|
North American Network Operators Group Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Historical Re: Single-vendor vs. best-of-breed network
Irwin Lazar <[email protected]> writes: > We find the general trend is to go single-vendor whenever possible, > primarily to reduce support and management costs. > Engineers/Operators generally want single vendor, management > generally wants best of breed (to put pressure on suppliers). That's ironic. I started out in a multi-vendor environment and for the last two years I've been working in my first single-vendor environment. In all of the multi-vendor environments I worked in, it was the management pushing for single-vendor (deeper discounts) with the technical staff pushing for best-of-breed (reduced need for out-of-hours support). I think you should get the best of breed for core function devices (provided you stay within budget). Non-core functions can be from the same vendor as the core, as long as they are with-in a reasonable delta from the best-of-breed. - For WAN purposes, core function is core and distribution routers and should be best of breed. Customer routers, switches, hubs, etc. could come from the same vendor or a different one provided they are of acceptable quality. - For Enterprise/Data Center environments, core function is more likely to be distribution router and/or switches, with other other devices taking back seat in the decision making process. Multi-vendor environments rule, but are harder to scale with a small finite-clued staff. :-) Single-vendor environments are easier to scale in a manner disproportionate to the clue of the staff running the network. -jon -- ------------------ Jon Allen Boone [email protected] CCIE #8338
|