[c-nsp] Comparision between Cisco and Juniper Data Center Switches

[Nick Hilliard]

On 25/02/2010 10:36, Muhammad Atif Jauahar wrote:
>>  We are going to upgrade our Data Center we need 2 (redundant) core
>> switches with top of rack switches (Edge).
>>
>> We get two Proposals
>>
>                 1. 2 x EX8216 Switches (Core) and few EX4200 Switches (Edge)
>                  2. 2 x Nexus 7000 (Core), 2 Nexus 5000 (Distribution layer)
> and few Nexus 2000 fabric extender (Edge).
> 
>    Which Proposal is best and why? comments needed.

Muhammad,

Sarcasm aside, your original post didn't really contain any information
about your engineering requirements.  As a general guideline, your first
question should be: "what am I trying to do".  This will lead to a list of
engineering requirements which will lead to a design and a requirements
specification for your proposed networking equipment.

The requirements specification will include details on technical features,
cost, environmentals (size, power draw, etc), availability and so forth.
The design will give you a good idea about how things ought to slot together.

Once you know what you're looking for, you can then start looking around at
what fits the bill, and what equipment features / misfeatures are likely to
be relevant to you.  You can then pass a carefully selected specification
to potential suppliers / manufacturers so that they can confirm what would
or wouldn't be appropriate for your installation.  Juniper and Cisco have
good quality engineers at their disposal, and it's entirely possible that
they could make useful and insightful suggestions about how to improve your
design or fine-tune your requirements.

Both the Juniper EX8200 and Cisco N7K product lines are very fine pieces of
engineering.  But they are both very expensive, and if you plan to spend a
couple of hundred thousand € / $ on this sort of kit, the least you ought
to do is come up with compelling reasons to choose one over the other.

Nick