Price is an area for improvement. Cisco is very competitive on price, considering future business. HPE Ethernet Switches and Aruba need to think about their pricing. Aruba's price was 25 percent higher than Cisco's in a recent Central Bank project in Sri Lanka.
I have been using the product for 15-20 years.
Scalability is good. If the client requests it, we can do cascading and use separate physical networks for guest, admin, and security.
The initial setup of HPE Ethernet Switches is straightforward, not complex. But as a service integrator, we can't see if we've logged a project in the partnership portal. We have to rely on the distributor's work.
Most of my past deployments were SaaS and cloud. The new one will be cloud-based. Implementing a big hotel project with 250 rooms can take around one year or one and a half years.
HPE Ethernet Switches offer a good return on investment. They offer a lifetime warranty, which is good. Cisco SMB level only declares a one-year warranty, and for the enterprise level, you need to get a service pack, which costs extra.
I use HPE Ethernet Switches for my clients. They choose them mainly because of brand standards and international designers' proposals. In Sri Lanka and the Asia-India region, HPE and Cisco are major service providers. Function-wise, Cisco and HPE are almost equal, but price is a factor, especially for hospitality clients.
My clients for HPE Ethernet Switches are usually enterprise businesses.
As a designer and consultant, I can't rely on just one product. HPE, Cisco, and Aruba all have proprietary features. I choose based on customer expectations and requirements. All are good, not bad.
I'd rate HPE Ethernet Switches more than five out of ten.