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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 (2nd), Data Center Networking (1st)
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

"On a scale from one to 10, I would rate this product an eight just because I don't have to touch it."
"The scalability of Cisco Nexus is good. We've had them for the entire lifetime. We've never had to upgrade them yet."
"From a functional and technical point of view, I would recommend Cisco Nexus to potential users."
"This solution provides all of the routing and searching features that we need."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is that it scales well. It supports a lot of servers. We don't have to come up with different designs for anything. That's the best part about it."
"They are very high-performance switches and they are made for lossless data, so they're a good play in the customer environment."
"This is a good switch, overall, and there are only a few other features that we'd like to see."
"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."
"Overall, everything related to the interface is very good."
"The solution is very stable."
 

Cons

"It would be nice if the solution offered multiple types of port support."
"I would like to see Duo directly integrated with the Nexus hardware, instead of it being through the proxies, like how Duo works today."
"I would like to see better collaboration with other, low-end devices."
"The operating system needs to be improved. There should be stability in the operating system, and it should not have as many vulnerabilities."
"The licensing is the area that we are working that's a challenge."
"Overall, I wish it was a more intuitive OS."
"I would like to see a central management solution in order to have all of the equipment in one place."
"The product lacks options for integration with other market products that would allow us more flexibility."
"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 is a very expensive product."
"It is very expensive. Its licensing is on a yearly basis."
"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."
"I thought that it would be less expensive."
"It's around $160K a year for our license."
"The problem with Cisco, from what I see, is that their costs are much higher."
"Cisco Nexus is not a cheaply priced product."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Marketing Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Comms Service Provider
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, Arista and others in Data Center Networking. Updated: March 2026.
886,664 professionals have used our research since 2012.