What is going on with HP/Aruba pricing?!

[Blue_Cookeh]

We were in the market for an Aruba 2530-48G-PoE+ this week, looked at the price last week and it was about £900... gone to order it today and it's nearly £2,000!

 

Has anyone else seen this? Just managed to bag a bargain from VeryPC instead.

[Michael]

You should look at a Unifi 48G PoE+ switch, about £620 ex VAT, just as good if not better!

[markwilfan]

One of the reasons I am pushing unifi switches in when we need to replace

[Steve21]

You caught it in a price blip due to stock, the normal is about 1700~ recently as we have been tracking them for a project

 

As most places been out of stock recently a few of the price comparison ones have been linking the old version (sfp not +) which is about 900 and making all the prices odd

 

I know the next batch of deliveries was about 13th so guess it's back to normal now haha

 

For the unifi guys I'm curious as to what you're using for your layer 3 routing? Been looking at unifi switches instead of hp as we are looking to do some replacements too but can't find any decent l3 model and seems silly buying expensive core if using cheap edge!

 

thanks,

Steve

[Blue_Cookeh]

I know the hardware is probably decent (we use UniFi wireless) but we bought into HP/Aruba for our access switches a few years ago with a Juniper EX2200 as our L3 core - I want UniFi to mature a little more first!

 

I did look at the UniFi 48 port switch, but a few people said they're *loud*, unfortunately the 2530s are the loudest switches we can get away with since they're going in our main office - our office ladies would probably kill me

Edited December 12, 2017 by Blue_Cookeh

[caffrey]

 

For the unifi guys I'm curious as to what you're using for your layer 3 routing? Been looking at unifi switches instead of hp as we are looking to do some replacements too but can't find any decent l3 model and seems silly buying expensive core if using cheap edge!

 

thanks,

Steve

 

I'm playing around with a USG pro 4 for routing, currently we use a Smoothwall UTM. The USG seems to do what we need it to do

[caffrey]

 

I did look at the UniFi 48 port switch, but a few people said they're *loud*, unfortunately the 2530s are the loudest switches we can get away with since they're going in our main office - our office ladies would probably kill me

 

If you can get away with it, the 16 port POE switches are silent - 24's are a bit noisier

[Michael]

I don't think they're particularly loud if I'm perfectly honest, no louder than HP, but a lot heavier than their none PoE cousin!

 

For L3 routing, you can use the their USG model

[Norphy]

We were in the market for an Aruba 2530-48G-PoE+ this week, looked at the price last week and it was about £900... gone to order it today and it's nearly £2,000!

 

Has anyone else seen this? Just managed to bag a bargain from VeryPC instead.

 

Have you looked at the 2540s instead? I’ve just done a large network refresh, they were cheaper than the 2530s.

[Steve21]

Have you looked at the 2540s instead? I’ve just done a large network refresh, they were cheaper than the 2530s.

 

Those the new aruba ones right? Do you actually need clearpass etc etc to use them? Or is that just the "extra blurb" they like to try to add on They're not cloud managed right?

 

Steve

[Norphy]

No, they’re bog standard L2 switches. They come with the enhanced webui that Aruba have been putting on their switches but otherwise they’re standard switches with the standard ProcurveOS cli on them.

 

I’ve got about 12 of them now.

[markwilfan]

We use a trusty hp z5406 as our core but with a mix of unifi and hp edge switches. I have to say the unifi easily keep up with the hp switches with the added advantage of single pane of glass for stats & config. 48 port poe can be quite loud. The fans can be swapped out for these https://www.scan.co.uk/products/40mm-noctua-nf-a4x10-flx-low-noise-fan according to this https://community.ubnt.com/t5/UniFi-Routing-Switching/Switch-US-24-250W-Fan-Level-amp-PoE-Settings/td-p/1679256

[Davit2005]

We have 60+ 2530's all 48 port 10/100, PoE+ with 1Gb uplinks. They are quiet, certainly a lot quiet than the 2540's 10/100/1000 48ports with PoE+ and SFP+ .

[PotNoodleTech]

All HP here too, 5412ZL core mostly 2530 edge with some 1910 in nether regions.

 

Won't be buying any more HP switches. They've been good value for the last decade but not any more.

[njc235]

Are you going through a genuine HP partner for these prices because today's standard discount price is somewhere in between the two you mention here. It's certainly nowhere near £2000.

[Norphy]

We paid £1100 each for the last lot of 2540-48G-POE+-4SFP+ switches we bought but that was part of a big, big order. The RRP is about £1800. It is worth going to an HP reseller and getting them to make a bid with HP to see what kind of discounts you get. We used European Electronique for our last two big switch orders. Edited December 15, 2017 by Norphy

[markwilfan]

We use a trusty hp z5406 as our core but with a mix of unifi and hp edge switches. I have to say the unifi easily keep up with the hp switches with the added advantage of single pane of glass for stats & config. 48 port poe can be quite loud. The fans can be swapped out for these https://www.scan.co.uk/products/40mm-noctua-nf-a4x10-flx-low-noise-fan according to this https://community.ubnt.com/t5/UniFi-Routing-Switching/Switch-US-24-250W-Fan-Level-amp-PoE-Settings/td-p/1679256

 

I have just completed this on one of our Unifi 48 port POE switches for anybody that is interested. Cost about £48 but the switch is completely silent. Temp went up from 52c to 56c but all seems fine.

 

 

Before - https://drive.google.com/file/d/17Op3bjyi8NDutfLn2bwzeaTA7rSBrJ8Q/view?usp=sharing

 

During

 

 

 

 

 

After - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wcKlJ6ESOgdK1RS35C6rRpHenhjlNoHr/view?usp=sharing

Edited January 4, 2018 by markwilfan

[Wave9_Matt]

If you are looking for a replacement for the Aruba / HP 2530 range of switches and want the benefits of a single pane of glass management then its would be worth while looking at the new Meraki MS120 range of switches. Layer2, 24 / 48 ports with af/at PoE, SFP uplinks and all the benefits of the best cloud management platform, automatic software updating, hardware warranty + advance replacement etc etc. Definitely worth taking a look at: https://meraki.cisco.com/products/switches/ms120-24

 

If anyone is interested, wants a chat or a demo, drop me a line.

[IanT]

Why would you want to replace out the 2530 models?!

[Blue_Cookeh]

Meraki scared me off with their outrageous pricing! I love our 2530s and the new 2530-48G-PoE+ I managed to nab is working wonderfully now

[IanT]

I remember putting in the 2530s when they were first released, very buggy!, with a few software releases they are much better, not bad switches at all.

[Wave9_Lee]

Think you might be surprised at Meraki switch pricing these days, especially the new MS-120 range. 10 year licence for the price of 5 too.

[markwilfan]

Can you beat £675.00 for a 48 port gig switch with Poe+ and 2 sfp+?

[Norphy]

Think you might be surprised at Meraki switch pricing these days, especially the new MS-120 range. 10 year licence for the price of 5 too.

 

I know we’ve had this conversation before and we ended up agreeing to disagree but the whole timed license thing with Meraki still leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

[Wave9_Lee]

I know we’ve had this conversation before and we ended up agreeing to disagree but the whole timed license thing with Meraki still leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

 

I know we've agreed to disagree : )

 

but 10 years with all maintenance, support, management dashboard, updates etc - I think when you take into account the time and effort it saves, the visibility you get - over 10 years it's really good value (IMO)

@markwilfan - no, it won't beat that, but I'm a strong believer in a total cost of ownership. I mean, you can buy second hand kit in the market for next to nothing and spare up, but if you take all things into account, is it the best value?

 

No offence, I don't expect to change people's minds about how to view the comparative 'value' of one solution over another, just pointing out what the current pricing and benefits cisco meraki offer, as I think many people are unaware that they've introduced some cost effective 'infill' models and pricing/licence can be better than expected.