Huawei Ethernet Switches Reviews

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.  

The solution is an IoT router but we primarily use it as the layer for industrial switches for CCTV video transmission.

The solution is very inexpensive. The documentation is very good. 

Technical support is also very good.

They have the ability, since they have a very big R&D team, to create an upgrade for any feature or patch very easily.

Troubleshooting documentation should be improved.

The interoperability of the devices, in general, on the Huawei switches is not good and is known to be not good. Maybe they can improve this a bit.

In terms of being able to patch quickly, if you have both a quality device, a quality switch that has a specific capability, Huawei won't necessarily have the same capability until a patch is created for it. 

I've been using the solution for approximately one year.

I'm satisfied with the stability of their equipment. There are no crashes, unexpected events, outages, or reboots.

We've never tried to scale the solution, so I can't speak to how scalable it is. We do have a client with 1,000-5,000 employees.

We've been satisfied with the level of technical support we've received from the solution. We've used technical support a lot, and it's one of the main advantages of the solution overall.

The initial setup is straightforward. It's very easy. Initially, the implementation took longer than we thought. We set it up over a period of two or three weeks.

We deployed the solution ourselves.

We use the on-premises deployment model.

When compared to Cisco switches, the Huawei switches are a bit lower in quality. They have similar properties that the Cisco switches have. Often Huawei brings in the features to match the competition later, and, in general, the overall quality a bit lower. Sometimes, because of this, you might have some unexpected results. The documentation is generally good, but troubleshooting documents for some unusual bugs or glitches are never created.

I generally recommend Huawei switches because although they are lower quality, they are cheaper than other switches. If you compare the price to quality ratio, it's pretty good, which is why we bought them.

Initially, many users are tempted by the idea of getting something that's that cheap. I recommend users to explore and investigate how they will use the switches and what they will purchase. Huawei is both good and not good. It depends on how you look at. If you really want to go with Huawei, then just be aware that Huawei has interoperability problems with many other vendors. In this case, I'd recommend going with all Huawei products to avoid issues.

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten.

We are using Huawei Ethernet Switches within the education, and oil and gas banking industry.

I have found the most valuable features are search, about, EQS, MPLS, and iStack.

I would like to see some improvements in the access layer switch that is available in Aruba.

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

Huawei Ethernet Switches are definitely reliable.

The scalability of Huawei Ethernet Switches is excellent.

I would rate technical support a nine out of ten. I was very satisfied with their level of support.

Positive

I was using Cisco Aruba HP Engine previously and switched because Huawei Ethernet Switches are user-friendly. I think the advantage of the Huawei Ethernet Switch is its stability. It is easy to understand all the features of Huawei Switches here in the region.

Huawei Ethernet Switches initial setup is definitely straightforward and went smoothly. 

We were able to deploy Huawei Ethernet Switches in-house.  It is very easy to deploy the switches.

From the initial purchase, you will pay for a license and you do not need to pay for a license again. The price depends on the size of the infrastructure. It currently costs around eighty dollars a switch for a one-time payment. I think the price point is great for the product.

This is a good product and I would rate Huawei Ethernet Switches a nine out of ten.

Huawei Ethernet Switches are functional. It has a good response to resolve issues. 

I have issues with the support's communication language. The tool's UI can be better. 

I have been working with the solution for more than three years. 

Huawei Ethernet Switches' installation is simple for someone with the required skill and knowledge. The tool will be up and running within an hour. 

I rate the product an eight out of ten. 

The solution is deployed on-premises.

We find the technological features most valuable.

Our company uses this product in a country with an unstable power supply, so it would be nice to see improvements in the device's durability regarding power shortages in the product's next release.

I have been using this solution for ten years.

The solution is stable.

The solution is scalable.

Our experience with customer service and support has been relatively okay.

The initial setup is straightforward.

The pricing for this solution can be lower in comparison to its competitors.

We are currently evaluating Mellanox and Aruba.

I rate the solution an eight out of ten. The solution is good, but the durability of the device can be improved, and the new release can include zero-touch provisions and features. I advise people to use this solution because it's very conducive to tropical environments and can withstand very hot weather conditions.

Huawei Switches are part of our network elements. It is part of our internal IT infrastructure to connect various aspects of our network domains together.

The affordability of this solution has been most useful. 

We would like to have a greater level of automation using this solution. The customer support could also be faster.

We have been using Huawei Switches since 2018. 

We have not experienced any challenges with stability. 

We are a small business and have not tested the scalability of this solution. 

The customer support team for this solution are slow to respond.

Neutral

The initial setup is straightforward. You don't need a highly technical person to set it up. It is more or less a plug and play setup. The setup was completed in less than one week. 

One or two of our engineers worked with Huawei on the purchase to ensure that it was in line with our own design and network topology. Huawei engineers assisted with the setup. 

This is an affordable solution.

For small shops and IT businesses, this solution comes at an affordable price point. If your business requires higher quality and a higher level of security, I would recommend Cisco or Juniper. I would definitely recommend Huawei to small businesses and enterprises that are getting started.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

Huawei Ethernet Switches are used in a hospital environment to run critical applications, operation data, and medical equipment.

Huawei Ethernet Switches' most valuable features are the power supply and that they're dust-proof.

I've been using Huawei Ethernet Switches for eight to ten years.

I'm satisfied with Huawei Ethernet Switches' stability - they work smoothly, and their performance is good.

Huawei Ethernet Switches are very scalable - we can add on multiple net servers and integrate with third parties.

The initial setup is easy, and deployment takes one to two days.

We used an in-house team.

Huawei Ethernet Switches are moderately priced.

I would recommend Huawei Ethernet Switches to other users and rate them eight out of ten.

Huawei Ethernet Switches come with native ACs. 

The product should improve cloud capability. 

I have been working with the solution for seven years. 

I rate the solution's stability an eight out of ten. It is very stable. 

I rate the tool's scalability a ten out of ten. 

Huawei Ethernet Switches has good technical support. 

Positive

I rate Huawei Ethernet Switches' deployment a ten out of ten. You can deploy it in five minutes. You need to do a POC before actual implementation. 

I rate the tool's pricing a five out of ten. 

We have enterprise customers for Huawei Ethernet Switches. It is very scalable and cheaper than other vendors like Cisco. I rate the product a ten out of ten.