company.

When we work with networking products like HPE ProCurve, we always work with the latest models.

Overall, I rate HPE ProCurve a nine out of ten.

On-premises