Would you use Juniper switches if you could afford them?

[dhicks]

If Juniper switches were affordable, would you buy them?

The question rather implies that they are somewhat expensive, so if we could afford a Juniper switch then we could save money by not buying that Juniper switch and buying something else instead. I suppose it depends on the size of the school, but our medium-sized school seems to get on okay with cheap-as-possible Dell PowerConnect switches - as a school, we have other things to spend money on than network switches.

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David Hicks

[Soulfish]

We're currently going through a major network refresh and are talking to Juniper, Extreme, HP/3Com and Brocade. The Juniper kit is very very nice kit - some of the best out there. Firstly all of their switches and multi-million pound routers all run JUNOS.
There's only one version of JUNOS which makes it very easy from a management view point. JUNOS has some very nice features such as the ability to compare configurations and work on a configuration without making it live until you're ready and if it all goes wrong to rollback to any previous version very very quickly.

Juniper only really got into the switching business 2 - 3 years ago, but they're huge in the ISP routing business. From the comparisons we've done so far I'd currently say Juniper are one of the best out there, closely followed by Brocade/Extreme. I'm just not a fan of Cisco

[wesleyw]

Which part the router part or google?


Wes

[DMcCoy]

Still not hearing anything about what makes the switches good, other than looking nice and being expensive.

I wouldn't buy Cisco either, due to their draconian licensing and support.

[localzuk]

Seen their routers in use in various places and they swore by them. The people that operated them told me that they were reliable, easy to manage, well supported, etc... So, they've always been one I've wanted to look at.

[Tricky_Dicky]

Having had a quick look at them, I don't think the Juniper equipment that is mostly likely to be used in school is actualy that much more expensive than the relavent HP/Cisco stuff. It seems to really come into it's own at the very high end Data Centres and ISPs. Like most people have said though, in a school you just don't need the sort of through put that these top end pieces of equipment can offer.

[Dos_Box]

Having had a quick look at them, I don't think the Juniper equipment that is mostly likely to be used in school is actualy that much more expensive than the relavent HP/Cisco stuff. It seems to really come into it's own at the very high end Data Centres and ISPs. Like most people have said though, in a school you just don't need the sort of through put that these top end pieces of equipment can offer.

Hense why I asked that if they were affordable would you buy them. I.E. If they were priced at Procurve\Cisco level.

[Domino]

Hense why I asked that if they were affordable would you buy them. I.E. If they were priced at Procurve\Cisco level.

Aye, and why I said not without knowing what about them makes them better ;-)

[Soulfish]

Still not hearing anything about what makes the switches good, other than looking nice and being expensive.

I wouldn't buy Cisco either, due to their draconian licensing and support.

For me I'd love Juniper switches because the feature set, hardware and command line are to me better then HP/3Com or Cisco kit. The fact that you have 1 OS for the entire product range, and that the OS is much easier to use is a major factor. I don't have the time to remember or learn the slight CLI differnces between a lot of the HP Procurve range, nor do I have the time to figure out which version of IOS I need to run to activate certain features on Cisco kit. Juniper makes it nice and simple, and to be honest for our network refresh we've specified a price cap comparable to replacing the entire network with HP kit and none of the vendors has baulked at that cap. In fact they've all indicated that they believe they can deliver what we want within it so I'm hopeful that we'll receive competitive solutions from everyone

[DMcCoy]

For me I'd love Juniper switches because the feature set, hardware and command line are to me better then HP/3Com or Cisco kit. The fact that you have 1 OS for the entire product range, and that the OS is much easier to use is a major factor. I don't have the time to remember or learn the slight CLI differnces between a lot of the HP Procurve range, nor do I have the time to figure out which version of IOS I need to run to activate certain features on Cisco kit. Juniper makes it nice and simple, and to be honest for our network refresh we've specified a price cap comparable to replacing the entire network with HP kit and none of the vendors has baulked at that cap. In fact they've all indicated that they believe they can deliver what we want within it so I'm hopeful that we'll receive competitive solutions from everyone

Which features in particular that may not be included in Procurve/Cisco?

The IOS and Procurve OS are pretty consistent across switches, most differences are due to modules or hardware differences.

Do they do any modular ones?

[Soulfish]

Which features in particular that may not be included in Procurve/Cisco?

The IOS and Procurve OS are pretty consistent across switches, most differences are due to modules or hardware differences.

Do they do any modular ones?

The EX8200 series are modular core switches

[dhicks]

if they were affordable would you buy them. I.E. If they were priced at Procurve\Cisco level.

We have a Dell PowerConnect 2724 in the centre of our network. It has 24 1Gb/s ports, it supports link aggregation (IEEE 802.3ad) of up to 4 ports per group and has two 1Gb/s fibre ports. Its backplane supports 48Gb/s, which I assume simply means it has enough capacity to let all 24 ports run at full speed the whole time. It supports flow control, VLANs and port mirroring for diagnostic purposes. If I buy a more expensive switch with the same described list of features, do I get something more for my money? Do Juniper switches offer some features unavailable on any other switches?

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David Hicks

[sparkeh]

Without wishing to sound like a nag
Can someone inform us of the features you get with a Juniper switch that warrants the extra money over a Hp ProCurve

[DMcCoy]

The EX8200 series are modular core switches

It's £20,000!

Plus modules.

[andydis]

ive only had experience with junipers "netscreens" and the firewall applicances, they are really robust bit of kit and have alot of bells and whistles.