Foundry Vs Cisco

[Shibu1978]

Dear All,

We are planning to implement IP phones in the network. right now we have cisco 2950 switches as our acces layer switches. Core switch we have cisco WS-C4507R.

Our management has decided to put Avaya IP phones. for this we need to change the Access layer switches to some POE switches. vendor suggestion to have foundry pOE switches to accomadate ip phones.

Does this foundry switch (FE S4802 -ILP or FGS648P) works well with Cisco switch 4507 ? can we configure trunking between cisco and Foundry?

Can i have links or docs regaridng this.

Thanks & Regards

Shibu

[vmiller]

Avaya will work just fine with Cisco POE switches. I'd suggest finding the equivalent cisco model and doing a feature comparison. Then you need to consider the aspects of managing 2 different vendors and any potential interoperabilty shortcomings. Not saying its a bad idea, but everything has tradeoffs.

[Shibu1978]

Dear Vmiller,

Thanks for the info.

Meanwhile i am also looking for inter-opertability between foundary switch and cisco switch.

Does foundry switch (FE S4802 -ILP or FGS648P) works well with Cisco switch 4507 ? can we configure trunking,stp between cisco and Foundry?

Can i have links or docs regaridng this.

Thanks & Regards

Shibu

[vmiller]

Anthing that is IEEE standards based should work.(802.1Q, STP) That is no promise, standards can have subtle differences in the actual implementation, and still be compliant.

As far as comparisons you can look here

http://www.bradreese.com/cisco-vs-competitor.htm

but with foundry now becoming brocade I don't know if they have caught up yet

[rgodden]

Ip phone vendors who compete with cisco will always recomend a switch product from a a vendor that doesnt compete on the ip phone front.

The biggest hassle as the user is managing of multiple vendors when things sometime go wrong.