Alcatel-Lucent OmniSwitch Ethernet Switches Reviews

Alcatel is a good switching solution. I have not had any serious issues with the product in the last 10 years. I'm the direct contact of the administration so I would know. I don't remember if one or two times there was some little complication. But the issue is not actually from the switch side. The actual problem was in our fiber switch. So there were some very minor issues but nothing like a failure. 

As far as the rest of our infrastructure, we use no particular VPN device because now we have a separate firewall device. So we have configured the VPN in the firewall devices directly and for the storage, we are using HP solutions.

We are not using many of the extended features of the product because our network here in this company is a very standard network. We are using optical fiber connectivity in all our departments, so the aggregation is good. The VLAN feature is very good and easy to manage. We have multiple VLAN and because the Alcatel product is easy to use, it is easy to manage and configure them through the switches.

The question of what should be improved is difficult because it can become very technical. From my perspective, I think that the switches should be compatible with all the other switches like Cisco and IBM or any other brands. Sometimes I feel that the Alcatel switches are not working harmoniously with some of the Cisco Switches.

I mostly have experience with Cisco which is supposed to be one of the best solutions. I had a lot of confidence in that product because I worked with the product and knew the reputation. I didn't listen to anyone in other companies that were using the Alcatel or other solutions. When I switched companies and found everything was Alcatel, I was afraid at that time that the product would not be so dependable. Now I am very confident from my experience with both products that these Alcatel switches are on par with Cisco. 

Sometimes there are long vacations in Saudi Arabia of 10 days or 15 days in the government. So we are not in the offices for long periods of time. But over those periods we can keep our eyes closed and be confident while we are sleeping at night because we can have confidence in the infrastructure we have built. We never have any issues in our infrastructure.

Our company has been using Alcatel brand switches for about 12 years.

This product is very stable.

This is a very scalable solution. In my experience, it is exactly 100% scalable. For example, I have some older Alcatel switches and I was shocked last time when I purchased the latest model. When I went to the features, it was very convenient and familiar. Then when I finished the install and configured everything, I couldn't tell the difference between the new and older models because they look very much the same. There were no bugs or issues between the new and the old. So this is a very good upgrade indeed and the software is not changed very much in the newer models so that it is incompatible with older models. They are almost the same interface and the same configuration. So it's very convenient and easy for us to be in administration and management when products have this kind of consistency. We are not forced into big expenditures replacing old hardware for every upgrade somewhere else in the infrastructure.

The total number of users is more than 255 persons for those users on our system. I don't think that scaling that number of users will affect the switches.

The technical support for the product is excellent. There are no issues with that. For the last 10 years that I have been here working on this infrastructure and I have not found any issue with the technical support if I contacted them. But I also remember only two or maybe three times I contacted the technical support for some information. It is very good and they are responsive. There is no issue at all.

Actually, we are using multiple brands of switches from different vendors. It is all Cisco and Alcatel switches, but primarily Alcatel at this point. Some are the newest versions but not all and we maintain the older products. At another company, I used Cisco only because they preferred the Cisco product. So I have worked on Cisco for a longer period of time, but for 10 years I have been using both the Alcatel and Cisco switches. 

The reason for switching to Alcatel comes down to I was simply changing jobs and that was what they used.

Normally the setup is very easy and not complicated. I regretfully don't know how long it took to deploy originally because this has happened before I joined this company.

As someone with long-term experience with the product, I can say that you can trust the Alcatel switches. Earlier, before moving to this company, I did not work with Alcatel switches. When I came here and found out that we have Alcatel Switches, it seemed a little strange to me that I wasn't going to be using Cisco switches. I continued for some time a bit worried thinking that we would have some issues. But now, after 10 years, I can say I have complete trust in this product.

On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate this product as a nine out of ten. The only reason it is not a ten is the compatibility issue where the Alcatel switches should be more compatible with other brands and not just amongst their own products. I don't think it is a serious issue as we use the Cisco and Alcatel together now. I just think this compatibility and flexibility could be better.

We currently have approximately 200 users within our company. There are four or five people dealing with maintenance and we have seven guys in data managing and networking inside the office but working on separate projects. We are partners of Alcatel-Lucent and I work as a senior network engineer.

The most valuable feature of this solution is the wireless access points that enable direct access to clusters. This is also a very stable and scalable solution. 

The solution could be more user friendly and there are issues with technical support where the response time is sometimes very slow. None of the support or the distributor are currently available in my region in Pakistan.

There should definitely be additional documentation provided, especially as it's difficult for us to access support. It's difficult to get answers to some of our questions. 

I've been using this solution for two years. 

I have worked on several projects using this solution and it's stable. Their wireless access points are good and the clusters are there and we're able to go directly to the cluster up to 64. They only require up to 10 to 15 excess points or 20 or 25 and they have the cluster and the access point in the cluster is a very good feature in Alcatel.

This is a scalable solution. It's all up to the engineers and how they design it. Alcatel has the product and we can make it scalable using their guidelines.

I would rate this solution a nine out of 10. 

We primarily use the solution for our intra-site network. It's like a ring between our group sites. 

We also use the solution for the access switches, to provide links to PCs and printers on the client-side.

The solution has a very good web interface. It makes it easy to manage everything.

The command-line interface is very powerful. 

We can do most of what we need to do within the web interface. It allows us to view or to configure certain changes.

It would be helpful if the solution offered an integration interface, like OmniVista, to support and to manage everything. Right now, but we don't have that. 

It would be ideal if we were able to review the status of the solution.

There needs to be better integration with the interface.

The solution needs to offer a better power overview and power options on the switches. That way, we can manage more of the power supply safely. 

I've been using the solution for two years now.

The solution is very stable. We have not experienced any glitches or bugs. No problems have occurred that affected the stability of the product.

There are different types of switches. They have small and large sizes, and also switches for fiber optic connections. We're satisfied with the level of scalability the solution offers.

We have about 1,000 users on the solution. We work in shifts, however, so not all users would be on the solution all at once.

I've never been in touch with technical support, so I can't speak of any direct experience with them.

The company used to use Extreme switches, but it was before I came onto the team, so I don't know the reason behind why they switched.

We have a simple network, so the initial setup was straightforward. We didn't handle the deployment ourselves, however.

In a few weeks, we were switching from our old switches to the new ones. Deployment times really depend on the availability and working hours and that's all. In our case, it could have been done faster, but we had constraints.

We had someone handle the initial setup for us.

I don't believe the company evaluated other products before choosing their current solution.

The current version of the solution we're using right now is 6500 for the OS.

I'd recommend the solution to other companies.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.