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Switching Basics with Products - Cisco and Aruba

February 11, 2020 , ,
Today I am going to talk about the switching comparison between Cisco and Aruba ( HP owned Company). We will discuss which and where switches to use in the competition between Aruba and Cisco. Like we can discuss about the Access Layer, Distribution and Core Layer. Lets talk about the devices used by Cisco and Aruba on Access, Distribution and Core Layer.

Fig 1.1- Switching Architecture

So for the customer who are going to invest for Small, Branch and remote sites we can go with the below models from Cisco and Aruba. These switches can be used in the Access and Core layer as for small sites.
  • Cisco 2960-X/XR as an access Layer
  • Cisco Catalyst 3650 as an access Layer
  • Cisco Catalyst 3850 as an access or collapsed core 
  • Cisco Catalyst 9300 as an access or collapsed core 
  • Aruba 5400R as an access layer
  • Aruba 3810M as an access layer
Similarly for Medium range sites. we can have the below mentioned Switches from Cisco and Aruba
  • Cisco 3850 as an access Layer
  • Cisco 9300 as an access Layer
  • Cisco 4500 as an access Layer or collapsed core
  • Cisco 9400 as an access layer or collapsed core 
  • Aruba 5400R as an access layer
  • Aruba 3810M as an access layer
  • Aruba Flexnetwork7500 as an Collapsed core
Now let's talk about the large customer sites we have the below devices can be used as access or core layer
  • Cisco 3850/Cisco 9300 as an access Layer
  • Cisco 4500/Cisco 9400 as an distribution layer
  • Cisco 6800/Cisco 9500/Cisco Nexus 7000/ Cisco Nexus 7700 as an Core layer device.
  • Aruba 3810M/Aruba 5400R as an access layer device
  • Aruba Flexnetwork 7500/10500 as an core layer device
We have another models in Aruba portfolio which can be compared with the Cisco 2960-X/XR devices and can only be used where we required the L2 traffic. The devices like Aruba 2530 and Aruba 2920/2930 are good choice as well. 

Some of you guys already asked me how we can categorise the size of the enterprise which can be taken in the small, medium and Large enterprises. i knew the intent of the question and we can take an estimate on the basis of the user counts in the network.
  • Small Enterprise : 10-200 Users 
  • Medium Enterprise : 200- 500 Users
  • Large Enterprise : more than 500 user count