Hi,
I'm a Co-Founder of a Tech Services company.
Currently, I'm researching ethernet switch vendors/solutions and I've been looking at NETGEAR switches, Cisco Ethernet Switches and Alcatel-Lucent OmniSwitch Ethernet Switches.
Which vendor and product (or a product family) would you recommend based on your hands-on experience? Why?
Thank you and I appreciate the help!
My last experience with Netgear wasn't good but it was a long time ago. It may be better now.
As for me, it would be Cisco because it is easier to find network engineer with knowledge of Cisco products and many supervision or orchestration tools will support them well.
Regarding my experience, they are reliable assets but the cost might be sometime a good reason to go for something else.
Depending upon the size and design of the network, it will determine to some extent which brand will be the most cost-effective and reliable solution.
I used Netgear equipment in a simple Layer 2/ Layer 3 setup using their Netgear Smart Switches with stacking and 10GB uplinks for around 380 users and around 400 devices, and ran for around 4+ years without a single issue related to network switches, we then move to our site operation where we used H3C switches. H3C has excellent switches. I also used Brocade ethernet switches which have been running for the past 9 years requiring some occasional reboots.
I recommend all switches get rebooted every two years.
I have used Cisco switches also. They are good but there are better more feature-rich TCO costs over 5 Years Cisco losses out. Honestly, most of the feature sets in switches are not used within business operations.
Also, the best is to follow KISS when it comes to networking.
cisco ethernet switches
@Rakibul Islam can you please explain why Cisco and not another product?
For an Enterprise?
I would definitely go with Cisco.
Cisco has a wide range of products to accommodate all present and future needs of an enterprise organization.
Cisco support is very professional in case something goes wrong.
Cisco products are very stable, have lots of features to satisfy every need of an enterprise and in my experience, they don't easily fail.