Enterprise Networking - HP vs. Juniper

[firestorm]

Anybody have any thoughts regarding HP Procurve vs. Juniper Networks?

I'm working on overhauling our network.  Most vendors quoted HP Procurve switches, but one quoted both HP and Juniper.

For the core network, it's between:
- HP Procurve 5406zl chassis switches
- Juniper EX4200 stacked (i.e. Virtual Chassis)

For the edge:
- HP Procurve 2810 or 2910AL
- Juniper EX2200

I haven't run into anybody that I know personally that runs Juniper, and that's the part that scares me.  As far as I can tell, they make assume switches, but they're relatively new at this level (i.e. smaller scale networks.)

[Mr. Perfect]

I've never heard of Juniper before. Should I have? :redface: We've got fleets of HP Procurves though. Ye Olde 2425s, out of date 2626s and 2650s, the current 2610s, a 4000m that just keeps going and a 5406zl at the core.

I'm impressed with their warranty support though. Sure, anyone can say they have lifetime support, but even the incredibly old 2425s are still supported. The fans have been giving up in the 2425s after years of service, and after one phone call they'll have a refurbished 2425 on the doorstep next day with a prepaid return address for the malfunctioning unit.

[iMav]

One of our resellers is also a reseller for Juniper.  They do an incredible amount of business in Wisconsin.  I really like the Juniper gear...and not a big fan of HP.  So you can guess what my recommendation would be.

[ktkr]

If you've been running HP stuff and there isn't a solid reason to switch to Juniper, in my opinion you should forget it and just go with gear you're used to.

[panda-R]

HP is the king of congoglomeration but they make some good stuff too.

[D-EJ915]

Procurve stuff is the bomb.  Juniper is more known for their firewalls and routers, I'm not sure I would use them for switching.  It's not a problem to used a mixed environment though, like say a Juniper router with HP switches.  I would also take support into consideration, are you going to be configuring and managing these things or is the vendor through a support contract?

[firestorm]

We had a relatively small and flat network back about 8-9 years ago, and we ran like a small business.  Now we've gone from 3 Windows servers back then to about 28 now.  We had two buildings, and now have 3.  When they did the Data RFP (Request for Proposal) back then, the scoring led to 3Com.  They had a big price advantage, along with a lifetime warranty.  I didn't have a good feeling about them, but what could I do?  I was one of probably 6-8 people scoring, and there wasn't a metric within the RFP to separate the likes of 3Com from Cisco and Extreme (the only other two proposals that I remember) to shift the scoring appropriately.

At any rate, the 3Coms have been OK, but they're getting old and procs and PSU's are failing now, and I just had another fiber transceiver go dark a few weeks ago.   One of our "core switches" has 6 dark fiber ports out of 12, and that's a refurb that replaced one that failed completely a couple years ago.  The only good switches we have right now are 3Com 5500G-EI, which are H3C switches (much better than the old 3Com junk.)

AFAIK, Juniper is very big in the core distribution networks (i.e. HUGE switches and routers.)  They're aggressively pushing into this part of the market, and their pricing shows it.  

We (mostly I) do a lot of self help around here, running very independently, and the one thing that scares me about Juniper is the lack of forum activity related to their products.  Perhaps that's good, and people don't need a lot of help, but I have a feeling much of it is due to the smaller market share.  There's of course no problem finding other people running any flavor of HP gear.

The big differences between the two designs...
- MTBF: Juniper EX4200 @119k hours vs HP 5406zl @221k hours
- Each Juniper EX4200 obviously has it's own proc, so we could survive with one failed.  The HP 5406zl has just one "processor", but less likely to fail and it would be easier to swap out line cards than a whole switch
- Juniper EX4200 is a fixed switch - HP 5406zl is a modular chassis
- Backplane Speed: 128Gbps vs 346Gbps (double checking these)
- Throughput: 101Mpps vs 480Mpps
- Heat: The Juniper stack would supposedly put out less heat and use less power.  Can't confirm that.

[pcunite]

We're using a 3Com 3CBLSG16 (2916-SFP) in the office here. Seems nice. Looking deeper at the spec's how many switch ports do you need active at the exact same time and how much data do you expect to push through the switch? That is when the pricing gets interesting.

[didjamatic]

For me it's:

Servers = HP

Network = Re-certified Cisco  (You get all the Cisco support & resources online for a fraction of the price)

Whatever you do, make a decision and stick to 1 vendor for your network gear.

[firestorm]

We're definitely looking for a homogeneous system here.  The exception will be the security network, which runs on Cisco switches.  I'd prefer Cisco switches, but I can't specify what I want when it comes to grant money.  It's also tough to justify the additional cost, especially when HP and Juniper include lifetime warranties with software updates.  If we self service (i.e. keep spares), we will still retain access to the latest software.

The company offering Juniper is huge and also stocks re-certified gear, including Cisco.  Unfortunately, while the prices of that Cisco gear may be competitive with *new* HP gear, we can't make that kind of comparison with grant money.

FWIW, anything of this caliber will be more than sufficient for what we do.  We have those 28 or so servers distributed between 3 buildings, with those buildings all interconnected by single-mode fiber.  It's all one flat network for the most part.  Exceptions would be the security DVR network, on it's own segment and own hardware, and a T1 to a contractor running on Cisco routers.  There's only about 100 clients.  The biggest traffic is two DB's and I pull down 1TB in data to backups every night.

Thanks for the comments