Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Cisco Nexus vs HPE A-Series [EOL] comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Nexus
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
108
Ranking in other categories
LAN Switching (3rd), Data Center Networking (3rd)
HPE A-Series [EOL]
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

Fakhar Mahmood - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Network Administrator at i2c
Migration between data centers has strengthened core connectivity and simplified segmentation
The biggest problems during migration were corporate issues, including dependencies on other devices such as F5, HSMs, and firewalls from Palo Alto. Everything was connected over the core switches, which made this a quite difficult part to manage and to onboard the teams and to understand the impact of the migration. We encountered an issue where we have two data centers, and unknowingly we were configuring the devices with the same VPC number on both devices. By doing that, we were not able to terminate the lease lines over those core switches. According to Cisco, we had to change the VPC number of one of the data center's core switches since they are in a VPC. We are still waiting, and it has been more than five to six years just to change the VPC number and migrate back the lease line. Now we are having cabin switches for the lease line and then the core switch. That VPC number issue was quite surprising for us. However, we have a very frequent issue with Cisco Nexus, particularly with the SFPs. Every time a port or the SFP heats up, it gets faulty. We have almost sixteen Nexus switches per data center. In a year, we experience one or two port issues per annum. We have standard Equinix data centers with standard installations, but somehow the temperature is always maintained and there is no ducting, yet the ports and the SFPs heat up or become faulty. This is a very frequent issue with the SFP-based port.
Mohamed-Mousa - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at a media company with 201-500 employees
Stable and scalable with a good user interface
Overall, everything related to the interface is very good Some follow up from our user-partners would be useful. Letting users know what is up and coming or providing better documentation would be helpful. Overall, the solution could offer its users better support. I've been using the solution…

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The most valuable feature of Cisco Nexus is the performance, flexibility, configuration, and cost. It's not a traditional pricing model from Cisco. They've offered our company a considerable reduction in price. That makes Cisco Nexus now very competitive with other vendors."
"The return on investment for this solution is very good, as it is very practical and versatile."
"The solution has improved operations by helping us resolve bottlenecks throughout our infrastructure, as these new products have a much higher throughput that cleans traffic up and makes processes a lot smoother."
"They are very high-performance switches and they are made for lossless data, so they're a good play in the customer environment."
"The most valuable features are the access layer security, OpenConfig, and OpenFlow."
"The implementation was straightforward and the product is stable."
"This solution has allowed us to scale bigger than ever."
"It has improved our organization because we have aggregated ports, we're able to put multiple agencies on the multiple different interfaces that we have going there. We're able to separate them out with the use of VLANs and whatnot."
"The solution is very stable."
"Overall, everything related to the interface is very good."
 

Cons

"I would like to see a central management solution in order to have all of the equipment in one place."
"I would like to see better collaboration with other, low-end devices."
"Don't discard Cisco Nexus because of the price."
"One improvement needed is support for Multi-CAD scale that we were concerned about."
"I would like to see some development into the SAE world where you can virtualize. That would be the only thing I would like to see because I need to start virtualizing my infrastructure gear at some of the other data centers that I have."
"It would be ideal if there was better integration with various other platforms."
"The initial setup is always complex."
"This solution costs a lot."
"Overall, the solution could offer its users better support."
"Some follow up from our user-partners would be useful. Letting users know what is up and coming or providing better documentation would be helpful. Overall, the solution could offer its users better support."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The problem with Cisco, from what I see, is that their costs are much higher."
"Every Cisco product is more expensive than competitors on the market, which is just a fact, but from my perspective, it is worth it."
"We only have a yearly support contract, as we do not use any of the subscription-based functions at this time."
"Our licensing costs for this solution are approximately $100K a year for the switching part."
"The price of the product is reasonable."
"I thought that it would be less expensive."
"This is a very expensive product."
"It is very expensive. Its licensing is on a yearly basis."
Information not available
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Data Center Networking solutions are best for your needs.
884,976 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
8%
Marketing Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise83
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco Nexus?
The product's initial setup phase is very easy.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Nexus?
We are a reseller, and we sell products to our customers.
What needs improvement with Cisco Nexus?
The biggest problems during migration were corporate issues, including dependencies on other devices such as F5, HSMs, and firewalls from Palo Alto. Everything was connected over the core switches,...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

No data available
A-Series, HP A-Series
 

Overview

Information not available
 

Sample Customers

Advanced Medical Transport, Banco de Guayaquil, Baylor Scott & White Health, BH Telecom, Bowling Green State University, Calligaris, Children's Hospital Colorado, City of Biel, Del Papa Distributing, Department of Justice, Dimension Data, Dualtec Cloud Builders, Electricity Authority of Cyprus, Grupo Industrial Saltillo (GIS), Hertz, K&L Gates , LightEdge, Lone Star College System, Management Science Associates, Mindtree, NBC Olympics, Quest, Sony Corporation, The Department of Education in Western Australia, Valley Proteins
SEED Infotech, Weta Digital, BlueShore Financial
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Dell Technologies, Juniper and others in Data Center Networking. Updated: March 2026.
884,976 professionals have used our research since 2012.