I have been wanting to replace our aging Dell Switches with HP Procurve for ages. Enter a new boss. So the new boss now wants to replace the Dell switches with Dell switches. He says they are half the cost - that's true. He wants to do it right freaking now with absolutely no research. So I get 3 min to research it and this email took two. I get 60 more seconds to do a detailed comparison. Crap that sentence just took 15 seconds. So I am looking at tech specs and warranty. THe first thing is the lifetime warranty from HP Procurve. I dont really value that so much but it is there. The networking equip lifetime for us seems to be around 8 years and Dell's go to five - HP's are lifetime. In five years, equiv replacement equip will be dirt cheap and we will be looking to move to the next technology anyway. We need around 200 gigabit ports - stackable etc. We are looking at the Procurve 3500 series and Dell Powerconnect 6248 series - all 48 ports. I have read pretty much glowing reports of in-the-field support regarding HP. We have had a few issues with our Dell PowerConnect but Dell worked with us with no problem. One of our 3448 switches was replaced via priority overnight with little hassle.
Anyone have any compelling reason to spend almost 2X on ProCurve over Dell PowerConnect? Thanks! Devin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
