Senior Network Engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Sep 3, 2015
The answer for this would depend upon your complete requirement.
But my personal suggestion to go with Cisco as its not leading the market at Switch World but there are other best options we have with Cisco. AMC and RMA services are fabulous from Cisco. You don't need to worry if you are new at installing switches, Cisco online and vendor support is the best where you will get more and more inputs for your every query. HTP!
Technical Consultant at a tech company with 51-200 employees
Real User
Aug 11, 2014
The answer only comes as a result of your evaluation process, so no easy outs here.
In general, organizations are evaluating Cisco for almost everything switch related and Juniper for specialized high-end services. A deciding factor for this evaluation usually comes down to strategy instead of technology -> if you are looking for a specialized / high performance solution and can commit to a specific way of things, Juniper may have an advantage. If not, Cisco will more likely than not have a solution that makes sense financially and is easier to maintain in terms of access to resources and general knowledge.
Juniper is gaining some big time corporate traction recently, so look that up and see if that makes a difference.
Overall, let your specific requirement guide this decision and you won't miss.
Infrastructure Network Architect at a insurance company with 501-1,000 employees
Real User
Top 20
Aug 8, 2014
I have no experience with Juniper switches. I have heard that they have a good product though. Sorry I can't be of much help in comparing Juniper to Cisco Switches! Our shops network infrastructure is based on Cisco equipment. We have found Cisco Network Equipment very reliable. Its MTTF easily exceeds 5 years based on our experience. We utilize Cisco 3750's for all user connectivity to the network. We utilize Cisco Nexus 5k's and 2k's in our Core.
Manager of Engineering at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Top 10
Aug 7, 2014
If you narrowed your choices to those two vendors, I would choose Cisco. They're the market share leader, and tons of networking people know how to configure and manage their switches as the de facto standard. Juniper has a very good reputation in the routers space, but they're not so well known in the switches (enterprise) space. I may look into other networking companies like Arista, Brocade, or Extreme, depending on the use you plan to give to the switches you're looking for. That way you will have a broader spectrum and prices to choose from.
System Applications Coordinator at a university with 501-1,000 employees
Vendor
Jun 21, 2014
Hi Naveen, Both Cisco and Juniper are good switches but in terms of management we all know Cisco is world wide used for basic knowledge in terms of networking. So anyone is familiar in configurations. Also in terms of support there are lot of CISCO engineers that are available in the market to support you. In Juniper before you will be able to master the configurations you need to undergo training to be familiarized with the commands.
Sr. Manager - IT at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
Consultant
Jun 19, 2014
Naveen, I've used Cisco in the past, but never used Juniper. Currently I'm using HP and I can say I found it to be the best so far at both levels, Distribution and Edge level I'm using HP. For Edge I'm using HP5120 which supports IRF Which is really cool!! And good thing about HP gives Lifetime warranty and none of Cisco nor Juniper give that. And believe me, I'm using almost 50 Switches at our In-House DataCenter which we are running for the last 5 years without a single issue.
I have used both and they are excellent devices. I prefer Juniper based on the power of Junos what it brings to the table. There is a learning curve to move to the Junos platform but after that its fabulous.
Works at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
Vendor
May 28, 2014
A better investment will be to try to choose the same equipment that is suitable
for the task in exactly the same network environment.
In general, both vendors have some pluses and minuses.
My opinion may be a bit biased as I am actually working on pursuing the CCNA certification. However, generally speaking Cisco is the the more reliable choice. In terms of functionality, the company has picked up from where it left off to offer a wide range of models to meet the varying needs of enterprises. To be impartial, you can also checkout this blog article info.hummingbirdnetworks.com/blog/bid/286435/6-Benefits-Offered-By-Using-A-Juniper-Switch-Over-Cisco. In terms of cost, you can actually get refurbished units of Cisco switches from vendors like www.networkhardware.com. Like some of our peers here mentioned, it really depends on the purpose and company IT strategy. I believe the key words from your question are investing for the future; so whichever your choice; do take into consideration the support for the equipment in both availability of skill sets and maintenance support from services like Smartnet.
VP Marketing at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
Vendor
May 21, 2014
Hello Naveed,
Perhaps the question you should be asking is whether you wish to be locked in to a specific hardware vendor at all! The arrival of cloud computing, mobile computing and virtualization have significantly broadened the options for enterprises and data centres in fulfilling the needs of their customers and constituents. By adopting a strategy of selecting best-of-breed elements to support each of these advancements, and Software Defined Networking (SDN) infrastructure to connect it all, data centre managers can focus on enabling their company’s own business strategy, and choose equipment strategies that don’t tie them down to any single vendor (and paying the "high margin incumbent tax” on equipment) or that limit them to a specific vendor’s capabilities (“Yeah, we’ll have that feature in the next rev…”).
I would recommend that you seriously investigate SDN and what it can do for you. There are several white papers that might be of interest on our website (www.noviflow.com) and on the ONF website (www.opennetworking.org).
Network Support Analyst at a non-tech company with 501-1,000 employees
Vendor
Top 20
May 20, 2014
I want to give my insight or opinion regarding this subject matter, but the problem is that I haven't used Juniper Switches, and if I will give my opinion with Cisco only that would be a bias answer. As I would definitely choose Cisco over Juniper as I have more experience regarding it.
In addition to what what I find out from some sources,
Juniper is taking the battle to enterprise data centers and cloud computing environments. Emboldened by its success in carrier routing, Juniper unveiled enterprise Ethernet switches two years ago in an attempt to become a credible alternative to Cisco's dominance in that market, too. The company believes it can carve a niche in the elite networking arenas of financial trading, high-performance computing and other demanding enterprise environments just like it did in service provider routing.
In the data center, both companies are surrounding themselves with high-profile partners to help push their competing visions: Cisco with EMC and VMware, and Juniper with IBM. At stake, just as in service provider routing, is a multibillion dollar opportunity – $85 billion in private clouds by 2015, according to Cisco – to become the primary supplier of next-generation data centers, further entrench new and existing customers, and lock its rival out of lucrative, big ticket accounts.
Juniper’s market capitalization is much smaller than Cisco’s: $21 billion as compared to $91 billion. But it is big enough to instill confidence in prospective customers. It has some 8,400 employees,
The real difference between the two firms is not the size but the trajectory of the companies.
Cisco’s five-year stock price is down 20%. By comparison, Juniper’s five-year share price is up 150%. So investors thus far prefer the organic growth that Juniper is generating.
Unless Cisco learns how to innovate faster and delight its customers through a radically different approach to management, its prospects are not bright.
What I feel your investment should see your customers(clients) interests or else see your future opportunity costs to make a decision on it.
Network Engineer at a tech company with 51-200 employees
Real User
May 20, 2014
From my perspective on switches both are very stable platforms, however, I
would probably recommend Cisco for the simple reason that they are easier
to configure.
The command structure in the Cisco IOS is plain English and there are many
more engineers around that are fluent with them. The Junipers require a
little bit of Unix command knowledge to fully utilize them and can be a
little more tricky to configure.
Personally I haven't had to deal with Juniper for replacement parts etc,
so I cannot offer suggestion from that perspective, but I do know Cisco
TAC provide very good and reliable service,
Cisco is good investment when it's come to networking, has a lot of different solution for the network needed, familiarize on CLI that user can easily configure. Juniper is also good.. but i would suggest CISCO.
Owner at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees
Consultant
May 19, 2014
You really can't go wrong with either of them.
You will get a little bit more bang for your buck with Juniper switches,
but Cisco TAC is overall better than JTAC in my opinion. Cisco will route
your call to a qualified technician much more quickly than Juniper.
Think about features that you will be running - do you have
interoperability requirements or concerns? Cisco has it's own VTP (for
vlan mgmt) and it's spanning tree, while supposedly industry standard, can
be quirky with other deployments.
Both switches are feature rich when it comes to QoS and VoIP support. On
Cisco's you may have to pay extra for features via their new license paks -
make sure the features you require don't require extra license paks, or
that you take that into your cost consideration.
Hope that helps - hard to answer the question when it doesn't clearly state
what you are using them for.
Cisco might have a bit more to offer with regard to port configurations -
SFP vs. copper GigE, etc.
Cisco is the market leader...more people know how to configure Cisco equipment. Depending on size of your enterprise, healthy discounts are available. I know very little about Juniper.
With my little experience in the market I would say Cisco because I know a lot of cases where people are working with Cisco for many years with any problem, and in most cases it'd be cheaper and with enough functionalities. But, as most people say, first of all you must know what you really need and make a choice based on functionalities that you will need in the short and medium term.
Windows System Administrator at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Vendor
May 19, 2014
My experience is with Cisco and their products are excellent but many people use and love Juniper as well. As others have stated, it's too broad of a question. One differentiator may be if you already have other network equipment in your infrastructure such as firewalls, routers, etc. If these are either Cisco or Juniper, then it makes sense to go with one to keep equipment consistent from a vendor standpoint.
Juniper is more on the high end. If you want a lot choices Cisco has a wide selection to pick from for a lot of purposes. I have been with Cisco for 12 years now so I have more familiarity with them.
Both companies are partnering themselves with high-profile partners to help push their competing visions. Cisco is creating multi-purpose switches, firewall and routers, so that an enterprise may not need eight different machines for their Networks and support contracts.
Juniper on the other hand has a opposite approach, which focuses on specializing their machines for as much speed as possible. If you buying a Juniper network, you are getting a switch or a router nothing more than a high speed device.
Firstly it will be based on your Business Requirements. Here's four questions to get you started:
1. Do you plan to have VOIP phones?
2.Do you plan to incorporate wireless ?
3.Are these switches for end users or will the connect to the ISP?
4. Whats your growth rate?
These questions will influence the switch features which could include
(a) Power over Ethernet (Ability to Power Access Points)
(b) Quality of Service (QOS) (Need for Telephone over Ethernet)
(c) Price would be impacted by if it's a access (end user) or core switch (ISP) device
(d) or if it need to be fixed or stack-able etc. (24 port fixed or stackable so you can add ports) for growth
I should also note that in your design you should also think about fault tolerance, it doesn't make much sense purchasing one great device for it to be a single point of failure.
The choice of an Ethernet switch would be based on the use, i guess you should first understand what you want to achieve with the switch, this would determine what features you desire in the switch. I have not really used Juniper switches but I think Cisco switches are durable, scalable and easy to understand.
Security System Engineer at a wholesaler/distributor
Vendor
May 19, 2014
I prefer Cisco but I think Juniper is also a good investment and easier to manage. Both are very good choices. My experience with Cisco tells me that the only thing they need is a vacuum machine from time to time :) The question is what specialist you have or intend to have/be ?
I'm a Cisco professional, so it might seem biased to advise you
but one thing you should know the most sought credential in IT tech is
Cisco Certified Internet Expert. Cisco adaptability allows people from
other plate form to integrate easily in it technology. I Myself started with
Comptia which are Microsoft oriented courses.
On professional level Cisco protocols dealing with high availability and
redundancy such as HSRP ,GLBP are de-facto industrial standard.
Cisco kit still remains the biggest improvement ever since to the
spanning-tree protocol which is together wit VLAN technology the foundation
of modern networking.
Cisco learning allows you to go from lower level CCNA to CCIE gradually.
Cisco prestige helped me enroll in a master degree course on spatial
telecommunication with my CCNP certificate only.
As you can see Cisco has the edge.
Engineer at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
Vendor
Top 20
May 19, 2014
Personally I have worked with Cisco switches (network switches) because they deliver performance and security. Cisco switches are scalable and cost-efficient and meet the need for any size of business. I have not had a chance to interact with Juniper switches hence would not be able to copmare.
Juniper switches have higher reliability and speed which are relatively
cheaper than the Cisco switches which had dominated the market over the
years. Juniper specializes on their equipment, for the purposes of hyper
fast and dedicated heavy weight transmissions per day. In my opinion the
need to plan ahead and buy the routing equipment that you need to ensure
the best performance and usability for your future networking environment
relies on reliability.
Personally I like Brocade switches as their PPS performance delivers excellent value for money but that probably doesn't help! As Jeffrey says it depends on many other factors such as CLI familiarity, what you want it to do, your future growth requirements etc etc. Both (All 3!) manufacturers make good equipment which is in use in the largest networks in the world so you won't go wrong with either.
I have the dreaded answer of "it depends". What is the goal of your network design? Are you planning to do a fabric based network now or in the future? Does automation matter to you? Are you looking for low end (< 10GE) or high end (> 10GE).
Cisco has a lot of different solutions, Juniper has a smaller but still complete line of switches.
Naveed. That's going to depend on what you'll be using the switches for. Do you need layer 2 connectivity only, or will routing be involved? Will you need VLAN capabilities? Will the switches need to be managed? I don't have a great deal of experience with Juniper, and have been using Cisco 3750 switches for our core for 7 years. Depending on how may ports and what speed you need you're going to pay more for Cisco per port. That being said, I highly recommend Cisco. The feaure set is outstanding, and they're rock solid from a reliability standpoint.
Cisco Ethernet Switches and Juniper EX Series Ethernet Switches are direct competitors in the networking solutions market. While Cisco is praised for stability and extensive support, Juniper stands out for its integration abilities and security features.Features: Cisco Ethernet Switches are known for their ease of configuration, extensive technical support, and scalability. Juniper EX Series, on the other hand, offers strong security features, Virtual Chassis, and seamless inter-vendor...
The answer for this would depend upon your complete requirement.
But my personal suggestion to go with Cisco as its not leading the market at Switch World but there are other best options we have with Cisco. AMC and RMA services are fabulous from Cisco. You don't need to worry if you are new at installing switches, Cisco online and vendor support is the best where you will get more and more inputs for your every query. HTP!
HP Ethernet Switches
The answer only comes as a result of your evaluation process, so no easy outs here.
In general, organizations are evaluating Cisco for almost everything switch related and Juniper for specialized high-end services. A deciding factor for this evaluation usually comes down to strategy instead of technology -> if you are looking for a specialized / high performance solution and can commit to a specific way of things, Juniper may have an advantage. If not, Cisco will more likely than not have a solution that makes sense financially and is easier to maintain in terms of access to resources and general knowledge.
Juniper is gaining some big time corporate traction recently, so look that up and see if that makes a difference.
Overall, let your specific requirement guide this decision and you won't miss.
I have no experience with Juniper switches. I have heard that they have a good product though. Sorry I can't be of much help in comparing Juniper to Cisco Switches! Our shops network infrastructure is based on Cisco equipment. We have found Cisco Network Equipment very reliable. Its MTTF easily exceeds 5 years based on our experience. We utilize Cisco 3750's for all user connectivity to the network. We utilize Cisco Nexus 5k's and 2k's in our Core.
If you narrowed your choices to those two vendors, I would choose Cisco. They're the market share leader, and tons of networking people know how to configure and manage their switches as the de facto standard. Juniper has a very good reputation in the routers space, but they're not so well known in the switches (enterprise) space. I may look into other networking companies like Arista, Brocade, or Extreme, depending on the use you plan to give to the switches you're looking for. That way you will have a broader spectrum and prices to choose from.
Hi Naveen, Both Cisco and Juniper are good switches but in terms of management we all know Cisco is world wide used for basic knowledge in terms of networking. So anyone is familiar in configurations. Also in terms of support there are lot of CISCO engineers that are available in the market to support you. In Juniper before you will be able to master the configurations you need to undergo training to be familiarized with the commands.
Naveen, I've used Cisco in the past, but never used Juniper. Currently I'm using HP and I can say I found it to be the best so far at both levels, Distribution and Edge level I'm using HP. For Edge I'm using HP5120 which supports IRF Which is really cool!! And good thing about HP gives Lifetime warranty and none of Cisco nor Juniper give that. And believe me, I'm using almost 50 Switches at our In-House DataCenter which we are running for the last 5 years without a single issue.
Go with CISCO.
I have used both and they are excellent devices. I prefer Juniper based on the power of Junos what it brings to the table. There is a learning curve to move to the Junos platform but after that its fabulous.
A better investment will be to try to choose the same equipment that is suitable
for the task in exactly the same network environment.
In general, both vendors have some pluses and minuses.
I would advice you to go for Cisco as 80% of the world market belongs to Cisco. In terms of future, you will have lots of job opportunities.
My opinion may be a bit biased as I am actually working on pursuing the CCNA certification. However, generally speaking Cisco is the the more reliable choice. In terms of functionality, the company has picked up from where it left off to offer a wide range of models to meet the varying needs of enterprises. To be impartial, you can also checkout this blog article info.hummingbirdnetworks.com/blog/bid/286435/6-Benefits-Offered-By-Using-A-Juniper-Switch-Over-Cisco. In terms of cost, you can actually get refurbished units of Cisco switches from vendors like www.networkhardware.com. Like some of our peers here mentioned, it really depends on the purpose and company IT strategy. I believe the key words from your question are investing for the future; so whichever your choice; do take into consideration the support for the equipment in both availability of skill sets and maintenance support from services like Smartnet.
If I was given a choice, it would be Cisco for sure hands down.
Hello Naveed,
Perhaps the question you should be asking is whether you wish to be locked in to a specific hardware vendor at all! The arrival of cloud computing, mobile computing and virtualization have significantly broadened the options for enterprises and data centres in fulfilling the needs of their customers and constituents. By adopting a strategy of selecting best-of-breed elements to support each of these advancements, and Software Defined Networking (SDN) infrastructure to connect it all, data centre managers can focus on enabling their company’s own business strategy, and choose equipment strategies that don’t tie them down to any single vendor (and paying the "high margin incumbent tax” on equipment) or that limit them to a specific vendor’s capabilities (“Yeah, we’ll have that feature in the next rev…”).
I would recommend that you seriously investigate SDN and what it can do for you. There are several white papers that might be of interest on our website (www.noviflow.com) and on the ONF website (www.opennetworking.org).
Can I know the nature of the application itself ?
I mean traffic density and kind of data.
As per my experience as a Network engineer, I always support Cisco Switches
for their long term use and easy configuration.
Cisco Support is best than Juniper.
I want to give my insight or opinion regarding this subject matter, but the problem is that I haven't used Juniper Switches, and if I will give my opinion with Cisco only that would be a bias answer. As I would definitely choose Cisco over Juniper as I have more experience regarding it.
In addition to what what I find out from some sources,
Juniper is taking the battle to enterprise data centers and cloud computing environments. Emboldened by its success in carrier routing, Juniper unveiled enterprise Ethernet switches two years ago in an attempt to become a credible alternative to Cisco's dominance in that market, too. The company believes it can carve a niche in the elite networking arenas of financial trading, high-performance computing and other demanding enterprise environments just like it did in service provider routing.
In the data center, both companies are surrounding themselves with high-profile partners to help push their competing visions: Cisco with EMC and VMware, and Juniper with IBM. At stake, just as in service provider routing, is a multibillion dollar opportunity – $85 billion in private clouds by 2015, according to Cisco – to become the primary supplier of next-generation data centers, further entrench new and existing customers, and lock its rival out of lucrative, big ticket accounts.
Two different trajectories
Juniper’s market capitalization is much smaller than Cisco’s: $21 billion as compared to $91 billion. But it is big enough to instill confidence in prospective customers. It has some 8,400 employees,
The real difference between the two firms is not the size but the trajectory of the companies.
Cisco’s five-year stock price is down 20%. By comparison, Juniper’s five-year share price is up 150%. So investors thus far prefer the organic growth that Juniper is generating.
Unless Cisco learns how to innovate faster and delight its customers through a radically different approach to management, its prospects are not bright.
What I feel your investment should see your customers(clients) interests or else see your future opportunity costs to make a decision on it.
I agree to go with Cisco.
From my perspective on switches both are very stable platforms, however, I
would probably recommend Cisco for the simple reason that they are easier
to configure.
The command structure in the Cisco IOS is plain English and there are many
more engineers around that are fluent with them. The Junipers require a
little bit of Unix command knowledge to fully utilize them and can be a
little more tricky to configure.
Personally I haven't had to deal with Juniper for replacement parts etc,
so I cannot offer suggestion from that perspective, but I do know Cisco
TAC provide very good and reliable service,
Hope that helps.
Hi,
Cisco is good investment when it's come to networking, has a lot of different solution for the network needed, familiarize on CLI that user can easily configure. Juniper is also good.. but i would suggest CISCO.
Hi,
You should go Cisco because which is more flexible than Juniper.
Still I recommend you Cisco, because it has future scalability.
Regards,
Shiromi Jayawardena
You really can't go wrong with either of them.
You will get a little bit more bang for your buck with Juniper switches,
but Cisco TAC is overall better than JTAC in my opinion. Cisco will route
your call to a qualified technician much more quickly than Juniper.
Think about features that you will be running - do you have
interoperability requirements or concerns? Cisco has it's own VTP (for
vlan mgmt) and it's spanning tree, while supposedly industry standard, can
be quirky with other deployments.
Both switches are feature rich when it comes to QoS and VoIP support. On
Cisco's you may have to pay extra for features via their new license paks -
make sure the features you require don't require extra license paks, or
that you take that into your cost consideration.
Hope that helps - hard to answer the question when it doesn't clearly state
what you are using them for.
Cisco might have a bit more to offer with regard to port configurations -
SFP vs. copper GigE, etc.
Thanks,
Patty
i also agree with cisco
Cisco is the market leader...more people know how to configure Cisco equipment. Depending on size of your enterprise, healthy discounts are available. I know very little about Juniper.
With my little experience in the market I would say Cisco because I know a lot of cases where people are working with Cisco for many years with any problem, and in most cases it'd be cheaper and with enough functionalities. But, as most people say, first of all you must know what you really need and make a choice based on functionalities that you will need in the short and medium term.
My experience is with Cisco and their products are excellent but many people use and love Juniper as well. As others have stated, it's too broad of a question. One differentiator may be if you already have other network equipment in your infrastructure such as firewalls, routers, etc. If these are either Cisco or Juniper, then it makes sense to go with one to keep equipment consistent from a vendor standpoint.
Juniper is more on the high end. If you want a lot choices Cisco has a wide selection to pick from for a lot of purposes. I have been with Cisco for 12 years now so I have more familiarity with them.
Undoubtedly Cisco.
Both companies are partnering themselves with high-profile partners to help push their competing visions. Cisco is creating multi-purpose switches, firewall and routers, so that an enterprise may not need eight different machines for their Networks and support contracts.
Juniper on the other hand has a opposite approach, which focuses on specializing their machines for as much speed as possible. If you buying a Juniper network, you are getting a switch or a router nothing more than a high speed device.
I would like to recommend Juniper Switches for your network. The QFX series switches have a very good ROI.
Firstly it will be based on your Business Requirements. Here's four questions to get you started:
1. Do you plan to have VOIP phones?
2.Do you plan to incorporate wireless ?
3.Are these switches for end users or will the connect to the ISP?
4. Whats your growth rate?
These questions will influence the switch features which could include
(a) Power over Ethernet (Ability to Power Access Points)
(b) Quality of Service (QOS) (Need for Telephone over Ethernet)
(c) Price would be impacted by if it's a access (end user) or core switch (ISP) device
(d) or if it need to be fixed or stack-able etc. (24 port fixed or stackable so you can add ports) for growth
I should also note that in your design you should also think about fault tolerance, it doesn't make much sense purchasing one great device for it to be a single point of failure.
The choice of an Ethernet switch would be based on the use, i guess you should first understand what you want to achieve with the switch, this would determine what features you desire in the switch. I have not really used Juniper switches but I think Cisco switches are durable, scalable and easy to understand.
I prefer Cisco but I think Juniper is also a good investment and easier to manage. Both are very good choices. My experience with Cisco tells me that the only thing they need is a vacuum machine from time to time :) The question is what specialist you have or intend to have/be ?
I'm a Cisco professional, so it might seem biased to advise you
but one thing you should know the most sought credential in IT tech is
Cisco Certified Internet Expert. Cisco adaptability allows people from
other plate form to integrate easily in it technology. I Myself started with
Comptia which are Microsoft oriented courses.
On professional level Cisco protocols dealing with high availability and
redundancy such as HSRP ,GLBP are de-facto industrial standard.
Cisco kit still remains the biggest improvement ever since to the
spanning-tree protocol which is together wit VLAN technology the foundation
of modern networking.
Cisco learning allows you to go from lower level CCNA to CCIE gradually.
Cisco prestige helped me enroll in a master degree course on spatial
telecommunication with my CCNP certificate only.
As you can see Cisco has the edge.
Personally I have worked with Cisco switches (network switches) because they deliver performance and security. Cisco switches are scalable and cost-efficient and meet the need for any size of business. I have not had a chance to interact with Juniper switches hence would not be able to copmare.
It depends really on what type of ethernet switches you are looking at.
Are you looking at Access, Edge/Aggregation or Core?
Are you looking at Fibre Channel and Ethernet or just ethernet
Are you looking at 1GE, 10GE, 100GE, Fiber or Copper?
Will it be deployed in as a Top of Rack switch, End of Row Switch, Client
Site switch, Metro Ethernet Switch?
Depending on the answers to the above, one would be in a better position to
comment on the question.
Juniper switches have higher reliability and speed which are relatively
cheaper than the Cisco switches which had dominated the market over the
years. Juniper specializes on their equipment, for the purposes of hyper
fast and dedicated heavy weight transmissions per day. In my opinion the
need to plan ahead and buy the routing equipment that you need to ensure
the best performance and usability for your future networking environment
relies on reliability.
Personally I like Brocade switches as their PPS performance delivers excellent value for money but that probably doesn't help! As Jeffrey says it depends on many other factors such as CLI familiarity, what you want it to do, your future growth requirements etc etc. Both (All 3!) manufacturers make good equipment which is in use in the largest networks in the world so you won't go wrong with either.
Cisco is cheaper but I prefer Juniper due to the power of JUNOS.
I have the dreaded answer of "it depends". What is the goal of your network design? Are you planning to do a fabric based network now or in the future? Does automation matter to you? Are you looking for low end (< 10GE) or high end (> 10GE).
Cisco has a lot of different solutions, Juniper has a smaller but still complete line of switches.
I am not an expert in switches, this is just the result of my personal professional mileage:
It depends in what the size and needs for expandability and flexibility of your IT infrastructure .
Generally, I see Cisco has more flexibility .
But in the 10GB over copper "camp" Cisco right now is lagging behind anyone else...
But for a more accurate opinion, more info about the actual "status" of your IT is necessary!
Naveed. That's going to depend on what you'll be using the switches for. Do you need layer 2 connectivity only, or will routing be involved? Will you need VLAN capabilities? Will the switches need to be managed? I don't have a great deal of experience with Juniper, and have been using Cisco 3750 switches for our core for 7 years. Depending on how may ports and what speed you need you're going to pay more for Cisco per port. That being said, I highly recommend Cisco. The feaure set is outstanding, and they're rock solid from a reliability standpoint.