[c-nsp] Brocade Vs Cisco

[Mack McBride]

If we are talking comparisons on gear:

Foundry server iron load balancers were cream of the crop for low end 
(and the XL series is still quite functional for IPv4 although EOL)
Brocade's fiber channel is still a market leader.
The Ethernet switches not so much.

Force10 has good Ethernet switching gear and still carries the old workhorse M13 muxes.
The new CLI is very Cisco like.
We will have to see what Dell does with the product lines.

The Netscreen acquisition gave Juniper a really nice firewall product.
And of course with Juniper's new price strategy they are giving Cisco a really difficult time.

HP also has very solid switch gear, much of this is patent rights from Cisco so the tech
is the same Ciscos.  Primary advantage is price.  The CLI leaves something to be desired.

Mack

-----Original Message-----
From: cisco-nsp-bounces at puck.nether.net [mailto:cisco-nsp-bounces at puck.nether.net] On Behalf Of Scott Granados
Sent: Thursday, August 11, 2011 8:51 AM
To: Bradley Williamson; cisco-nsp at puck.nether.net
Subject: Re: [c-nsp] Brocade Vs Cisco

Hi, run and don't walk away from the Brocade gear.  It's been my experience 
with the foundry products that there are many software bugs, the support is 
lacking, and they have really odd limitations that you wouldn't expect. 
Also, they tend to do things in a non standard way.  Spanning tree for 
example when Interoperating with any other vendor was a real PITA!

GO with Juniper or Cisco and leave the Brocade on the shelf.

Thanks
Scott




-----Original Message----- 
From: Bradley Williamson
Sent: Thursday, August 11, 2011 9:45 AM
To: cisco-nsp at puck.nether.net
Subject: [c-nsp] Brocade Vs Cisco

Does anyone have any horror stories or gotcha's  concerning Brocade? What 
about success stories?

We are looking at Brocade, Cisco, and Juniper for a couple of upcoming 
projects and I am familiar with both Cisco and Juniper, but not so much with 
Brocade. We have a few of their small switches in our network, but that's 
about the extent of my experience.

We want to build an MPLS core capable of delivering triple-play services and 
as part of that, we will be building our a MetroE network to provide 
ethernet backhaul for mobile providers and also deliver L2VPN and L3VPN 
services to our business customers.

I am a little skeptical of Brocade. I just do not understand how they can 
provide the performance they claim at half the price of the other guys.

Any insight/advice would be appreciated.

Brad

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