Avaya vs Cisco Ethernet Switches

[hbergm]

Hi,
I came across this question from a user who is comparing Avaya Ethernet Switches and Cisco Ethernet Switches, and I was wondering if anyone has experience with both of them and can share some insights. If so, what are the main pros and cons of each solution?
Thanks!

[krausm]

Hi,
what do you want to hear in an Avaya-Forum?

I have seen realy old Avaya (Nortel/Baystack)-Switches at our custumer Networks, but I have never seen so old Cisco-Switches.

At the Support-Pages from Cisco you have no problems to download a new IOS / FW.This is the main difference to the the Avaya-Page. You need days to download a new Avaya-FW because you always get an "Gateway Timeout" that replaces the "http error" from last year :-(
So you have to try the download and than you can visit your customer, because it is nearly impossible to download the files at the customer location. (customer with SW maintenance contract!)
I have never seen such problems at any other Support-Pages.

At the Avaya-Learning Pages you can see args Avaya vs other vendors.

[zakabog]

This is like saying "Which phone system is better?" better for what? What are your requirements? What are you trying to do? Personally I like Cisco switches because I like their CLI better. Avaya has a nice GUI written in ExtJS (probably the only page written in ExtJS that complains about which browser you use, yay Avaya programmers!)

They're both reliable products, they both perform as advertised, it's really more what you're familiar with and which one fits your needs and budget than "which one is better?"

[rbrookes]

Thanks for the message about "You need days to download a new Avaya-FW because you always get an "Gateway Timeout" that replaces the "http error" from last year :-(" - I wanted to let you know that our IT department is working the issue and have implemented additional monitoring to detect when it happens to help identify root cause.

[rameshng]

in fact both switches are fine and platforms are reliable. It all depends on how you manage it. if you know how to manage it, nothing better than that.

[murra46]

The answers on the linked page are absolute rubbish. I've not ONCE seen Cisco beat Avaya on TCO with comparable switches. I've not even seen Cisco beat Avaya on opex.

The real answer depends on what you want to do with the switches. If you are just looking for a regular ethernet switch that has a single VLAN, then there is nary a difference between every switch on the market.

If you are looking to deploy several VLANs including voice with QoS, then it depends on which vendor your voice is and what features you want. Cisco is going to have some perks with Cisco voice, but it can be argued that no voice works better than Avaya on Avaya data.

If you are deploying a full datacenter or MAN network and want to utilize fabric technologies for redundancy and resiliency, Avaya. No question on this one.