No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

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

"The most valuable feature of this solution is its stability."
"Cisco Nexus has improved the way our organization functions through the troubleshooting."
"The solution has good stability, so the technical team, the people handling the data center, are very comfortable with it and can push some policies as per the applications."
"From a functional and technical point of view, I would recommend Cisco Nexus to potential users."
"The most valuable features are the access layer security, OpenConfig, and OpenFlow."
"The most valuable features of this solution are scalability and reliability."
"Nexus provides inner redundancy; it allows us to perform updates on individual switches while still maintaining reliability and uptime on the server."
"It is a scalable, reliable, stable and efficient solution."
"Overall, everything related to the interface is very good."
"The solution is very stable."
 

Cons

"The cost of the support can be improved. We had critical operations, and we needed 24/7 support for 365 days, which was quite expensive. We had to go for a very costly support contract, which was really a concern. The availability of spare parts, especially in a remote location such as Egypt, can also be improved."
"I feel that this solution should be more flexible and scalable."
"Initially, the codes I received through ACI were quite unstable, causing me to frequently replace them, which led to significant issues."
"The code quality for this solution has gotten worse and needs improvement."
"The licensing is the area that we are working that's a challenge."
"There is some room for improvement when it comes to the frequency on the network."
"The flexibility and configuration could be better. It is not as reliable as Catalyst."
"The initial setup of the Cisco Nexus platform takes a long time. It's a complex system because we have a lot of security layers."
"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."
"Overall, the solution could offer its users better support."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This solution should be made more affordable."
"The Nexus 9000 is very competitively priced."
"Our licensing costs for this solution are approximately $100K a year for the switching part."
"Cisco's licensing structures can be complex across different technologies, for example, unified communications."
"It's worth the money we're paying for Nexus."
"We use a local distributor for support, which is very expensive."
"All of our costs including subscription, licensing, and support services are bundled together, and the cost is approximately $100,000 USD per year."
"Cisco Nexus is not cheap compared to Fortinet, Palo Alto, and Check Point."
Information not available
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Data Center Networking solutions are best for your needs.
885,667 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Marketing Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
6%
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,...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

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.
885,667 professionals have used our research since 2012.