In my opinion Juniper makes the best routers around right now. You simply can't go wring with a Juniper router. Other than that, Cisco makes great gear for distribution and aggregation switches, though even there you may want to look at Foundry as a viable alternative.
I have to agree with jeffsw6. We use all Cisco right now, but I am taking a serious look at Extreme Networks. It's really a combination of cost and ease of use that is making me take a look.
I no longer see paying a price premium of 15%-25% by going with Cisco. When you sit down and figure an entire network from routers to switches that adds to a lot of money and I don't see the Cisco gear offering 25% better design, performance or support. Based upon our design criteria the savings for the same network will save us $18K by going with Extreme.
The other thing I look at is how easy is it to admin the network. I think the Extreme Network systems are just more user friendly.
We are opening a new data center out west and I'm 75% sure we will go with the Extreme Networks system.
We are opening a new data center out west and I'm 75% sure we will go with the Extreme Networks system.
I know cisco are good, however I can see why you don't shell out for their routers. On this subject though what is this networking company like and how much is there stuff?