Calling all network admins.....

[Silvertwinkie]

Ok, I've done my research, made my decision and I'm curious as to what your thoughts are on the subject of networking gear.

Who's networking gear do you like?

Cisco?
3Com?
HP?
Juniper?
Other?

Even if you don't have a strong opinion on it, what do you think of each company in general listed above? Got a differnet one you'd use? Why?

We're gonna put a strong base infrastructure in over the summer. We see VoIP and managed wireless playing a role in the future. If you had a growing Enterprise level ship, where or who would you put your chips in with in terms of networking equipment? Why?

[uwe]

My network is tiny, and pretty much on autopilot for the last few years (mac)
I would put my chips with HP for a larger installation, simply because of their dedication to customer's needs. Their R&D center in Boise, ID, is second to none. My brother takes his customers there for pow wows with their engineers, and the results are astonishing. My brother's clints include Lufthansa, BASF, Deutsche Bank and other European conglomerates.

[thecatsandi]

Cisco,
Back in the day when I was making those purchasing decisions I went with cisco. Yes, small c. They were a small company then. They even asked me to work for them. Turned them down. Did not want to live in the bay area.
They were leading edge. 3com products crashed when I subjected them to the stupid test. Do something that makes nosense and see what happens. Hp was the wanna be.

[Silvertwinkie]

I'm running a 98% Mac client network with xServes and RAIDs as storage. Heavy multimedia, iChat most likley widely used next year and moreso the following year after the 2 heavier use buildings finally upgrade to Intel based clients. I have at times around 70+ users in any given building logging in, saving, etc, so the demand spikes can be vastly different that that of my business world counterparts.

Anyone with any other comments would be greatly appreciated. Later I'll post who we're going to the dance with.

[overlander63]

I also vote for Cisco. I use as much of it as I can in our home network, and in the last place I worked as the IT guru. Can't remember the last time I had an issue with it.

[Jim & Susan]

Cisco's VOIP products are top drawer. Can't be beat.

Jim

[herrgirdner]

Cisco fields almost bulletproof hardware, and my experience with them has shown strong customer support. I believe most of the Internet runs on their iron. I wasn't impressed with their Voice Manager, however.

[Chuck]

Cisco is probably the big kahuna...like airstreams...great, if you have the means.

I've got mostly 3-com switches, and have found them to be quite reliable, with the only exception being my most recent core switch. (probably just a fluke piece of bad hardware...could happen to anyone).

we also have really heavy bandwidth requirements...cadd/graphics environment. (Macs have had some issues w/ chatty-ness since osx prior to 4.7 (something in the ip stack)...apple wouldn't acknowledge until recently.)

currently in the process of deploying a Cisco wireless system. so far, so good. documentation sucks, though. But thats certainly not unique to Cisco.

[Silvertwinkie]

Great feedback all. Thanks. Lots to digest.

VoIP and wireless are big considerations for down the road after the foundation is poured this summer.