HPE Networking Switches (formerly branded HP ProCurve) were Hewlett-Packard Enterprise's network / LAN switching option, that has been discontinued in favor of the company's Aruba switches.
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Huawei CloudEngine Data Center Switches
Score 9.0 out of 10
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The Huawei NetEngine series of DC switches is, the vendor states, a diversified product portfolio that supports flexible networking ranging from 500 to over 50,000 servers, with a unified open architecture that supports seamless evolution from the traditional data center network to the SDN and multi-cloud era.
People with more specialist requirements than myself may have more reason to look elsewhere, but in general, we tend to pick a HPE switch of one model or other for most office deployments we do. The choice of managed, unmanaged, advanced features, etc., means there's something for everyone. We support several offices relying on them, and no disasters yet!
The focus of the solution is datacenter, so it is a waste of resources to use them as SOHO or as access switches. All your robustness needs to be used correctly, so that there is no wasted investment. I also note that, as good practices, it is necessary to ensure redundancy and availability of assets and connections, so the investment is high, even more so if you need to mix fiber and twisted pair solutions.
Quality: The HP switches are built very well. In the 12 years that I have been working with Procurve, I have deployed them in challenging environments. Some of these environments include manufacturing plants, rooms where ventilation is somewhat poor, causing the switch to work at warmer temps, and inside of control panels for various engineering projects located in hot deserts. These switches have lasted me for 10+ years. 6-Months ago I had to replace a switch for a friend that was installed in 2010. The switch was still working when we pulled it from the rack, we just needed to move to a POE model.
Dependability: Working with HP switches, I have never had issues with lockups, unknown transmission, dead ports, or firmware updates. Once you put one in, it stays up until you are ready to replace it.
Affordable: My motivation of going with HP is because I don't care for the cost of Cisco or the need for a proprietary training. I am a big fan of the open platform. This means that we are able to deploy these quicker, save money on the expense, and have a greater range of support. We get everything we need from a modern switch, without breaking the bank.
Documentation, like every huawei product, needs improvement
The official training of this solution is extremely boring and theoretical. It is necessary to make something more practical and useful in everyday life.
As it is a line for datacenters, I believe that the product needs a better development in its chassis. It seems very fragile to me.
We have had very little experience with support and nothing for years really. But when we have needed support we always got what we needed in a timely fashion. Basically good support that you would expect from an enterprise class business. Definitely less hoops to jump through getting help or parts than their desktop or printer divisions.
HPE Networking Switches are basically on the same level as the Cisco Catalyst Switches, although I find the HPE Switches to be much easier to setup and configure. Most Netgear and D-Link switches are unmanaged, so those won't work for our organization, plus the HPE Networking Switches are much faster for packet switching.
The Huawei CloudEngine Data Center Switches solution, as the name implies, is aimed at Datacenters and ToR applications. The development of such equipment was all designed to meet high processing loads and connections of servers, storages and other high-performance assets. The other solutions evaluated (and some we even have in our park) are for other purposes, such as access and edge.
