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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 (4th)
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

"Current flexibility and the opportunities for future planning and scaling make this product line an ultimate opportunity."
"We leverage Cisco DCNM a lot, which allows us to automate."
"Cisco technical support is a good backup team when you have issues with anything. If you open a case they are very good at following up and making sure that the issue's resolved according to the needs of our network."
"Nexus provides inner redundancy. It allows us to perform updates on individual switches, while still maintaining reliability and uptime on the server."
"The most valuable features of this solution are scalability and throughput."
"Cisco Nexus provides a reliable switching platform for our data centers."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is network visibility. It becomes the core switch. All of the devices connected route towards it."
"The in-service software upgrade (ISSU) feature is quite valuable."
"The solution is very stable."
 

Cons

"We have encountered some software bugs."
"The additional features I would like to see included in the next release is the ability to integrate routing and switching features."
"There's been a little bit of bugginess in the code, but that happens."
"The GUI interface could be improved to make it more user friendly."
"I would like to see some development into the SAE world where you can virtualize. That would be the only thing I would like to see because I need to start virtualizing my infrastructure gear at some of the other data centers that I have."
"Stability is not really up to the mark."
"There may be many bugs which remain unresolved."
"The product could be updated more frequently for other phone model 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

"Our licensing fees are paid annually."
"This is a very expensive product."
"We have a virtual license."
"We consider Juniper switches to be more affordable."
"Licensing is annual or every three years. We were one of the big customers, and we used to get good prices, but the cost of the support can be improved."
"The licensing fees for this solution are approximately $800,000 USD annually."
"Our licensing costs for this solution are approximately $100K a year for the switching part."
"We have three hundred to four hundred data centers of Nexus. So the coverage associated with Smart Net is 27 by 4, is basically what we spend each year. If the incentives get better, which I know they're working on, it would be great but right now we're buying year to year."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
9%
Marketing Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
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,...
Ask a question
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Comparisons

 

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: February 2026.
883,026 professionals have used our research since 2012.