Huawei Ethernet Switches Reviews

Our primary use case is for telecommunication companies like Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile, Huawei Ethernet Switches. It serves as the backbone for connectivity, internet access, and user profiles.

Huawei Ethernet Switches excel in compatibility with other brands, offering features to ensure seamless communication with existing protocols. This allows them to work alongside switches from different manufacturers, such as Cisco, by making adjustments on both ends for compatibility. 

Deploying Huawei Ethernet Switches in an organization offers advantages, especially if the decision is made early in the process and the company opts for a single-vendor approach. This simplifies implementation and customization, often resulting in lower prices and tailored solutions from Huawei. However, excessive customization can lead to support issues and challenges in knowledge transfer during employee turnover. 

I have been using Huawei Ethernet Switches for the past three years. 

Huawei Ethernet Switches offer scalability in size, impacting network expansion plans based on specific needs and user demands. The scalability rating would be around 7 .5 out of 10

Huawei offers excellent support, with prompt responses and a proactive approach. They have local representatives who replicate issues in China, providing solutions quickly. If needed, they send a team to assist onsite. 

The initial setup of Huawei Ethernet Switches is straightforward, rating it highly on ease of use.

Huawei Ethernet Switches are very competitively priced, almost 4 out of 10.However, the low price point may sometimes raise concerns about quality for some companies.

I would rate Huawei Ethernet Switches a seven out of ten. it's essential to conduct a proof of concept and monitor performance over time, especially in multi-vendor environments.

Huawei has a portfolio of switches for access, aggregation, and core layers. They offer various solutions for different use cases and meet the requirements of other projects. For example, we use Fort Knox cloud compass solution for cloud networking.

Huawei switches come in small, medium, and large capacities and can be used for monitoring and switching. They also offer alternatives like Huawei Altheirs, which provides all-in-one switching, security, and VPN routing functions for routers.

We have several customers, including those in high education, oil and gas, banking, insurance, and government companies, as well as some ministries. Huawei Ethernet Switches are very reliable and provide excellent performance.

Compared with other brands like Cisco, modular cards may have some security issues or vulnerabilities. The only thing that could be better is the security module.

I've been working with Huawei switches for a few years now. I use it for projects that include routing, security, and performance optimization features.

It is a stable solution.

Huawei offers both cloud-based and non-cloud-based Ethernet switches with varying levels of scalability. Just like with security, you should consider scalability as well. There is a big difference in putting security for the switches, especially with the increasing number of cybersecurity threats. You should also consider a scalable security solution for future needs.

Regarding my experience with customer service and support, technical support is essential, especially when designing and configuring switches. The level of support required may vary depending on the project manager and the scale of the project. It's worth noting that the level of interaction with the customer may differ depending on the local Huawei and the R&D team. However, it's always important to negotiate and agree on the support needed to ensure the project is successful.

The initial setup is very straightforward. The setup is different depending on the situation. However, with the network management system and iMaster, it's easy to deploy and configure the switches for normal or batch configurations. I think it's a useful solution.

The deployment process varies depending on the situation. But with the iMaster, you can easily input the necessary configurations for many switches at once.

Moreover, it depends on the customer's requirements. Do they have an existing network, or do we need to build a new one? If it's a new network, it will be easier. We can make access aggregation in the form of specs and then make it work for the customer. We need to know the MAC address to make it work. For example, network management can be different for different customers, depending on their existing network. It's not difficult, but it can be challenging for wireless.

If you have the basic function, there's no problem. However, you must purchase a license if you require advanced features or additional functionality beyond the basic setup. It applies to all customers, not just myself, and purchasing a license is perfectly acceptable and necessary to access these additional features.

I would advise you should make a good design, and the project will be easier.

Overall, I would rate Huawei Ethernet Switches an eight out of ten.

Most of the Huawei routers we use are for alternative network connections. For example, we have our fiber internet, which is connected through Cisco. However, during downtime, we connect Huawei to the 4G network through their routers. They provide an alternative connection. They also provide Wi-Fi on the premises.

The basic features are great. We can connect to the internet through SIM cards, through the phone network, to 4G and 5G networks.

It provides Wi-Fi on the premise and basic switching and routing capabilities on facilities.

They're straightforward to set up. Even a non-technical user can just take a Huawei Switch with a few lines of documentation, and they're able to put them online. They have the ability to use them even a totally new or non-technical user. It's a bit easier to use.

It’s hard to get technical support.

I’ve been using the solution for two years.

They are less stable than Cisco, however. They are quite stable. They're acceptable.

The solution is scalable.

We have between 400 to 500 users, depending on the number of people in the office. On Fridays, when everybody has to come to the office, we have around 500 people.

The tech support is not very good. It's a bit hard to get tech support for Huawei products.

We use Cisco and Huawei.

The initial setup is very straightforward and very easy.

It takes minutes to set up Huawei products. It's very easy and straightforward, and the beauty with them is that they provide an automated setup. You only click next, next, and do so under very good guidance. Or if you have to put a password, there is an explanation there on how to put a password that may meet these security standards. It's self-explanatory. You can easily set it up.

We did not require outside help. For example, we did not require any external service at our site and even at our client site. Since we provide integrated services, it's so easy for us, even when we go to client sites.

From the experience that our clients have had, if we deliver Huawei products, they can set it up themselves without requiring an integrator.

Users pay once, and then they have the solution. You don’t need to constantly pay for licensing. They're also cheaper than competitor programs.

We’re using the latest version. I don't know the exact version that we have. They're updated year after year.

I recommend them. They're good, they're stable, and they are easy to set up. For people who don't have any technical background, I would recommend Huawei.

I’d rate the solution seven out of ten.

We use the solution in-house. The network we have is not a very large one and we have in the vicinity of 300 terminals. So, it is used with IP telephony. 

We also use the solution for all the classic interactions between the terminals and memories, which is how these switches are classically used. This is different than the cases that we study and we tell our clients what to do since we are an engineering consultancy. So, we work with the government building for more than 3,000 access points. This would involve hospitals with 2,000 or more access points in respect of medical energy. We are currently working on towers building and are endeavoring to move into a passive optical local area network.

The switches will be replaced by splitters. This is a completely optical device by which the switch is at the office or the room end. I foresee this as the future, in which the entire layer of switches will disappear. I don't know if you are up to speed on the current trends, but these concern passive optical local area networks in which all the intelligent switching is in the main room with the big OLTs. In this case we are splitting an optical, meaning the fiber will go to the room or even to the device, not to the office. This will depend on whether the device has an optical interface.

So, we are making strides and advising our customers, which is not easy. 

The solution did improve our organization. For example, we had an application, which is a building beam for building information modeling. This involved tremendous number crunching and many files involving the building engineering structure. We were suffering from latency from the network speed and had to make servers especially for this application. These servers are virtualized. Of course, the speed of the switches allowed us to have a stable installation especially for this application. We are talking about a major application, involving a software collaborative work such as Autodesk Revit. 

We are now discovering these and are at ease with this new installation. We now feel at ease when it comes to working on this.

The price should be lowered as concerns flash backup. This would enable us to get rid of all of the mechanical, hard disks, as we currently have a mixture of flash and classic hard disks. I feel that technology is progressing fast enough and I believe that in the near future, within the next 12 months, we'll be able to add all flash backup systems to our solution. As for the switches, I think they will be all right for some time to come. If the network were to  improve sufficiently, we would be able to make more use of the cloud, even as concerns the telephone. However, this is not the case at present. 

It is difficult for me to point to other areas needing improvement as we have been using the technology for a relatively short period, only around five months, and I am trying to digest what we have. My network engineers would be in a better position to address this issue. Also while our installation is not that large, we are working on huge projects. These are new to Morocco, consisting of two or three years, which is not that much. 

This said, we would like to see additional backup solutions, since we have several degrees of backup. For the moment, the final one involves magnetic tapes, which is an IBM solution. We would like to take the thread of these magnetic tapes and have Huawei help us with strategic backup. One of the reasons we backup our system is for fear of ransomware, but we are required to backup everything by the end of each day or at the close of each week. It would be nice to see other solutions which would allow this, as I am not satisfied with the current one involving the use of magnetic tape. 

I am not certain that using the cloud is a solution for the time being in Morocco. We are looking with Huawei at the possibility of using hardware. This is a point of concern. 

Moreover, we would like to see more security applications. We have network security, such as Fortinet and Fortigate, but we would like to see Huawei come out with its own solution. Maybe this already exists but, if so, it is not yet very well known. 

We are satisfied with the switches and, in our approximately six months experience, have not encountered problems. We have not had stoppages or buffer memory. What I would like to see is a complete solution in which the network security is integrated with the switching as well. This way, we could have a single source for the network and not need to rely on Fortinet and Fortigate. 

As far as wifi access is concerned, we do have a system, I believe called HP Aruba, but it is old. It would be nice to see this integrated. We are not looking to change things in the short term, but to undertake a six to ten month overhaul involving the wifi and integration of 5G and IOT into our network. 

We have been using Huawei Ethernet Switches for around five or six months. It's a new experience for us. 

So far, so good when it comes to stability. In the six months which have transpired since using the solution we have yet to encounter any problems. With Alcatel we encountered several problems over the same period. These were solved with internal memory of switches. With Dell we had to restart it to clean the buffers. Since we started using Huawei Ethernet Switches we have not even had occasion to call support. This is in contrast to our experience with Alcatel, although I must point out that they solved our issues rapidly. 

The support is there and I did not have any problems with it. They intervene very quickly when the backup is there. They answer all questions and the online help line is efficient. It's very good. Huawei also has hundreds of engineers, including Chinese and Moroccan. So, it is well established, which is not the case with others. We have been working for many years with big telephone and communication companies and recently, about three years ago, they got involved in business applications. They have a policy, which is not in place from the beginning. They started to attack the business applications. They had the switches on the floor. I am talking about the Datacom, big structures. They then extended it with a great team. I believe they have involvement in 5G in Morocco, which will be operational by the end of the year, perhaps sooner. They are well established in this country.

There was a need for us to upgrade our network to one gigabit and to enable fiber channel capabilities. We contemplated all the options available in Morocco, meaning Alcatel, HP, Huawei and several others, all of the ones utilizing Oracle. In the past we made use of Avaya, as we are an engineering consultancy, meaning we deal with big offices and hospitals. So, we know about these things.

We considered all the capabilities of these switches, as well as the price and performance. We came to the realization that Huawei provides much better performance for the same price, even when taking into account very aggressive commercial policies. The prices were lower by 20 or 30 percent with more powerful features. Very importantly, we were able to to take out a five-year guarantee, with a four-year extension option. We are talking only about switches, not servers. In contrast, the other solutions only offered one to two years tops. 

The deployment took some time and I would have liked it to be faster. It took a couple of weeks or so. 

When it came to the initial setup I had my engineers do all the work. It took us a couple of months to decide on the configuration and to choose the switches.

This said, I would have to consult with our network engineers to properly address the initial installation. It is they who provided me with three detailed reports about the solution and its capacity. 

I do know that we conducted meetings with HP, Huawei and Alcatel. While I don't know what the future of switching holds for the latter I can say that Alcatel is alright. With this company we had some installation done of high end products for a hotel. 

The price is the best, 20 percent cheaper than apple to apple and with an extended warranty. 

You should know that we also contemplated the Cisco Suite, but found it to be excessively expensive. It is simply overpriced. Even as Cisco is very established in Morocco, big telecom companies are going the route of Huawei and Nokia. Cisco provides its own passive optical solution. We are contemplating the solutions offered by IBM, Nokia, Cisco and Huawei and our focus is on big installations campus-wise and on big hotels. We are trying to introduce the passive optical technologies, with all the advantages they offer. 

We are dealing with all these things in our office. We now have ease when it comes to back-up. We have a very fast spotted system with hard disk storage of 36 terabytes, meaning it is a mixed hybrid which combines flash disks and classic CDs. I am talking about the interface. The old 32 terabyte flash is extremely expensive. We are a mid-sized company, not very big. So our approach is to have this hybrid flash storage system, which allows us considerable speed but with a reasonable price.

As mentioned, our solution is a hybrid. We have certain applications in the cloud, such as office 365. We have other applications, such as engineering software. We also have it in private cloud. For the time being we have a mixed solution as we cannot, at present, put everything in the cloud. In Morocco, the internet connection speed is good but it can be better, since we have huge files with which we must work interactively. 

So, sometimes we work on-site and then the file will be stored in the cloud, but all the number crunching is used in working stations on the site, not PCs.

Internally there are around 70 users making use of the solution in our organization and externally around 40 engineers and technicians who are connected to our network country-wide. We even have our mailing system in-house. We use an English-based electronic document, such as PDF, which we have in the cloud. For the moment, our solution is a hybrid between the scientific and office application. 

We are using the solution daily and it comprises our entire network, all our work. If it stops we lose money. We use it all the time. Of course, we have the standby generator and all the redundancy of static uninterruptible power supplies, since a single hour of stoppage would equal thousands of euros lost. We are very careful about that. We have one or two configured switches so we can just plug it in and continue to work. We have yet to encounter this problem. 

My advice to others who are considering implementing the solution is to negotiate aggressively. Huawei is very good at negotiating, but it is important for the consumer to know the nuts and bolts of the proposal and to derive from it the maximum. Someone with technical knowledge can get many more concessions from Huawei than one without. 

I rate Huawei Ethernet Switches as an eight out of ten, as nothing is perfect. This is because the deployment took some time and I would have liked it to be faster. 

The stability can be improved. 

I have been using Huawei Ethernet Switches for a few years. 

It is a scalable solution. 

The initial setup is straightforward. The deployment process is based on the business coming in because there are so many variables and criteria.

The pricing can be more competitive. 

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten. 

Huawei Ethernet Switches can be useful for a lot of things, including office deployments, and since most of our company's clients use them for build and test purposes and other things.

The licensing cost attached to the solution is atrocious, so from an improvement perspective, it should be made cheaper.

The upgrade of firmware for devices from Huawei is very hard, but it is not much of a shortcoming. If you don't pay for the license, you will not get the firmware upgrade. When there is new firmware available, a user needs to upgrade it with the help of a manual, which may seem a bit weird and hard to achieve.

I have been using Huawei Ethernet Switches since 2016. My company has a partnership with Huawei.

It is a very stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Ultimately, Huawei Ethernet Switches is a machine, and it does give some trouble at times.

It is a very scalable and nice solution, especially when you compare it with other devices in the market.

Though the networking team in my company has contacted Huawei's technical support team, I have never reached out to them personally.

In the past, I have used switches from HPE, and though I have some experience with the replacement process, I don't remember the exact name of the HPE switches I dealt with, but I remember that it was not a very pleasant experience using them. I also have experience with switches from Cisco and Arista Networks. Switches from Arista Networks were complex for me, as it was very hard for me to understand what was going on with it. Out of all the products that I have used, Cisco and Huawei were the best choices.

The product's initial setup phase was very complex.

I don't have any idea about the time needed for the deployment since I am the kind of person who mostly likes to get the job done by myself. I would only reach out to the product's support team if I couldn't do something by myself.

The solution is deployed on an on-premises model.

There are around 200 people involved in networking stuff in my company to take care of the deployment and maintenance phases of the solution, but currently, the numbers are getting smaller, and people are able to manage the product by themselves, making it a very stable solution compared to the other tools in the market.

During the installation phase, my company dealt directly with Huawei. Huawei helps our company with the deployment process.

The licensing costs depend on the negotiations that a user has with Huawei. The support provided by Huawei is very responsive, and at times, they visit and provide on-site help to users. The support by Huawei is different from how other products offer support to users since most of them provide help through phones while Huawei provides on-site support to users. There is a need to make some additional payments apart from the licensing costs attached to the solution.

The product has a lot of offerings, but it all depends on the needs of the user. I would not be able to speak about the product solution provided by Huawei. If you look around, then you may find a solution that may fit your requirements.

I rate the overall product an eight out of ten.

We used the solution to connect the SCADA locations of an electrical company. 

We have not encountered any issues in the locations where the product has been deployed. I am impressed with its performance and pricing. 

The solution needs to provide GUI commands. 

I have been working with the product for ten years. 

The solution is robust hence there are no issues with stability. 

The product is scalable if you select the right model.

Official support has some issues in my country. We are able to get support only through backdoors. 

The tool is easy to setup but if UI is available it will be easier to setup. The product's deployment takes a few minutes to complete and configuration is easy. We need to first place a fiber and make it available to all locations. 

The solution's price is reasonable compared to other products like Cisco. 

I would rate the product a nine out of ten. The tool is more robust and has more price performance compared to other products. I would recommend this product if your budget permits it. 

With Huawei Ethernet Switches, we gather the information with it. The solution is used when we are planning on some open-based reports regarding the topic at hand. It should be noted that Huawei is primarily used with big customers in the banking, storage, and food processing industries.

We need the report on their network with the Internet included as well. We have the opportunity to provide customers with cheaper solutions instead of opting for high-priced options from older brands like Cisco, which are extremely expensive. Also, the Russian store's solution manager is good.

Connectivity is an area that needs improvement in the solution. Interconnectivity with third-party versions or Cisco Meraki should be made available to users in future releases of the solution.

I have been using Huawei Ethernet Switches for years.

It is a stable product. I rate it a nine out of ten.

It is a scalable solution. I rate it a nine out of ten. We have 25 customers using the solution at the moment. Even though I plan to increase the usage of the solution, I don't have it on my agenda right now.

The technical support team is really good. I rate the technical support a nine out of ten.

Positive

The initial setup was simple.

I have observed a return on investment by using the solution.

The pricing is good. Still, I can choose a cheaper solution that offers a good value.

I recommend this solution to those planning to use it. It is easy to implement and redeploy solutions with Huawei to our customers, which includes migrating solutions from third-party functions like HPE, IBM, or Lenovo.

Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.