Provision vs. 3com/Huawei-based OS list

[INS]

Hi all-

Hoping I am asking this question correctly...

I am hunting for a document that shows which of HP's switches run the old, standard HP OS (I believe it's called Provision) vs. which switches that run the 3Com/Huawei based OS?  I find the HP OS to be inifitely superior.

Thanks

[Mechanicalthink · Accepted solution]

Actually Comware is more advanced and superior OS. All the advanced higher end HP switches are running Comware OS.

Some of the ProVision switches are:

2530 series

2620 series

2920 series

3800 series

3500 series

5400 modular switches

8200 modular switches

[Vince-Whirlwind]

Sadly, instead of changing the awful 3COM CLI to be more like the Provision CLI, they are doing the opposite and gradually ruining the Provision CLI with imported 3COM stuff.

Apparently the beliefs of a couple of dozen 3COM engineers outweigh the preference of tens of thousands of users who have always hated the 3COM CLI. I have thrown away hundreds if not thousands of 3COM switches over the years and replaced them with Procurves - no customer ever told me they preferred the 3COMs.

[INS]

I suspect there is a significant difference between Comware (the old school 3Com OS that was used on CoreBuilders and such) and the Huawei junk on lower end switches.  Just a thought.....Provision to me is very intuitive.  Huawei junk is not

[Vince-Whirlwind]

I've been using Procurve since the switches had 3-digit model numbers! They were pretty good then, and they remained good.

The 4000 was awesome, 4100 not so good.

Procurve suffered from lack of stacking as soon as the Cisco 3750 came out, and they thought the 3COM acquisition would give them the advanced switch features everybody wanted.

[Richard Litchfield]

Although this no longer holds true, it used to be the case that the J part numbers would indicate the background:

ProCurve switches all had a number immediately after the J

Comware switches all had a letter immediately after the J

Now that the numbers have gone past J9xxx, that rule doesn't work with the new switches.

BTW, the next crop of ProCurve switches wil be rebranded as ArubaOS-Switch.

[Mechanicalthink]

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@Vince-Whirlwind wrote:

Sadly, instead of changing the awful 3COM CLI to be more like the Provision CLI, they are doing the opposite and gradually ruining the Provision CLI with imported 3COM stuff.

Apparently the beliefs of a couple of dozen 3COM engineers outweigh the preference of tens of thousands of users who have always hated the 3COM CLI. I have thrown away hundreds if not thousands of 3COM switches over the years and replaced them with Procurves - no customer ever told me they preferred the 3COMs.

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Maybe it's because I have always been more prificient in Comware than Provision but I'd take Comware syntax over Provision any day. For me it feels much more intuitive and the Comware OS is way superior to Provision anyway in pretty much every regard. And, for example, just look at the quality of web management in Comware 5/7 and Provision. The latter one is most likely the worst in industry. And it always has been.

It does make sense for HPE to make Provision more like Comware because Comware has always been a better os. It's more advanced and the hardware it runs on has also been way better than HP has ever had in its protfolio. Why do you think they bought 3Com/H3C? Because their own protfolio was lacking! 3Com/H3C was also way bigger player in networking market than Procurve.

3Com has had some bad rep mainly from the time they decided to quit the enterprise switching makret for a while in the beginning of 00's. But since they made a comeback and started the joint venture with Huawei their protfolio has been best in industry. Pretty much the only viable alternative to Cisco with the same quality hardware, os and features.

Procurve switches have been nice and solid and economical on the low end and network edge but since the 3Com's reentry into enterprise networking market they have definitely offered much better hardware and features. And strangely enough, I have had just the opposite - I've replaced plenty of Procurves with 3Com/H3C and it has been success in every regard. Why do you think everything that HPE has in high-end is based on 3Com/H3C?