Juniper EX Switches

blueboy2001 · 3 Dec 2014 at 21:26

I am looking at replacing all of our edge switches. Our existing switches are mostly 3Com.

Our core is HP Comware. Network is nothing fancy, but we have IP telephony and will be introducing Lync.

Our preferred supplier is pushing Juniper EX2200. We've got a couple in as a trial and they look OK. They are also significantly cheaper than similar spec HP and Cisco kit.

Anyone got any experience of these?

Caged · 3 Dec 2014 at 21:38

commit confirmed will change your life. Do it.

Just be aware that I've heard about the EX2200 range and the non-PoE models are fanless/don't have enough fans and used to have a reputation for cooking themselves. I'd raise this with your reseller and see what they have to say about that. It might have been fixed in a product revision.

Muffin` · 3 Dec 2014 at 23:26

Go with Brocade, I hear they're better than Jwhoniper but not because they're not Junos.

ZedPowered · 4 Dec 2014 at 07:39

Muffin` said:
Go with Brocade, I hear they're better than Jwhoniper but not because they're not Junos.

soisix · 7 Dec 2014 at 02:31

We use Junipers everywhere - the GUI is simple and easy to use (a requirement where I work so that the underlings can reconfigure in a disaster). The cli is very Java like and not that complicated either.

Just something to be aware of - the EX2200 only support POE and NOT POE+. So just make sure you know your POE requirements first.

Also the FIBER ports are not as picky as HP or CISCO, and you can use fairly generic SFP's (we currently use SFP's which cost about 20quid each and never a problem)

The Link Aggregation works well.

All in they are remarkably capable switches, with some limited routing.

Caged · 8 Dec 2014 at 19:32

soisix said:
Just something to be aware of - the EX2200 only support POE and NOT POE+. So just make sure you know your POE requirements first.

The datasheet disagrees with you. They don't have a lot of poke available on the PoE front though - a 48 port unit can only provide 405W of PoE. But they can do PoE+.

Syngress · 8 Dec 2014 at 19:43

commit confirmed is a god send and will save you on more than 1 occasion. No more worrying about what order to change config in so as not to lock yourself out.

Not used EX2200 but have used plenty of the EX4200 and EX4550, nice switches just wise they would do some more of the funky layer 3 edge stuff

Xez · 8 Dec 2014 at 20:35

soisix said:
We use Junipers everywhere - the GUI is simple and easy to use (a requirement where I work so that the underlings can reconfigure in a disaster). The cli is very Java like and not that complicated either.

Just something to be aware of - the EX2200 only support POE and NOT POE+. So just make sure you know your POE requirements first.

Also the FIBER ports are not as picky as HP or CISCO, and you can use fairly generic SFP's (we currently use SFP's which cost about 20quid each and never a problem)

The Link Aggregation works well.

All in they are remarkably capable switches, with some limited routing.

I don't know Juniper switches but Cisco switches are also capable of running unsupported SFP modules providing you input the command in the switch to allow unsupported modules.

blueboy2001 · 9 Dec 2014 at 09:25

Thanks guys.

Not looked at the web interface yet, I'll get that enabled on one of the trial units and have a look. Can you do everything through JWeb or is some configuration CLI only?