HP Networking

[#1]

By Olivier Vallois, Core and Data Center Business Development Manager, HP Networking

A long time ago, I worked as network engineer in a French bank, where I implemented the full Cisco portfolio of routers and switches. And as a good Cisco customer engineer, I implemented Cisco proprietary protocols such as PVST, HSRP and IGRP. Actually, at that time, Cisco proprietary solutions were seen to be ahead of standards and were really providing benefits for my network—with the exception of IGRP that I didn’t consider to be any better than OSPF.

Again, as a good Cisco customer, when we had to move to a new routing protocol because IGRP was not scalable enough, we migrated the whole network to Cisco’s EIGRP, without even considering OSPF. Why? Well, it sounded just like an evolution of what we were already using—that is, IGRP.

The light goes on: there are other open choices

It is only when I changed jobs and moved to HP that I discovered that there are open, alternative solutions that can be used, even with Cisco switches and routers. And by the way, these standards (MSTP, VRRP…) are no longer lagging behind Cisco proprietary solution in terms of benefits.

 Anyway, HP at that time used OSPF as routing protocol and that worked very well in a network that was actually much bigger than at the bank where I was in before. The benefit of using standards in the infrastructure is that it enabled HP to run a multivendor environment, such as HP and Cisco interoperating. It even simplified the complete removal of Cisco gear in the HP datacenters.

Keep network management in mind (what Intelligent Management Center does)

Another important aspect of migrating from one vendor to another is the network management. One solution is to use multivendor tool like NNM or alike but they obviously cannot provide all the value-added services that vendor-specific tools do.

There seems to be a way to use a vendor-specific tool to manage Cisco and HP: HP Intelligent Management Center (IMC). Actually, that tool is so powerful that I have even customers that are managing their full Cisco network with IMC. They did that after a visit to our EMEA Customer Visit Center in Grenoble, followed by a download of the evaluation software and few days using it. Now, with IMC, this customer is ready to progressively migrate to HP.  

Actually, I am amazed by the number of customers that I have met that seem to be less than happy with Cisco management tools. With IMC used as management platform, all these customers could really change their perception of network management tools. This is what I felt when I met a customer at a recent HP event before he came to Grenoble. This customer was so pleased that he really wanted to share this with me!

Do you have any similar stories to share?

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[#2]

I totally agree with open standards and have mentioned it a time or two. At one time, those proprietary protocols came out, when the open standards didn't "fit the bill". For example HSRP. It wasn't until VRRP came out that it was equivalent to HSRP. Other standards like Netflow or PVST followed suite (with IPFlow and MST). Usually they came out before the standards were ratified and in use. Lately, though, the standards seem to be ahead of the curve and customers are understanding that there is more than one tool in the shed that can do slightly better at a certain function. The "one vendor for all" no longer applies and with open standards, gives the customer far greater flexibility. Good write up.

[#3]

Thanks Aaron for your comment. Actually, you might get a plus for some weeks or days when you select proprietary techniques, either because you get better performance, or better reliability, or better visibility or better whatever... But this is pure illusion. Because at the end of the day, rather than a plus, you get a minus, because you are stuck forever or at least for many years with proprietary techniques and locked with one vendor, till you have the budget to renew the infrastructure. Time has come when we can state that nobody can be fired because he makes the choice for standards rather than proprietary.