Brands - Who Do You Use At Work?

Y

young_one

Weaksauce
Joined
Feb 21, 2003
Messages
127
Was just reading the 'Whitelists' thread over in General Hardware and someone mentioned it was unfair to base it on such a small sample, and I agree so figured I would start a slightly different thread over here specific to business related brands and to generate a mini database of opinions.

So lets make it simple, which brand people use at work, what they use that brand for and their personal opinions? For Example at my workplace -

Backoffice/Datacentre - IBM xSeries and pSeries - We are a Lotus shop so sticking with IBM was a pretty easy decision, plus they give us pretty nice pricing.

Branch Office Servers - Dell T310's and Dell 1900's - For some reason the previous IT management team felt it better to move away from IBM for the branch office stuff (anywhere below 30-50 users) but I am pretty sure we are going back to IBM for the next round of upgrades which will be the 2900's sometime this year.

Switches - Cisco and Juniper - I have very little experience of these in production so have no real opinion of how they are day to day, other than the network team seem happy to keep on buying them.

Desktops - Dell Optiplex, Latitudes and Precisions - No real experience supporting them but I use a Precision M4400 at my desk and its fine, would prefer a T420 but...
 
I work at a private school. We host everything onsite. 450 students + 200 staff/teachers/etc. We have our main Upper school campus that houses all the servers and most the offices. Our middle school campus is connected by private phone and fiber. We have a 3rd campus that we rent to a Charter school, but use the dorm space. It houses 6 families + up to 60 kids for camps. It is connected only by a wireless link.

I'll use your breakdown:

Backoffice/Datacentre - HP ProLiant

Branch Office Servers - Custom built. I just buy parts from NewEgg and build the server boxes. We don't have anything mission critical at our "disconnected" campus.

Switches - HP. It was all HP and 3Com, but since HP took over 3Com we are all single vender now.

Desktops - All HP up until 2 years ago. Then switched to Dell.

Laptops - HP ProBooks.
 
Industry - mining and raw minerals

Backoffice/Datacentre - Dell

Branch Office Servers - Dell

Switches - All Cisco

Desktops - Dell, Lenovo, Apple

Laptops - Dell, Lenovo, Apple.
 
Last edited:
Industry - Chemical / Manufacturing (one of our products is Duster or you might also know it as Canned Air) - we're one of the largest mfg's of this in the world

Backoffice / Datacenter - Supermicro Servers and HP (LeftHand) SANs

Branch Office Server - Dell / Supermicro

Switches / Routers / Firewall - Cisco across the board

Desktops - Dell (moving to HP)

Laptops - Dell (moving to HP Minis and EliteBooks)
 
Last edited:
In house
Backoffice/Datacentre - HP / Whitebox (Phasing all HP out for Dell though).

Branch Office Servers - HP (Phasing all HP out for Dell though).

Switches - HP Procurve

Desktops - HP

Laptops - Dell, HP, Apple.

Customers (usually up to them)
Backoffice/Datacentre - HP / Whitebox / Dell

Branch Office Servers - HP / Whitebox / Dell

Switches - HP Procurve / Dell Powerconnect (determined by budget).

Desktops - HP / Dell / Whitebox

Laptops - Dell, HP, Apple, Lenovo
 
Servers - HP.
Switches - HP Procurve and Netgear Prosafe (for unmanaged)
Routers - Juniper (soon to be Cisco me thinks)
Desktops - custom made, quality components. Better than an OEM. All monitors Samsung.
Laptops - HP, Toshiba, Acer.
SMB NAS - Synology Disk Stations (WD RE4 drives only, typically 410 or 1511+)
 
For us:

Industry: Chemical Manufacturing

Back Office: dell servers, dell san and emc san

Remote Office: dell servers and sans

Desktops / Laptops: Dell

Switches: Dell Powerconnect. Couple Cisco for specific needs

Routers: Cisco

Firewall: sonicwall
 
Last edited:
In the order of most use/deployment or most importance to least (left to right).

Servers: Supermicro, HP, Dell

Desktops/Laptops: Wyse, Dell, HP

Switches: Adtran, Cisco (planning for all HP ProCurve)

Wireless UBiQUiTi UniFi

Routers: Untangle UTM (planning for all Mikrotik)

Storage: Dell MD3000i, Supermicro, Dell AX150i

Server OS: Primarily Server 2008 R2, Some 2003/2003 R2

Desktop OS: Windows 7 Enterprise, Windows 7 Pro, Windows XP Pro
 
Last edited:
Datacenter: HP
Desktops/Laptops: HP/Lenovo/Mac
Switches: Cisco
Routers: Vyatta
Operating systems: Linux or OS X
 
At work...
Servers, laptops, desktops, and switches are all Dell, a few macs thrown in there for good measure.
Wireless controller and access points are Cisco
Router from at&t is Cisco, firewall is Watchguard.
Phone system is 3Com NBX
Industry is manufacturing

For my residential/SMB customers it's actually about the same...
I recommend Dell for laptops and desktops, some people prefer Apple and I provide limited support to those-
I like Dell switches as well, of course most residential customers use Linksys routers.
I have worked/supported on many brands of telephone systems...Panasonic, Nortel, Avaya, Inter-Tel, Western Electric/ITT (1A2)
 
Last edited:
Small Office, maybe 15 of us.

Server: Custom Made
Workstations: Dells (except mine, custom made)
Switches: Netgear
Router: Netgear

Most companies I install networks for I use Netgear products, since most are small (10-50 users)
 
Anybody willing to go back and edit their posts and put what industry your in? If your willing that is.. Just think it would be interesting to see where this hardware is being put to use
 
Servers: Dell Partner
Storage: Dell Equallogic and Xiotech fiber SAN
Switching: Enterasys and Dell
WiFi: Aruba, Ubiquiti
OS: All MS Flavors
Router/FW: Juniper, Cisco and Palo Alto

SMB and Gov't consulting.
 
Industry : public school district

Server: HP (mix of G5's and G6's... all G3-G4's have been retired finally)
Storage: HP iSCSI MSA's
Switching: Cisco
Wifi: Cisco
Firewalls: Cisco
Routers: Cisco
Phones: Cisco
UPS: APC
Printers: HP
Desktop: Dell
Monitors: Dell and mixture of samsung + other crap the principals like to buy
Workstation OS: XP SP3 (teachers can't handle Win7 yet)
Server OS: Server 2008 R2 Datacenter on Hyper-V hosts running 2008 R2 Enterprise VM's (some legacy server 2003 stuff for those old applications that can't handle 64bit yet)
 
Data center and branch office :
Servers : IBM / Sun & Cisco is up and coming in the visualization section
SAN : EMC
Switches : Cisco
Routers : Cisco
WiFi : Cisco
IDP/IDS : HP
Firewall/SSLVPN : Juniper(netscreen) / Cisco / Palo Alto
VOIP : Cisco
Workstations / Laptops : Lenovo / Apple

Aviation industry
 
Small company / Small medium sized company, nothing really top of the line since its not needed.

Servers: Dell, getting new ones would be Fujitsu instead of Dell
Switches: Netgear (SOHO)
Routers/Firewalls/VPN:
Small offices OpenWRT compatible, Asus WL-500g Premium, Linksys WRT54GL, Netgear WNDR3700
Larger: Whitebox running FreeBSD (among other network services)
WIFI: Not allowed
Workstation: Fujitsu-Siemens (Now Fujitsu) these are great in all ways, older machines are Dell and are a PITA.
Laptops: Asus (business models)

//Danne
 
Backoffice/Datacentre -HP

Branch Office Servers - HP

Switches - All Cisco

Desktops - HP

Laptops - HP
.
 
office and datacenter

servers - dell
storage - emc
switching - dell
firewalls/routers - checkpoint

ups in offfice is an alpha 15kva

os/virtualization - windows/vsphere enterprise

desktop and workstations - dell some macs for creative and a few vp's

wifi - apple airports

As you can see, we are pretty much a dell shop

industry - loyalty marketing
 
MikeTrike said:
Switches: Adtran, Cisco (planning for all HP ProCurve)
Click to expand...

That's what I did. Cisco to ProCurve. I couldn't tell the difference between the 2 brands when it comes to performance or reliability. HP has been nothing but awesome when doing replacements. I don't understand why so many medium sized places shell out the cash for Cisco.
 
Industry -- Healthcare (Hospital and Physician clinics)

Datacenter -- Cisco UCS and HP Proliant

SAN -- EMC NS-480

Switches/Routers/Firewalls/Wireless -- All Cisco

Desktops -- HPs (phasing out Dells)

Laptops -- HP

Tablets -- Fujitsu
 
The bits I've been enthusiastic about:

Mid-size University:
Wireless: Ruckus (nice stuff, nice price, easy management)
Bandwidth arbitration: NetEqualizer (ridiculously simple yet effective)
Edge Switches: Procurve (nice price and do the next-to-nothing required of edge switches) -- great warranty, too!
 
SMB Consulting - 1 - 50 user setups

Servers - Dell - T110 and up.
Switches - D-Link, Netgear, Dell
Desktops - Dell - Vostro through Precision, few home user ones. Few custom build (recently some i7 builds for Autocad Revit).
Laptops - Dell - Vostro, Latitude, Very Few Precisions, XPS, etc
Wireless - Apple, D-Link, Buffalo, Really Anything Depending on Need, More ZyXel coming
Routers - Cisco RV, Untangle, ZyXel, Buffalo, D-Link, Apple, etc.
Battery Backups - CyberPower
Cabling, Network Jacks, Ends, Etc - Monoprice
 
SMB - Warehousing

Servers: Dell across the board (Except some server grade whiteboxes for less mission critical tasks). We have some T710 beasts with X5680's in it, exceptionnal ESX hosts.
Core Switches/Edge Switches: Dell and some leftover managed Dlink that will GTFO soon.
Firewall: Watchguard. Works well up to date.
Wireless: High-end Motorola controllers and APs everywhere
Desktops: HP Thin clients and some whiteboxes.
Laptops: Dell
 
Internet retail

Lenovo t420, t520, x220 laptops

Lenovo m58 desktops

Lenovo 22, 24" monitors

ZT systems, rackable (old), hp servers

Cisco switches (3750)

Cisco routers (3945)

Cisco wireless (5508-250 or 5508-500 depending on site)

Hp thinclients

Motorola handhelds mc3190

Hp printers 9050, 4700 dj500, 4015

Zebra printer zm600
 
Chemical Manufacturer
Servers: Dell
Switches: HP E or V series
Routers/Firewalls/VPN: Sonicwall
Workstation: Old Machines were Dells, newest purchase were Acer Veriton AiO system for the lighter users
Laptops: Dell Latitude
 
Industry - Computer appliance manufacturing
Servers - Custom built (Supermicro and Intel based)
Desktops - Custom built
Laptops - Lenovo Thinkpads
Printers - HP and Zebra
Routers/Firewalls/VPN - Sonicwall and Cisco
Switches - HP ProCurve and Netgear ProSafe
 
Industry - Local Gov

Backoffice/Datacentre - Dell

Branch Office Servers - Dell

Switches - All HP

Desktops - Dell

Laptops - Dell

SAN - Equallogic

Virtualization - VMware

Antivirus - Eset NOD32

UPS - APC

Router/Firewalls - Fortigate
 
Last edited:
MSP

Servers - HP Proliant, Dell (Mostly HP)
Desktops - HP and Acer
Laptops - Acer
Printers - HP, Sharp. K&M(shit), Some Canon
Routers/Firewalls/VPN - Sonicwall
Switches - HP ProCurve
 
Trade Association

Servers, laptops, desktops = Dell
Printers Owned = HP
Printer/Copiers leased = Xerox
Phone System = Cisco top to bottom
UPS = APC
Non Phone Switches (originaly when I had the place wired each spot got 2 Cat5E drops so when we went to voip the phones stayed on their own network)= 3Com
router/Firewall = Sonicwall
Cell Phones = Verizon iphones
 
Industry - Financial Institution

Everything: everything

Really. We have Dell, Hp, IBM PC's supported for our desktop image. I believe the majority of our network gear is Cisco, although we do have special purpose items like F5, Juniper, etc in various places. Phones depend on building and department, printers are 99% HP, cell's are blackberry.

"Servers" are anything from old desktops that are put in closets (migrated one of those to a datacenter solution), Sun Sparc, Sun x86, Dell/Hp/IBM x86, Alpha and IBM Z series for legacy apps.

My department is Dell/IBM desktop/laptops, Sun servers (newer are x86, older are Sparc and mostly retired) with F5 load balancers in 2 different datacenters.
 
State Govt.

Datacenter -- Cisco UCS, HP Proliant
Switches/Routers/Firewalls/Wireless -- Cisco
Desktops -- Dell, Wyse
Laptops -- Dell, Lenovo and Apple
Printers -- HP
Copiers -- Xerok, Canon, Toshiba, OCE
 
Industry - Gov.

Servers = DELL, IBM
Blades = HP, IBM
Storage = HP, EMC
Oracle = SUN
Network = Cisco
Security = Linux
Desktops = HP
Printers = Xerox
 
Government/Healthcare

Servers - Dell
Switches - Cisco
Routers - Cisco
Virtualizing - Citrix
Printers - Toshiba Copiers and HP Colour Printers also mixed in with Zebra and Dymo label printers.
Desktops - Dell
Laptops - Dell
Monitors - Dell
Filtering - Barracuda
 
Any one in this thread EMC certified ? Since I see a'lot of you guys putting emc equipment into your lists :)
 
Servers: Dell Poweredge, HP Proliant
Storage: NetApp
Networking: Cisco
Desktops: Dell
Laptops: HP, Lenovo, Dell, Panasonic
Pereph: Dell, Belkin (KVM), Avocent (KVM)


Software: VMware 3.5/4.1 , Windows Server 2003/2008, Windows XP, 7
 
HO Servers : 80% HP ProLiant (mostly DL380's), 20% Dell PowerEdge.
Branch Servers: SuperMicro based boxes.
Switches : HP ProLiant 2510 and 2650.
Desktops : HP (prev. Dell, Acer, and Lenovo/IBM)
Laptops : Lenovo (prev. Dell, Acer)
Printing - Xerox
UPS : APC
Racks : MidAtlantic
Antivirus : Kaspersky
KVM's: Belkin
 
Server: Dell
Network: Cisco
VOIP: ShoreTel
Desktop: Dell
Laptop: Lenovo
OS: Windows
Printer: HP and Xerox
UPS: APC
 
MSO

MetroE Core Router: Cisco AR
MetroE Core Edge Router: Cisco ASR9000 or Cisco CRS-8
MetroE Customer Premesis: Ciena LE 311v
MetroE Agg devices: Juniper EX4200s

Internal Network: Cisco 7609s
Transport Gear: Cisco ONS 15454, Alcatel, Nortel OMEs
CMTS: Cisco UBR 10k
VOD: NSG 9000s
Transmitters/Receivers: C-cor
Fiber Nodes: Varies
Laptops: Dell Latitude E6410s
Company Truck: 2008 Ford Escape Hybrid 44,000 miles
Company Cell: Blackberry Bold 9000
Air Card: Verizon USB
 
We're a school...

Servers and Workstations: Dell
Switches: HP and Netgear
Access Points: Netgear, looking to transition to Ubiquity
Routers: MS Forefront, Draytek and Cisco
UPS: APC
Telephony: NEC
Printing etc: Samsung and Sharp
Laptops: Dell and Lenovo
Virtualization: Hyper-V
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top