HPE ProCurve Reviews

HPE ProCurve is primarily used for access suites. I have my end devices connected to my access point, including printers and IP phones. It is also used for distribution. 

My main concern is having a stable network, especially since we operate as an enterprise. I've been working with HPE products for four years, so that's not an issue. It's a basic setup for the distribution layer. 

However, I am currently planning to transition all these switches and implement Cisco. There is ongoing work in the background, focusing on the enterprise architecture and configuring everything accordingly. It's not yet completed. 

I will be utilizing switch stacking for our upgrade architecture and considering factors like VLANs, bandwidth allocation, power outage protection, and communication through LiveWeb Fiber. So, that's the plan in a nutshell.

I would like to improve certain aspects of HPE ProCurve. Specifically, I would like to focus on stacking. Additionally, in enhancing performance and addressing spam-related issues.

Perhaps, another area of improvement is optimizing the route advertising and routing between VLANs. It's also important to consider rating the calls and accessing additional features.

If we're aiming for an improvement, focus on enhancing security features in HPE ProCurve, particularly in terms of filtering. It would be beneficial to have some initial firewall features or mechanisms to safeguard resources. Additionally, maximizing high-speed capabilities and addressing aggregate needs would be important. That covers the key areas for improvement.

I have been using HPE ProCurve for around four years.

We use HPE ProCurve 2520 Series and HPE ProCurve 2530 Series.

In terms of stability, we have experienced good performance as we currently have low traffic volume. The utilization stands at around 4%, with an anticipated increase to 40% as we transition to cloud services. 

Considering this, I believe HPE ProCurve is a good option for replacement and a good choice for our network needs.

Scalability depends on factors like the number of new user groups and remote sites, as well as the applications being supported. However, I have successfully run a VPN and established a connection profile on it. 

In my experience, the scalability has been good. 

We have approximately ten users using HPE ProCurve in our organisaiton. We do not plan on increasing the usage. 

Regarding support, I haven't needed to use it for ProCurve as I haven't encountered any issues. 

However, if I do encounter a problem or need assistance with the switching program, I would contact my local supplier, who will take care of my needs. It's part of my SLA contract.

The initial setup is straightforward. It has an easy UI. 

We have higher-end technical personnel for handling deployment and maintenance tasks.

The deployment process was easy because I had one switch that had a hard failure. I simply needed to replace it, and I obtained an HPE switch as a plug-and-play replacement. 

There wasn't a specific protocol or extensive research involved in replacing individual switches. However, now I'm involved in a project for network refreshment.

I would estimate the ROI to be around 30%.

We do pay for licenses. It's a yearly license for Central Aruba. That's the licensing structure.

The pricing for HPE ProCurve is good compared to other vendors in the market. It offers competitive pricing.

Compared to Cisco, I prefer Cisco since Cisco is a leading brand.

It depends on the size of the company and the number of users, as well as the type of network they plan to deploy. 

In my company, we have successfully implemented HPE ProCurve as it aligns with our requirements. 

Generally, I would recommend HPE ProCurve. Overall, I would rate the solution a seven out of ten. 

My customers are using HPE ProCurve for their network layer two and three connectivity. Each of their buildings has approximately 55 switches, including the core switches in operation.

HPE ProCurve has plenty of features.

HPE ProCurve could improve by making their command more similar to other solutions, such as the access codes. There should be a standard. Additionally, if the configurations could be done from the cloud would be a benefit and the port uplink speed should improve.

I have been using HPE ProCurve for approximately two years.

HPE ProCurve is a stable solution. We have not had any issues with customers that have been using the solution for 10 to 15 years.

I have found HPE ProCurve highly scalable.

Most of the clients we have been in hotels in Saudi Arabia, in Makkah, and Medina. They are large clients. I remember that for eight or nine years HPE ProCurve, or HPE switching, was the most highly sold solution, it was sold out in all hotels in Makkah.  

The support from HPE is very good.

The initial setup is of HPE ProCurve is straightforward. However, it helps to know the language. Cisco has different commands than other solutions, such as Apache. If you know the context and language of HPE, there are no issues with the implementation for the engineers. 

There is a license required to use HPE ProCurve.

I rate HPE ProCurve a nine out of ten.

We use the product for VLAN configuration.

The product is robust. Once I get it working, I'm good to go.

The product could be cheaper.

I have been using the solution for ten years.

The tool is stable.

The tool is scalable. I rate the scalability an eight out of ten. We have approximately 60 to 70 nodes. We have six people in our technical team.

The ease of setup depends on the efficiency level of the person deploying the tool. I use the web to configure my services. We can configure it how we want, depending on how we want to set up the switch and what we use it for.

We work together as a team. We do everything in-house.

The solution is expensive.

We evaluated products from HPE and Dell. HPE is easier to manage.

If an organization is financially capable of buying the tool, they can buy it. It might be beneficial in the long term. Overall, I rate the product an eight out of ten.

Our entire network is controlled by HPE ProCurve. Essentially, we have an MPLS as part of our MPLS network. There are numerous use cases I can describe, but there is nothing I can say in detail right now.

We have a huge network with a lot of servers. Our operation is small but we need the network infrastructure.

It has valuable features. It has an excellent menu system where you can use both the CLI and a menu system and the GUI version. They have three options for manipulating, updating, and changing the switch, which we like.

In general, the CLI functions similarly to the Cisco iOS. Except for a few core Cisco proprietary functions, they have most of the functions.

If you're familiar with Cisco iOS, you won't have to worry about their ProCurve. That's what we like about it. Also, it basically controls, layer three and layer two, we use both functions on it, and it has a lot of routing for us as well.

It does a good job for us. ProCurve CLI is very similar to what Cisco allows you to do with their CLI on iOS.

It is not difficult to work on the transitions or if someone is working on both. The commands don't differ all that much.

There is one proprietary function they lack, and I can't remember what it was called, but it monitors the ports, and then every 10 seconds if the port is down, it can divert the traffic somewhere else. I'm not sure what they call it. Cisco uses this method. However, the HPE ProCurve does not provide that.

Essentially, you monitor reports and, if ports are down, you simply, divert the traffic somewhere else. If something goes wrong, they don't do it unless you manually go in and update. Because we have a double and triple backup link. And this is the only one where we need to add a Cisco switch to the network in order to keep track of the traffic. If our main MPLS fails, it switches to another tunnel. As a result, we are still in contact with our other offices.

I've been using HPE ProCurve for more than five years. Since I started working for this company. It was in place long before I joined.

This product is very stable. In the time that I have used it, over the past five and a half years, it's been rock solid.

We have a modular system. We update or upgrade it whenever we want to. There are 96 ports, and two of them are stacked together, for a total of 192 ports.

The traffic runs well between the two units.

Although we are a small operation, we have a large network with many servers.

When I get stuck, I call the consulting service company that originally installed it. However, I can also call HPE directly and deal with them. Generally, they are good.

HPE's technical support, overall, is very good. They respond quickly and they give proper solutions. When you give them a time that you want to speak with them, they're very good at that. Most of the time, their immediate supervisor or manager will contact me to try to find out the status. They want to know how we felt about the service.

Nowadays, they send an automated survey, and sometimes, a person will call to personally ask how the service was, and how the technicians were to deal with it.

We have Cisco, HPE, Palo, and SonicWall. I believe those are the major brands we use for our switches, firewalls, and routers.

Before using ProCurve it was a Cisco switch, but we decided to go with this one. This decision was made before I entered this organization.

It was, I believe, layer two switches with 3750 Cisco routing capabilities, layer three switches, and a combination of all of those. But, as I previously stated, I'm not sure what the exact situation was, or what was in place before I walked in.

We also work with HPE Comware 1950 switches, which operate on a different operating system than ProCurve.

They are primarily intended for these layer two switches. They also provide layer three functions for the majority of it, but their CLI functions and terminologies differ. 

Their login process is different. They are mostly GUI-based, and they don't like it when you use CLI. 

There is an SLA monitoring feature, which Comware, ProCurve, or any HPE suite does not provide because they are Cisco proprietary. As a result, we must rely on bandaid solutions such as putting a Cisco switch in front of it to route traffic back and forth.

The only HPE products we use are the HPE layer three ProCurve switch and layer three switches ProCurve, and layer two is the Comware switches.

We do have SonicWall firewalls, and they are good to work with. We work with the TZ version. We have TZ 400 and TZ 500.

I have been working with them since I joined; I wasn't aware of it before I joined, but as soon as I did, I learned about it and now manage it; those are remote site firewalls that come routerly installed.

I have been working with them for approximately five years.

It's remote, which means we have four more remote facilities. All of their local firewalls are SonicWall. They are a component of our MPLS. 

It is a somewhat complicated network. They are a component of our MPLS. Their internal traffic comes here to headquarters, but their external traffic goes through SonicWall, which is located on the other side of the world.

We have that SonicWall firewall to control their external traffic.

With TZ, the most valuable feature is their management. It is very easy in the sense that they have completely GUI versions, and they barely use CLI. It is very interactive and easy to use. 

Whatever you want to set up, whether it's a failover or an SD-WAN, it's extremely user-friendly, which is a feature we appreciate.

There isn't anything that needs to be improved. They are good at responding. 

They provide excellent technical support. They are very good at responding to any questions or concerns we have. We have no major issues with them.

The initial setup is very complex. There were a lot of hiccups at first, which is because it is very deep and complex. However, the configurations are very user-friendly due to the three different options for how you can manipulate them.

Even if you're not too familiar with ProCurve, language, and the terms, you can go through the menus and then manipulate the switch. It's very powerful.

Only one person is required for maintenance. I maintain it for the company. 

The only thing that is handled externally is the backup, which is done by a consulting company. They were the ones that install it, perhaps seven or eight years ago. They are at the backend and I can contact them if I get stuck but generally, I take care of most of it.

We have an annual support subscription.

They provide free support during normal business hours. All of their switches include that, but we do purchase extended support from them, which includes 24-hour support.

I was never involved in the pricing. The majority of these are automatic renewals until we decide to redesign or replace our equipment.

As I previously stated, I inherited this. I didn't have much of a choice when it came to revamping the entire thing from scratch, which isn't an easy solution.

Most of the time, when you are looking for a solution like that, my advice is to look at all of the functions available, compare between Cisco, primarily this Cisco and them for layer three and layer two traffic, and determine which functions you are looking for. 

If the functions are available, you use them. Know if you are looking for simple management. 

Cisco is difficult to manage because the majority of its devices are CLI-based. And while many people are not comfortable with CLI, others are, and some only want it. Some people, however, are not. 

I only want CLI, but the other two options they have available are useful in an emergency.

It is difficult to say what you want because, there are some functions that the HPE ProCurve switch does not have, for which we had to add a convoluted appendage solution, such as adding a Cisco 3750, and 3850 to fix the monitoring problem.

As it does not have all of the options that we are looking for, I would rate HPE ProCurve a seven out of ten.

It's the switch for the network.

Its easy manageability is most valuable. It's easy to manage. It's quite good.

They should learn from other vendors, such as Cisco. They all have a few specific routing features. HPE doesn't have any cheap BGP solution.

I've been using this solution for about seven years. 

It's stable. I'd rate it a nine out of ten.

I haven't tried to scale it. We're giving services to a few companies with a few hundred users.

Usually, it's local support. The support experience varies. I'd rate them an eight out of ten. The response time could be better.

Positive

I've used other products but not at this scale. 

It wasn't exactly straightforward, but good enough. The whole operation took a few days. We had a minor problem. Everything wasn't working as it should, but we had time to fix it.

It doesn't require much maintenance. There are usually no problems. Maintenance usually involves change requests.

I usually have some specialists or consultants for deployment.

It provides quite good value for money.

Overall, I'd rate it a nine out of ten.

It does what we want and it is reliable. We have installed hundreds, if not thousands, of these throughout many cities. The failure rate is around 0.001%.

It gives us consistency across every site.

I would like to see more technical troubleshooting information, better logs, and better timestamps. Certain broker switches, when they reboot, default back to 1990. You can only tell how long they have been active and have to figure out dates, by pretending it is 1990 and moving forward from there.

It has been very stable, except for the last couple years. We had more than one broker switch fail, which is rare.

For scalability, it's stackable. If we need more, we put them in, connect them, and add them to the stack.

I have used technical support. Most of the time, it was just for replacements. It was very rare that we get real technical assistance to configure what we have installed.

We were developing a new system for casinos and had to have the network to build upon. We already use HPE and Dell, but were not happy with them. We are not a Cisco house, so we got left with HPE because this is a from-scratch system for casinos.

When looking for a vendor, I look for reliability, price, and features that do what we want. It can be the best and cheapest thing that lasts forever, but we can't use it if it doesn’t have the right features. It has to do what we want.

I was involved in the initial install and have done it hundreds of times. It was straightforward.

We looked at HPE and Dell. At the time, Intersys started this, and Cisco was with it. But they weren't good choices, due to the rising and continuing licensing costs. We went with HPE because it did what we needed.

First, you really need to think about what you want, as opposed to "just because." Then, find a solution that fits the criteria you need to make people just hop on the bandwagon. For us, HPE is the right solution. We considered Brocade, but now that they are being acquired, we're not sure if they are reliable. HPE has been stable.

HPE ProCurve is used for enterprise.

The most valuable feature of HPE ProCurve is its ease of use and implementation.

The pricing model could be improved in HPE ProCurve.

I have been using HPE ProCurve for approximately 10 years.

HPE ProCurve is stable.

The solution could improve the scalability. However, it depends on the model.

I recommend this solution to medium-sized companies.

The support from HPE ProCurve is good.

I rate the support from HPE ProCurve an eight out of ten.

Positive

I have used other solutions such as Cisco and Extreme Networks.

The solution is simple to deploy. The time it takes to deploy depends on the complexity of the environment. The process can vary from one to five days.

We do the implementation for our customers.

The price of HPE ProCurve can be reasonable. However, it depends on the use case. They could improve the pricing model.

I would recommend this solution to others.

I rate HPE ProCurve an eight out of ten.

The primary use case of this solution is for switching. We also use it for an iSCSI device to support storage and networking.

The web page interface is very convenient and easy to use for setting up your feedback loops.

The dashboards could be improved and made more interesting.

I have been using HPE ProCurve for more than ten years.

This solution is very stable, we have not experienced any issues.

This solution is scalable.

On average, we have twenty users and two administrators. We have a very small team.

I had contacted technical support at one time when my firmware update was not going very well. They were able to fix it.

The initial setup was rather straightforward.

The length of time it takes to deploy depends on your architecture, and what you want to set up, but normally it takes a couple of days to set it all up.

Maintenance requirments are only a couple of hours per month.

We had the help of our team to implement the solution.

The purchasing cost a few years ago for two units was approx €5,000.

This solution is good and it's solid. It does its job. 

I would recommend this solution because it's affordable, scalable, and it is everything you need.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.