I know cisco is a pioneer in networking products. Do all enterprises use cisco products? Does Cisco have a real Competitor? Who are they? And how far? —Q FROM Cisco learning home
As we known, Cisco is the worldwide leader in networking that transforms how people connect, communicate and collaborate, which is the best choice for headquarter and all kinds of offices, industries and enterprises. Although Cisco doesn’t get a big applause from consumer market, it also shares a large market in networking solution and network hardware. Just like one Chinese saying: “Lose dead camel a ratio a horse greatly”, and so, does Cisco have a real competitor? And here we can read some points from Cisco fans and Cisco users:
“Define competitor. Yes, there are other companies who offer network equipment. Juniper, Extreme Networks, HP even has some gear out there as does Dell. However, when it comes down to full spectrum solutions, it’s tough to beat Cisco. Juniper is working on building more market base though, and they have some features in JunOS that are arguably nicer than IOS. However, their slice of the market isn’t as large as Cisco’s is.” —Travis
“However, when it comes down to full spectrum solutions, it’s tough to beat Cisco. Juniper is working on building more market base though, and they have some features in JunOS that are arguably nicer than IOS. However, their slice of the market isn’t as large as Cisco’s is. Would it be easy work with devices from other vendors? Being a cisco professional do we have to learn the corresponding OS? Also, because we learnt cisco IOS, of-course we will recommend cisco devices. Which is a plus for cisco?” —KARTHICK KUMARAGURU
“I am certified in Cisco products and practices. Through various jobs I have worked on Cisco, F5, Packeteer, Citrix, Riverbed, Juniper and Avaya equipment. Most enterprise networks will find a network appliance from another vendor on it in some form or fashion, if not several. The larger the scale of the deployment, I’ve noticed, the more specialized equipment you deploy, due to economy of scale.” —Daniel
“The competitors that come to win my business are usually Allied Telysen, HP & Foundry, who just recently got bought out by someone… I don’t remember who. Dell used to, but they have just become a Cisco reseller themselves so that will be interesting. I looked at Dell switches a few years ago and they stunk!
We were a HP shop at one point in time and decided to move to cisco, just for sheer performance. One thing I really like about Cisco switches is the switching in hardware, not in software approach. There is a noticeable performance difference. I also have some networks that have HP gear and I am trunking vlans across a mixed HP and Cisco environment.
The thing that keeps me using Cisco gear is…. Features! Every time a vendor gives their spill, I ask if they have certain features that I am currently using. If the answer is no, then they have just answered their own question.” —Jared
“Quick question, my company just deployed Riverbed….in your experience, how does Riverbed match up to Cisco’s WAN acceleration products? Jared, we also use to have Dell switches….they were indeed horrible…..not to say that ports don’t go bad on Cisco switches, because obviously they do, BUT they always use to go bad on the Dell ones.” —SKeemz
“Skeemz- I haven’t used Cisco’s WAN accerlation products much – but I am really impressed with Riverbed and their RIOS. It’s a locked down Linux shell and it really gives you a lot of control and visibility within the device, especially with logging. They have some bright folks working over there and with their new partnership with HP – I think they are going to really have some interesting gear coming out soon. Riverbed has very granular control policies, their GUI is intuitive and quick, and their boxes are fairly stout, especially the bigger ones. I think their RAID rebuild function when a drive dies is a little questionable but overall I like their product. I’ve worked on more or less their entire enterprise product line and can’t think of a box I wouldn’t recommend to someone.” —Micheal
Right, what Cisco fans said tell us that Cisco owns a good reputation, trust by its better networking solutions and powerful Cisco network equipment. Have you felt it?
Notes: If you need to know some info of Cisco’s main hardware types such as Cisco routers, Cisco switches, Cisco firewall, Cisco modules and cards, etc. you can visit a very popular leading Cisco supplier–-router-switch.com to see more…
