Huawei Ethernet Switches Reviews

We use the product to provide access and edge connectivity to customers.

The tool’s pricing is reasonable. It has a high throughput capacity.

I would like the tool to improve its operational efficiency, speed, security features, and functionalities.

I have been using the solution for ten years.

he solution is stable but there is scope for improvement for its stability.

The solution is scalable and I would rate it an eight out of ten.

The tool’s support is good but it could be faster. They need to include more English-speaking support staff since most of the time support is given by Chinese team members.

Neutral

The tool’s setup is straightforward. The deployment takes around seven working days to complete. Before deploying the solution, you need to know the specification of the Switch.

The product’s implementation can be done in-house.

I would rate the tool a seven out of ten. You need around 10-30 maintenance staff to manage the tool.

We use the solution for user servers and websites within our company. 

This solution causes us problems. If you import a different software version, parameters are changed, and the configuration resets so you have to set it all up again. 

The solution is easy to set up. 

I didn't like the Huawei Switches because of the different versions resetting the configuration issue. Huawei doesn't support Layer 3 modes while TOE and ARP have some issues.

We have been implementing the solution for around a year. 

The solution is almost stable. 

I would say this solution is not as scalable as other options like Juniper. We have over 1000 users in our company. 

We have faced issues with the solution that sometimes required support, and we haven't had any problems with the support we received. 

Positive

The initial setup of the solution was easy, it took 20 to 25 minutes.  

I would rate this solution a five out of ten.

We primarily use the solution for access and distribution switches.

The functionality is great. The functionality is basically the same as Cisco. However, with Cisco, some protocols are standard proprietary on the Cisco side. Also, with Huawei, some protocols are proprietary. 

The pricing is much lower than, for example, Cisco.

It works quite well in general.

We haven't had anything to complain about yet.

The documentation needs to be better. When you run into issues, it's hard to figure out what might be wrong by referencing it.

We deployed the solution five months ago.

For the time being, the stability is very good. Much like RUCKUS, which we deployed five months ago, we need time to really evaluate its stability. It's still quite new. 

We have about 120 Huawei switches. We also have 200 Cisco switches, so we have a lot. 

Our users might use one or the other as they are interspersed throughout the organization. I can't give an exact number of users at any given time as they are mixed with Cisco. These devices basically work as one.

We haven't dealt with technical support yet. I can't speak to how helpful they would be.

We also use Cisco switches and firewalls as well. We use Ruckus as well. They are mainly for wireless access.

The initial setup is not like Cisco. If I had a problem with Cisco devices, I can look at the documentation and come up with a solution. I will find anything on the global site. However, with Huawei, it is difficult to find or interpret any fixes in the documentation, in the manuals. Cisco is better in that sense. Huawei is less clear when it comes to documenting everything.

There is a bit of maintenance required with the product.

We did have a company come and help us implement the switches. They also helped us with our Cisco solutions.

The pricing is reasonable. In comparison to Cisco, it's good.

That said, I can't speak to exact pricing as that is handled by the finance team.

We are customers and end-users. 

The solution has been pretty solid so far. I'd rate it nine out of ten simple due to the fact that we have not run into any problems. 

I'd advise those considering using Huawei that Huawei and the Cisco switches are the same. They only really differ in some manual configurations. It is good to try them out. While everything, of course, has its pros and cons, Huawei is a decent product.

We utilize the solution for asset layers and then also for the core. The ones around the core have been failing, and I've been replacing them as they fail with Cisco replacements.  

The solution easily integrates and operates well with Cisco.

Pricing-wise, Huawei is quite good.

I've found that the Huawei switches around the core fail, or at least the 9300 series do. I've had to move to Cisco. They tend to freeze and cause problems on my network, so I've needed to replace them with a bigger Cisco switch that can handle the network more effectively.

With Cisco, there are a few particular routine protocols that are not supported on Huawei. Cisco has these proprietary routine protocols which they try to maintain. Since we have the two switches integrated together, it would be helpful if Huawei could offer a more open routine protocol that can be standardized, and they should offer the same protocols that are standard on Cisco on their service as well so that the switches can match up a bit more elegantly. It would be great if the two solutions could somehow actively collaborate a bit more together.

The solution needs to provide a lot more availability. There needs to be more information on the internet to help people more easily configure the solution, etc. Right now, if you need to know something or need to find something, you have to go directly to Huawei. 

There needs to be more documentation. If they opened up a bit and shared more information and maybe allowed for YouTube videos about their products and how to work them, it would benefit the users quite a bit. 

I've used the solution for over five years now.

The solution isn't completely stable. There are some glitches, but for the assets there, it doesn't cause me any real issues. 

The solution is scalable, but it really depends on what you buy. The first core switch I bought was very scalable because they have almost eight channels and I could scale everything so easily. You can buy an appropriate switch to accommodate future groups that you can align, to gather to the core switches. Even if you don't make provisions for it you can actually scale, but it's better to plan ahead and know what you need.

We've reached out to technical support and have occasionally come across language barriers. Sometimes the person speaks English, and other times it's Chinese with English as a second language, and it can be difficult to converse and to describe the issues we are having. It would be better if they had more staff on hand that were able to communicate in English a bit better, but the help itself isn't too bad.

I currently also use Cisco switches. In fact, I'm slowly, as Huawei switches fail, subbing in Cisco switches. Currently, our network has both integrating with each other and working together. We're phasing out Huawei and we won't be using them anymore.

The initial setup is pretty straightforward if you are well trained on the solution. However, if you are not trained, then it may be more complex. 

If you are trained, it's as simple. It just has a few different commands. With training, it's no problem.

I didn't directly handle the implementation myself. However, my team did.

We are both an installer and considering becoming a Huawei partner.

About five years ago I began working with Huawei, and I decided then whenever they failed, I'd just replace the old ones with Cisco. However, after five years, many are still working, so we have a hybrid system where we use both Huawei and Cisco switches. However, whenever they do fail, I replace them with Cisco, so there may come a time int eh future where I will no longer be working with them and will have completely switched over to Cisco.

I don't have the exact version number, but I'm dealing with the 9300 core switch.

Although we are currently in the process of phasing out the Huawei switches in favour of Cisco, I'd still recommend the solution.

I'd rate the solution six out of ten.

The most valuable feature of the solution is its network monitoring system. 

Huawei Ethernet Switches should improve its user interface. 

I have been working with the solution for six months. 

I would rate the tool's stability an eight out of ten. 

I would rate Huawei Ethernet Switches' scalability a seven out of ten. My company has 1200 users for the product and we use it 24/7. 

We have a contract for maintenance and support. 

The tool's price is affordable and I would rate it a five out of ten. The prices are fixed with no additional cost involved. 

We evaluated HPE products. We bought Huawei because the ETA of HPE was very difficult. 

I would rate the tool an eight out of ten. Try the solution and if it doesn't work out for you, you can switch to another product. 

We primarily use the solution for user accessibility.

The HTTP features for security are very good. We use all of the regular features.

The software could be more stable. There are a lot of bugs reported for the IS portion.

The GUI could be improved. It could be much more adaptable.

We've been using the solution for six or seven months.

We haven't faced any issues with scalability yet. There was one issue on the client-side where our mainframes weren't working because of a change on the packet side. The solution needs to add overhead to the packets. We have about 10,000 users on the solution currently. We don't have plans to increase usage on the appliance.

We've had contact with technical support and they are okay. The amount of assistance they provide is average. The response time they offer is typically too long and should be shortened. A lot of issues take hours.

We use a variety of switches. Depending on the requirements, we use Huawei, Cisco, HP, or Aruba. 

Most of our IT team members have a background in Huawei, so the solution is easy to set up.

We have contractors from Huawei come and handle the implementation for us since the solution is on-premises.

We use the on-premises deployment model.

I'd rate the solution four out of ten. The OS, features, and usage aren't great. There's a lack of resources and support. There's also a lack of implementers and very few partners.

This product is used in our network infrastructure for normal office use.

The Huawei switches are stable, easy to set up, and cheap.

The graphical user interface could be much better.

The vendor needs to make a better marketing effort to promote this product because you don't find a lot of good articles promoting it. Other brands are more aggressive in marketing.

In the future, I would like to see a feature that includes a dynamic picture of all of the ports, and what is connected to them. The functionality may be there, but I haven't seen it yet. Being able to see what is going through the ports would be helpful.

I have been working with Huawei Ethernet Switches for approximately five years.

We have not had any issues with glitches or bugs, so it has been stable.

We have not had any limitations in terms of scalability. We have fewer than 100 users.

I have not had an issue that necessitated contacting technical support.

We have Cisco products in addition to Huawei.

We have an in-house team for deployment and maintenance.

Compared to other brands, I think that the price is quite fair. I don't require them to be much cheaper, as it's already fair.

My advice for anybody who is considering this product is not to be afraid of it, just because Huawei is not a true American brand. It is an international brand. When you use it, you have the feeling that it can do even more than some Cisco or Fortinet products. The technology and brand name are good, so my advice is to trust it.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

For my own use case, I am a reseller for the switches. For my clients' use case, it is using the products as switches to build out their network connections.  

The most valuable features will be those features that are really considered as basic features of this type of switch. That includes things such as spanning tree protocol, Huawei's proprietary intelligent stacking called iStack, and the routing features that come along with the switch software package.  

Because Huawei does not charge any license fee on extra features I can repackage it. When you buy a switch from Huawei, the switches come along with a lot of features that you do not need to pay extra money for but you can use these features to build out similarly to something like Cisco switches. There are some features that it does not include, so you have to pay some extra license fee to enable those capabilities.  

To improve the ethernet switches, I think first of all that Huawei should improve their knowledge base library. When people like me are trying to look for documents to study about the product to find a solution, sometimes the particular information I am looking for is quite hard to find. It should be an easy task to find a suitable document as a reference. By comparison, it is very easy to locate the information that you need for the Cisco systems. I just type the name of any features or any questions I might have into Google and I can find what I need in a matter of minutes. With Huawei, it is not that simple.  

I think the support also needs to be improved. Right now you have to be able to speak Mandarin in order to communicate with those technical experts and express your problem to make them understand what it is. When they know they can give you a solution to solve your problem, and the support is good in that way it is good. But they need more support for other languages. When I work with Cisco, for example, you can generally speak in English. I am not saying that the support people at Huawei do not know how to communicate in English at all, but find it quite difficult to communicate well with them because they have a very heavy Mandarin accent when speaking in English. It is better to just speak with them in mandarin if you can.  

Because I work only so often with the Huawei brand, I think these might be the only suggestions I have. I spent a long time with the technology but have not gotten very deeply into discovering the smaller details of Huawei switches until recent years.  

I have been using the product for three years.  

The stability of the brand is constantly getting better and has improved over time. Early on, I actually was working with this brand and have experience with it from seven or eight years ago for a short period of time. As I worked with it, I found it was sometimes hard to explain to the customer when the system became unstable. But Huawei seems to have resolved these issues now.  

In terms of scalability, Huawei is catching up to the big brothers in networking. For example, it is doing more to compete with Cisco, i-Tree or Brocade switches. Their scalability is quite good and sometimes they develop proprietary technology similar to other brands, like borrowing from Cisco. But some people say that the brand is just trying to copycat features that already exist in other brands. To copy is good sometimes, but to develop their own new technology is more important than copying something from other companies. It is not quite best practices to steal some technology and ideas from other companies.  

I would say that the technical support responds quite well. Because we are in the same time zone, it is quite easy to find people for troubleshooting or support. Just in case they cannot solve my problem, they can look for other knowledgeable resources within the same time zone who can address the issue. Some other brands, like Cisco, will usually pass the case to another time zone. They work in a protocol which some people call "follow the sun." So sometimes when people are working in one time-zone and they pass the case to people in another time zone, there might be some problem or some information that gets lost about the dialogue explaining the issue. When that happens, you have to repeat the questions and dialogue and it can take the people responding some time to pick up what had already been explained. So it wastes time at the end of the day.  

I believe that the question about setup complexity really depends on which models of the switches are being used. For the middle to low-end switches, it is quite intuitive. But for higher-end models, you must have experience in understanding not only Huawei technology but should also have a very clear concept of what you want to accomplish in networking. So, configuration-wise, I do not personally find any difficulties in configuring Huawei switches provided that I find the configuration guide and read it briefly before I put in any commands into the switch. However, less experienced users could potentially have problems.  

Huawei comes with a lot of features out of the box that you have to pay extra for with other products. They do charge extra in the licensing for certain other features, however, so some of those capabilities are an additional charge.

I have used quite a few ethernet switches. I have mostly been involved with Cisco, Huawei, and Meraki and I primarily use these three brands. It is not really a matter of choosing only Huawei as a solution in my situation. As a reseller, I need more than one option to satisfy client needs.

The advice I would give people who are considering this product as their switching solution is that if you are looking to satisfy the needs of a small scale project and want a pretty good price, then you might go for it. But you might be sacrificing security or risking involvement in a politically unstable situation. China and the U.S. are very tense with their political positions at the moment. They are facing some sort of trade war. If you need some components to produce or manufacture a product like a Huawei switch it is possibly going to be a tense situation. The chips are an important and really a vital component to complete development and upgrades or maintenance. Without that availability, the switch cannot work properly if something happens. So security and material swapping are the major issues to consider as a potential risk of adopting the product.  

On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate the Huawei ethernet switches as a five. I rate it a five, or really average, compared with a product like Cisco switches. Cisco switches really rate something more like an eight or eight-and-a-half.