Cisco, Network Equipment Resource: Compare Cisco Switches to HPE Aruba, Huawei, Juniper

Cisco delivers a comprehensive portfolio of switching solutions for Enterprise Networks, data centers, and smaller businesses. These solutions are optimized for a wide range of industries, including service providers, financial services, and the public sector.

Cisco’s switching solutions are so cool. It has never stopped learning, never stopped learning adapting, and never stopped protecting. These comprehensive portfolio of switching solutions are provided for Enterprise Networks, data centers, and smaller businesses, and optimized for a wide range of industries, including service providers, financial services, and the public sector.

In your data center, core, or edge.

This is the new era in networking. The Network. Intuitive.

What are benefits you will get when you choose the Cisco switches?

Cisco switches for networks of all sizes

From the innovations, agility and security, Cisco switches are compared to others, HPE Aruba, Huawei and Juniper. What are the details? Read the following comparison table to learn more.

	Cisco	HPE Aruba	Huawei	Juniper
Innovations
Investment protection with custom silicon Unique and powerful UADP ASIC offers unmatched features and functionality.	✔ Cisco custom silicon helps ensure enterprise feature robustness, platform longevity, and investment protection.	Limited Multiple vendor acquisition history makes the product lines inconsistent, with short life spans. A majority of switching platforms are merchant silicon-based with limited flexibility.	Limited Huawei ENP lags in terms of capability when compared with the Cisco UADP. Huawei is missing high-speed stacking interface, lacks performance and flexibility, lacks packet-processing flexibility, and is short on full visibility of data flows.	✘ Switching platforms are based on merchant silicon, limiting flexibility and functionality.
Digital Network Architecture (DNA) Cisco DNA provides a superior customer experience and simplifies business operations.	✔ Cisco DNA is an open and extensible software-based architecture that accelerates and optimizes enterprise network operations.	✘	✘	✘
Multigigabit technology Give customers switches for 802.11ac and beyond.	✔ Cisco Catalyst Multigigabit Technology can prepare customers’ access networks for future innovations by delivering speeds of 1G, 2.5G, and 5G on existing Category 5e/6 cables.	Limited HPE offers equivalent multigigabit technology, with SmartRate limited to a couple of product platforms and a limited number of ports.	Limited Huawei S5720-14X-PWH-SI-AC claims multigigabit speeds, but only up to 2.5G.	✘
Application Visibility and Control (AVC) Recognize and service more than 1400 applications. Differentiate between nonencrypted and encrypted apps to help ensure appropriate treatment of business-critical traffic.	✔ Cisco access switches can inspect traffic and application flows to enforce network access policy and protect against attacks with Cisco Flexible NetFlow, DNS-AS, NBAR, and Cisco Prime Infrastructure.	Limited HPE switching platforms are limited to simple, basic traffic classifications and policy enforcement with ACL. These platforms are also limited by their lack of memory capacity in access switching.	Limited Limited SLA monitoring with Huawei iPCA.	✘
Converged infrastructure: Consistent automation across WAN, WLAN, and wired networks. Deploy a new branch online, or roll out a new application policy within minutes using a single pane of control and true network convergence.	✔ Use Cisco Prime Infrastructure to centrally provision WAN path selection with IWAN and security, encryption, app visibility, and control with APIC-EM and Cisco TrustSec.	Limited HPE uses SDN controllers and AirWave for automated deployment of infrastructure of Aruba switches only. For a single pane of glass, HPE uses IMC for the original HPE switches but does not support AirWave.	Limited Huawei’s SVF does not provide true network convergence.	✘
Monitoring by endpoint type Monitor and classify behaviors of devices and data that are critical to identifying problems.	✔ Cisco can use analytics to monitor behavior with Stealthwatch and NetFlow, and classify traffic on the edge and inside the network with TrustSec.	Limited Aruba offers very limited functionality. Tunneled Node is offered as a catch-all solution that cannot scale.	Limited iPCA is offered as an option but provides limited platform support and visibility.	✘
Support new capabilities without major upgrades Avoid major upgrades by leveraging existing access points, controllers, and switches without performance impact.	✔ Through the integration of custom ASICs, UADP, and access point modularity, Cisco offers support for new innovations.	Limited No support for modular APs. Switching platforms use a custom ASIC with limited extensibility.	✘ No current support for modular APs or switches.	No wireless platforms, and switching platforms are based on merchant silicon. ✘
Agility
Improve experience for Apple users Promote a better user experience for business-relevant applications on all Apple devices.	✔ Cisco and Apple have joined efforts to provide better user experiences for Apple device users connected to a Cisco network.	Limited Functionality can only be supported through manual QoS prioritization and Wi-Fi standards.	Limited Functionality can be supported only through manual QoS prioritization	✘
High availability Support redundancy for business resiliency.	✔ Cisco switches offer innovative ISSU features and hot-standby N+1 redundancy in stacks.	✘	Limited Huawei claims ISSU on some of its switches.	✘
Consistent application performance across the network Help ensure voice and video experience across a network automatically, without IT intervention.	✔ Through best practices, the EasyQoS application provides customers with a simplified method of delivering end-to-end QoS.	✘	✘	✘
Detect and set features to new devices When IP phones, cameras, access points, or other devices connect, configurations such as QoS, VLAN, and security are automatically applied.	✔ Through Cisco Auto Smartports, devices are dynamically detected and ports configured based on the device type detected on the port.	Limited HPE can detect and set characteristics on an AP attaching to an HPE switch, but cannot detect other types of devices.	✘	✘
Power resiliency for IoT and other devices Get an always-on environment for IoT and other devices that are powered via PoE, even when the switch reboots.	✔ Cisco offers Persistent PoE and Fast PoE and Universal PoEwhile providing multiple-level redundancy through StackPower.	Limited HPE offers basic Poe/PoE+ (30W) support, and supplies 1:1 power redundancy via dual power supplies supported in a limited number of switches.	Limited Huawei supports PoE and PoE+ PoH (95W) on a single S5700 platform. Power redundancy is 1:1 PoH (power over HDMI) (95W) on a single S5700 platform.	✘
Security
Integrated security Be consistently ahead of the game to secure the network.	✔ Cisco switches offer advanced security features like Cisco TrustSec, Network as a Service (NaaS), Network as an Enforcer (NaaE), mDNS gateway, and 256-bit MACsec.	✘	✘	✘
Threat detection Rapidly eliminate threats across the entire network (wired and wireless) from a single place.	✔ Eliminate threats across the network with Cisco's effective security solutions. Products include Stealthwatch, TrustSec, Identity Services Engine, and Rapid Threat Containment.	Limited HPE offers sFlow, ClearPass, and Tunneled Node to support security across wired and wireless.	✘	✘
Simplified user, device, and group segmentation Allows guest or contractor access to a specific resource on your network. Allows users and devices to easily move between branches and campuses on both WLAN and wired networks.	✔ Apply context-based policy across the entire network in a click using Identity Services Engine and TrustSec.	Limited Aruba Tunneled Node is offered as a catch-all solution but cannot scale.	✘	✘