Mixing HP and Cisco

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killerasp

Gawd
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Jul 17, 2001
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what is everyones thought on mixing HP and Cisco switches?

Im a looking at the HP ProCurve Switch 2810-48G. Its an affordable 48port. The rest of my network environment is all Cisco (eg: 6500's, 4948s, 3550s, 2950s, etc).

Does anyone have any experience mixing HP and cisco? any known issues you ran into?
 
HP makes some damn fine equipment. We have a single cisco switch, everything else is HP; no issues. But then, we don't run any of the proprietary cisco funkiness ( cdp? It's been a while ).

That switch you are looking at, I think, does not have the cisco-like interface, so be warned. The higher models do have a command line very much like cisco's.

EDIT: Btw, that switch has a very funky interface for dealing with vlans. If you will be working with a number of them ( vlans ), I'd recommend against it.
 
I can't work with HP GUI switches, they are just a huge PITA for me. The products are great, but I can't stand to use them unless they have CLI administration.
 
We run a Cat 3550 at the top of our cabinet, and mixed stuff including Procurves beneath it...2x Compex, an old 3COM, and a ProCurve. Zero issues.
 
I'd die without CLI. (XOR, cdp is the shit)

Anyway, Many customers have ran mixes of cisco and HP and various other switches. Some are quirky but that's about it.
 
I'd be wary of HP cores for a while, as they've been having some firmware issues over the last few months. I'm not sure if they're fully resolved yet.
 
it really boils down to what are you planning on using it for? is it just throwing more access ports on the network? where are you using it and what features are you wanting to run on it?
 
Spanning tree is an issue I have run into. The HP's we have shipped with ST off, and then when you turn it on it is basic spanning tree. To change to RSTP requires a reboot. Come to think of it a lot of things require a reboot on the HP switches.

If you have the money, and plan to implement advanced routing / features such as private vlans stick with cisco. If you just need port density, buy HP for your access layer.
 
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