Cisco vs Extreme Networks - any large scale net admins here?
Discussion
Hi all.
We've had a few issues with our stacked core of Extreme Summit switches. So much so, that we're considering ripping out 50k investment out and starting over.
Looking to replace it with a Cisco 4510 Chasis system, but Extreme have offered us very competative pricing to upgrade to their own Blackdiamond Chasis.
This backbone support about 700 users in 12 countries.
Anyone any experience with either?
We've had a few issues with our stacked core of Extreme Summit switches. So much so, that we're considering ripping out 50k investment out and starting over.
Looking to replace it with a Cisco 4510 Chasis system, but Extreme have offered us very competative pricing to upgrade to their own Blackdiamond Chasis.
This backbone support about 700 users in 12 countries.
Anyone any experience with either?
??You're answering your own question I reckon. How many of your competitors run Extreme equipment? More importantly, how many of those bigger outfits you'd aspire to call competitors run Extreme? And no I don't work for Cisco but I am in the industry. Ultimately, only you can decide if the cost saving is worth the potential hassle.
m12_nathan said:
700 users is hardly large scale though?
Fooking expensive kit for 700 users...
Now, don't get me started on the Welsh Development Agency who brought these and the Alpine swithes.
Was told about a client who was involved with a WDA client and they had an Alpine switch, and they simply had from the Firewall to the WAN port on the Alpine switch, and then from the LAN port to a switch
What a waste!!! Apparantly the engineer offered to replace the switch with an RJ45 coupler when he was called to sort out the dead switch!!!Jamassey said:
We've had a few issues with our stacked core of Extreme Summit switches. So much so, that we're considering ripping out 50k investment out and starting over.
What sort of issues? Maybe it'd be worth getting someone in on a consultancy basis to look at the config from a different angle. It's very rare that the actual hardware would cause problems unless it's actually faulty or you bought completely the wrong kit for the job. If you rip it out and replace with Cisco and configure it all in the same way you could end up with the same issues.
nothing wrong with extreme switches, they are used in many places to good effect. However if you are just providing a LAN for 700 users and a few other services, then Cisco is probably the way to go. Not necessarily because they are good, but because they have the support, it is easy to get people who can configure and troubleshoot, and they have the whole end to end solution.
As far as price, if you shop around you should get a good discount.
As far as the solution, it's hard to say without looking at what you actually want to do etc but 4510 seems a good solution. I'm not too familiar with the 10, so I would be looking for any backplane issues (such as the 6513 has) over the 4507. But basically, a pair of 4510's will do the job. I would be tempted to either over-provision, or design it all in such a way to allow quick expansion, particularly relevant if you want to roll out voip phones (PoE). I guess you will use the L3 cards for routing (I'd say that's a no brainer). Worth considering whether you actually want to collapse core, distribution and access into one box - cheaper, but not necessarily right.. although you have a small network it depends what those people are actually doing, what resources they are accessing, and how important those resources are to the business.
As far as price, if you shop around you should get a good discount.
As far as the solution, it's hard to say without looking at what you actually want to do etc but 4510 seems a good solution. I'm not too familiar with the 10, so I would be looking for any backplane issues (such as the 6513 has) over the 4507. But basically, a pair of 4510's will do the job. I would be tempted to either over-provision, or design it all in such a way to allow quick expansion, particularly relevant if you want to roll out voip phones (PoE). I guess you will use the L3 cards for routing (I'd say that's a no brainer). Worth considering whether you actually want to collapse core, distribution and access into one box - cheaper, but not necessarily right.. although you have a small network it depends what those people are actually doing, what resources they are accessing, and how important those resources are to the business.
Some good suggestions there guys, thanks very much.
I know 700 users are not considered 'large', but never the less it does have to support a massive 24/7 quantative trading system. We have had extreme guys in to look at it, but they've drawn a blank, which is why they're offering an upgrade to the 8810 for a very attractive price.
I'm a CCNP and know the merrits of Cisco. I have extreme references, going to give them a call.
Thanks again.
I know 700 users are not considered 'large', but never the less it does have to support a massive 24/7 quantative trading system. We have had extreme guys in to look at it, but they've drawn a blank, which is why they're offering an upgrade to the 8810 for a very attractive price.
I'm a CCNP and know the merrits of Cisco. I have extreme references, going to give them a call.
Thanks again.
OK interesting - a 24/7 trading system....
At this point the number of users becomes less relevant, as what we're now talking about is a platform that provides the business with revenue. (you are correct to say that it is not relevant anyhow, as you wouldn't use a different switch to support 200 or 2000 users, you would just put that switch into a different architecture...).
It may be that the Extreme solution is ideally suited to your requirements, and it also may be the case that letting them upgrade your system is a low risk option. There again, they have given you an infrastructure that has problems, failed to fix that problem then suggested you buy another model....
Unfortunately this is the way of things, and we all know that Cisco are prone to this type of thing too...
The main reason to go Cisco is just that it is universally known and understood, easy to support etc. To be honest your problems are to do with how the kit has been implemented and what you're asking it to do. Without having a lot more insight I don't think anyone here can really give you useful advice.
I think it is a case of everyone seeing Cisco at work, so assuming it is somehow more suited to high end applications. Think of Cisco as being like Microsoft - it is universal and they have most bases covered. But in many more specialist cases, another vendor is just as good and maybe better suited for certain requirements - such as Juniper routers in a telco - still better than Cisco (although Cisco are improving quickly).
Nothing wrong with Cisco though, they've kept me in work...
At this point the number of users becomes less relevant, as what we're now talking about is a platform that provides the business with revenue. (you are correct to say that it is not relevant anyhow, as you wouldn't use a different switch to support 200 or 2000 users, you would just put that switch into a different architecture...).
It may be that the Extreme solution is ideally suited to your requirements, and it also may be the case that letting them upgrade your system is a low risk option. There again, they have given you an infrastructure that has problems, failed to fix that problem then suggested you buy another model....
Unfortunately this is the way of things, and we all know that Cisco are prone to this type of thing too...
The main reason to go Cisco is just that it is universally known and understood, easy to support etc. To be honest your problems are to do with how the kit has been implemented and what you're asking it to do. Without having a lot more insight I don't think anyone here can really give you useful advice.
I think it is a case of everyone seeing Cisco at work, so assuming it is somehow more suited to high end applications. Think of Cisco as being like Microsoft - it is universal and they have most bases covered. But in many more specialist cases, another vendor is just as good and maybe better suited for certain requirements - such as Juniper routers in a telco - still better than Cisco (although Cisco are improving quickly).
Nothing wrong with Cisco though, they've kept me in work...
IIRC The only time i've heard about Extreme being used over Cisco is when London Internet Exchange broke through a certain bandwidth barrier a few years ago.
I think it was around 4Gbs per second (average) that they needed a certain feature for the future, and Cisco bluntly told them that they didn't need this feature and they were not going to support it anytime soon anyway. Rather embarassingly for Cisco, LINX dropped them fairly quickly afterwards and went to Extreme who did what they wanted.
I think it was around 4Gbs per second (average) that they needed a certain feature for the future, and Cisco bluntly told them that they didn't need this feature and they were not going to support it anytime soon anyway. Rather embarassingly for Cisco, LINX dropped them fairly quickly afterwards and went to Extreme who did what they wanted.
guydw said:
Actually I'm intrigued as to what your issues are that your Extreme switches can't handle....
Me too. There are very few things that a decent modern switch just plain "can't handle". I assume the people you have trying to fix it aren't the people who installed it? If they are, then definitely get someone else to look at it. Getting someone to fix something they installed can be bad as they'll miss things as they will make assumptions based on their experience of the system. It will also involve them admitting they did it wrong in the first place.
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