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Cisco Nexus vs HPE A-Series [EOL] comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Nexus
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
108
Ranking in other categories
LAN Switching (3rd), Data Center Networking (3rd)
HPE A-Series [EOL]
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

Fakhar Mahmood - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Network Administrator at i2c
Migration between data centers has strengthened core connectivity and simplified segmentation
The biggest problems during migration were corporate issues, including dependencies on other devices such as F5, HSMs, and firewalls from Palo Alto. Everything was connected over the core switches, which made this a quite difficult part to manage and to onboard the teams and to understand the impact of the migration. We encountered an issue where we have two data centers, and unknowingly we were configuring the devices with the same VPC number on both devices. By doing that, we were not able to terminate the lease lines over those core switches. According to Cisco, we had to change the VPC number of one of the data center's core switches since they are in a VPC. We are still waiting, and it has been more than five to six years just to change the VPC number and migrate back the lease line. Now we are having cabin switches for the lease line and then the core switch. That VPC number issue was quite surprising for us. However, we have a very frequent issue with Cisco Nexus, particularly with the SFPs. Every time a port or the SFP heats up, it gets faulty. We have almost sixteen Nexus switches per data center. In a year, we experience one or two port issues per annum. We have standard Equinix data centers with standard installations, but somehow the temperature is always maintained and there is no ducting, yet the ports and the SFPs heat up or become faulty. This is a very frequent issue with the SFP-based port.
Mohamed-Mousa - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at a media company with 201-500 employees
Stable and scalable with a good user interface
Overall, everything related to the interface is very good Some follow up from our user-partners would be useful. Letting users know what is up and coming or providing better documentation would be helpful. Overall, the solution could offer its users better support. I've been using the solution…

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"In all the benchmarks and testing that I did, I found the best solution to be Cisco."
"The implementation was straightforward and the product is stable."
"It gives me an unparalleled ability to build out my environment differently than I would have if I was going with another vendor."
"The product's initial setup phase is very easy."
"This solution streamlines how we have to configure things because we can do everything from one device, whereas if we had individual devices we would have to go to each one and configure them manually."
"The most valuable features are extensions and recorded scalability."
"The solution has demonstrated stability thus far."
"Cisco Nexus and Cisco Catalyst have processing power and offer good utilization of Cisco devices."
"The solution is very stable."
"Overall, everything related to the interface is very good."
 

Cons

"The technical support for this solution needs to be improved."
"The licensing is the area that we are working that's a challenge."
"I would like to see Duo directly integrated with the Nexus hardware, instead of it being through the proxies, like how Duo works today."
"In the next release of the solution, I would like to see varying integration between VRF (Virtual Routing and Forwarding) instances so we can integrate BGB into different VRFs in a more organized way. We have some issues with tunnels and VRFs."
"It would be nice if the solution offered multiple types of port support."
"I would like to see better collaboration with other, low-end devices."
"The initial setup was somewhat complex."
"There's a couple of really bad incidents lately. Probably luck of the draw."
"Overall, the solution could offer its users better support."
"Some follow up from our user-partners would be useful. Letting users know what is up and coming or providing better documentation would be helpful. Overall, the solution could offer its users better support."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This solution should be made more affordable."
"The price of this solution is good when compared to others in the market."
"We have a three-year subscription for our licensing fees."
"The solution should be more cost-effective in general."
"In most cases, there is a need to secure perpetual licenses to be able to use the product. When I set up the product, there isn't just a one-time cost that is involved."
"I don't like the Smart Licensing models that Cisco uses."
"Our licensing costs for this solution are approximately $200 USD per month."
"Cisco Nexus is not cheap compared to Fortinet, Palo Alto, and Check Point."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Marketing Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise83
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco Nexus?
The product's initial setup phase is very easy.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Nexus?
We are a reseller, and we sell products to our customers.
What needs improvement with Cisco Nexus?
The biggest problems during migration were corporate issues, including dependencies on other devices such as F5, HSMs, and firewalls from Palo Alto. Everything was connected over the core switches,...
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Also Known As

No data available
A-Series, HP A-Series
 

Overview

Information not available
 

Sample Customers

Advanced Medical Transport, Banco de Guayaquil, Baylor Scott & White Health, BH Telecom, Bowling Green State University, Calligaris, Children's Hospital Colorado, City of Biel, Del Papa Distributing, Department of Justice, Dimension Data, Dualtec Cloud Builders, Electricity Authority of Cyprus, Grupo Industrial Saltillo (GIS), Hertz, K&L Gates , LightEdge, Lone Star College System, Management Science Associates, Mindtree, NBC Olympics, Quest, Sony Corporation, The Department of Education in Western Australia, Valley Proteins
SEED Infotech, Weta Digital, BlueShore Financial
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Dell Technologies, Juniper and others in Data Center Networking. Updated: March 2026.
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