Cisco 6500 VSS Value Proposition versus HP procurve 7500

[puneet_kandwal]

Hi,

I would require help regarding comparing cisco 6500 VSS to HP procurve 7500.

By the look of things, HP seems to be a good value proposition.

In fact, i did some searching in cisco competive edge portal and found out only the following disadvantages in HP :

I am sure HP will also be having their own sheet on these lines.

2. Eight different types of supervisors, increasing scalability and performance, but cannot be mixed

3. Need two supervisors for full switching capacity; traffic throughput halves if failure occurs

4. No high-availability features, such as nonstop forwarding/statefulswitchover (NSF/SSO) or in-service software upgrades

5. No manageability features such as GOLD, Smart Call Home, or Smartports

6. No WAN interfaces

Request you to please see if some more concrete differences/advantages can be stated in support of cisco 6500 VSS switches.

Also find an attached xls sheet which highlights HP's advantages compared to cisco 6500 VSS portfolio.

With best Regards

PK

[Mohamed Sobair]

Hi,

All features you have mentioned is already in the Cisco VSS, I would rather recommend Cisco VSS 6500 series with Sup 720.

1- NSF/SSO are active while having VSS.

2- The switching fabric of the supervisor engine in both chasis are active providing 1440G Switching Capacity per virtual switching system, so the Backblane throughput is combined.

3- Only one Supervisor Engine active at a time , however , the redundancy is provided incase of a single failure.

4- Ease Of Managment and simple deployment.

5- Eleminate the USe of First Hop redundancy Protocols.

6- VSS utilizes the Multilayer Switching Architecture.

Please have a look at the below link, you can then have much clue and compare:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/switches/ps5718/ps9336/prod_qas0900aecd806ed74b.html

HTH

Mohamed

[puneet_kandwal]

Thanks Mohammed for the inputs given..

I will wait for few more posts in order to get more inputs on the comparitive analysis.

Best Regards

Puneet

[Leo Laohoo]

I'd wait until mid-June 2011.  During Cisco Live 2011 Las Vegas, Cisco will be announcing the new supervisor engine for the 6500, the VS-Sup2T.  (It's the world's worst kept secret.)

[Rahul Kachalia]

Hi Puneet,

Please check your PM.

Consider VSS as single large and logical Catalyst 6500 switch. It gives unique network view by combining two systems in same network layer offering same network services. From the network design, operation and management perspective this is tremendously beneficial. While VSS is system virtualization technique it also enables the possibility to build cross-chassis network simplification. Without breaking common physical design pricinples when you bundle all physical path in to single logical EtherChannel connection it significantly simplifies Layer 2 or Layer 3 network topoligies. VSS has became an leading campus distribution and core-layer network design in many large enterrpises, combining EC/MEC in each tier it has optimized network performance for unicast and multicast switching performance.

From high-availability perspective the VSS offers dual redundacy mode - Inter-Chassis and Intra-Chassis. And the innovations does not stop here and it continue to evolve. You can get additional VSS information from following solution design guide:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/solutions/Enterprise/Campus/Borderless_Campus_Network_1.0/Borderless_Campus_1.0_Design_Guide.pdf

thanks,

rahul.

[puneet_kandwal]

Dear Rahul,

please accept my thanks for giving a detailed reply to my query....

I surely agree on the features as well as advantages available in VSS system..

But my question is basically on the point advantages provided by HP procurve 7500

Kindly confirm if this feature namely MEC/EC is not available in HP procurve system as mentioned in my query...or for that matter any advantages that .can hep me in pitching 6500 compared to HP solution (apart from the ones mentioned in my original mail),

Thanks and Best regards

Puneet.

[puneet_kandwal]

Dear Rahul,

please accept my thanks for giving a detailed reply to my query....

I surely agree on the features as well as advantages available in VSS system..

But my question is basically on the point advantages provided by HP procurve 7500

Kindly confirm if this feature namely MEC/EC is not available in HP procurve system as mentioned in my query...or for that matter any advantages that .can hep me in pitching 6500 compared to HP solution (apart from the ones mentioned in my original mail),

Thanks and Best regards

Puneet.

[Rahul Kachalia]

Hi Puneet,

MEC stands for Multi-Chassis EtherChannel that uses diversified physical paths between two physical systems that is logically a single chassis. I m not HP expert, but you want to confirm from their product documentation if they support it.

Besides speed, performance and common technologies there are several other functional aspect that must be considered. At the end of the day any major disruptive solution you implement in critical campus network it should be seamless integration and interop with industry standards without doing major forklifting.

I can willingly discuss with you more in detail, feel free to reach out offline - kachalia@cisco.com

thanks,

rahul.